<< INDEX

Chapter 5

Tracking Ad Performance

Quality and Performance Basics

How It Works

• Your keyword will be inactive for search if your CPC is below the minimum bid
• Quality Score is determined by CTR, Quality of ad text and keywords, and Landing page relevance
• A high Quality Score will decrease your minimum bid
• Keyword’s Quality Score, minimum bid, and keyword state can fluctuate often due to the dynamic nature of search
• A High CTR usually means your campaign is performing well
• A low minimum bid usually means you keyword is performing well
• Ads Diagnostic Tool allows you to see if your ad is showing for a particular keyword query
• Monitor your account to continually improve quality

Ad Visibility and Trouble Shooting

Account Wide Issues

• Billing information must be entered into AdWords before you can start advertising
• Email must be verified to see ads on Google
• If credit card is declined your ads will stop running until billing information is updated
• Not sure why credit card was declined?
• Make sure you entered the correct credit card number
• Check to make sure you haven’t reached your credit limit
• Check your cards expiration date
• Make sure your billing address is correct

• If everything on the checklist is correct contact your bank

Campaign-Specific Issues

• To get full exposure of your ads from your daily budget, view the AdWords recommended budget
• If your ad’s target location does not include your location, you will not be able to locate your ad on Google
• Ads will not show for a campaign that is paused, deleted, or ended
• A paused, deleted, or ended campaign can be reactivated
• On the Edit Settings page you can:
• Edit the end date of a campaign
• Change the daily budget and compare to it to the recommended budget
• Change delivery method
• Change target audience and location
• Be sure none of your keywords are cancelled out by negative keywords

Ad Group Specific Issues

• Your ads will NOT show if the CPC or CPM are greater than the daily budget
• If your ad is disapproved because of editorial policies it will only show after you have made the appropriate changes and re-submitted it for review
• Ads in paused or deleted Ad Groups will not show until the Ad Group is reactivated
• Sexually explicit ads will only show on pages with adult material

Keyword and Site-Specific Issues

• Keywords that are inactive for search can be re-enabled by increasing the keywords Quality Score
• Keywords marked inactive for search can still trigger ads on content network sites
• A poor performing keyword can affect the Quality Score of an entire ad group or campaign

Reports

How to Create a Report

• Access the Report Center under the Reports Tab
• AdWords Reports allows you to:
• Monitor the performance of your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords
• Identify important trends over time
• Generate spreadsheets to download
• Report Center allows advertisers to email reports, download report spreadsheets, and view both data and graphs for selected reports
• You can view your report data, graphs, or data and graphs together
• While a report is loading you can turn off your computer
• To create a report:
• Go to Create Report under the Reports Tab
• Choose what type of  report to generate
• Keyword Performance
• Ad Performance
• URL Performance
• Ad Group Performance
• Campaign Performance
• Account Performance
• Search Query Performance
• Placement Performance
• Choose time period the report will be over– daily, weekly, monthly, etc
• Choose date range
• Choose which campaigns to include in report
• Name your report
• You can choose to run the report automatically every day, month, or set time period

Additional Reports Features

• You can save your report within your AdWords account to view later
• The Report Center will only save your 15 most recent reports
• If you create more than 15 reports, the system automatically deletes the oldest
• Whenever a report runs you can have it emailed to multiple recipients

Basic ROI and Conversion Tracking

Understanding ROI

• ROI: Return on Investment a.k.a. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
• CPA: Cost per Acquisition
• CPA can be a measure of advertising effectiveness
• ROI Percentage= (Revenue-Cost)/ Investment x 100

Introduction to Conversion Tracking

• To use Conversion Tracking, you must have an active ad and the ability to edit the HTML of your webpage
• Google’s Conversion Tracking tool is free
• In order to pause conversion tracking you must click the “Pause Conversion Tracking” button
• Steps To Set-up Cross Channel Tracking:
• Choose an advertising channel
• Create a campaign for this channel – a separate campaign for each destination URL
• Paste the tracking URLs into your related channel’s ads
• Insert JavaScript code (provided by Google) into your websites landing page
• Test your setup
• A Site Stats text block should appear on pages where you have placed the conversion tracking code
• Recommended placement of the text block is in the lower right hand corner of the conversion page (the page that thanks your customers for their purchase or visit)
• Do not hide or modify the text block
• Verify correct setup of Cross-Channel Tracking
• Check that you can see the ‘Site Stats’ text block on the pages that you’ve placed the code
• Test Data Gathering by completing a test conversion or wait for a conversion to occur to avoid incurring an ad click yourself
• Check cross channel reports
• Reporting may take up to 24 hours

Advanced Conversion Tracking

Introduction to Advanced Conversion Tracking

• Effectively tracking advertising costs is essential to understanding your ROI
• Use the Conversion Tracking tool under the Campaign Management Tab to set up advanced conversion tracking
• Four Main Types of Conversions
• Purchase/ Sale – tracks purchases and sales
• Lead – how many users request follow-up calls
• Sign up – sign up for subscription or newsletters
• Page View – how many pages a user views and time spent there
• Other – define your own conversion type
• Choose language and security level – https:// is more secure
• Define the value of a conversion (a sign up may be worth $25 to your company)
• Dynamic variables can be used in code for non-static conversion values

• Adding a dynamic variable to the ‘Total Value’ field of your conversion tracking code will allow you to calculate the accumulated value of conversions consisting of several purchases, each with a unique value

Terms to Know

Quality Score – determined by CTR, quality of ad text and keywords, and landing page relevance
Report Center – AdWords tool that allows you to generate, email, and view reports on the performance of your account
ROI – Return on Investment
ROAS – Return on Ad Spend
ROI Percentage – (Revenue – Cost)/ Investment x 100
Conversions – Purchase/sale, lead, sign-up, page view, or other
Conversion Tracking – a way to edit the HTML of your webpage to automatically track conversions
Site Stats Block – a block that appears in the corner of your webpage to confirm conversion tracking is working

<< INDEX

Chapter 1: Introduction to AdWords
Chapter 2: Getting Started with AdWords
Chapter 3: Targeting
Chapter 4: Costs and Billing
Chapter 5: Tracking Ad Performance
Chapter 6: Optimizing Ad Performance
Chapter 7: The Adwords Toolbox
Chapter 8: Google Analytics
Chapter 9: Managing Client Accounts


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