Customizing Your Data

AdWords makes a lot of data available, but you may not need all of it. Familiarize yourself with all the ways you can view your campaign and prioritize the statistics you need. Among the ways you can alter the presentation are date ranges, columns, segments, filters and graphs, so choose what works best for your purpose.

Data Segments

If you organize your data by segments, you’ll view your performance along several parameters. These include click type, device, top vs. other and time.

• Click type illustrates the nature of the clicks that generated visits to your site
• Device indicates how your ad is doing on different devices, such as phones or tablets
• Top vs. Other will show where your ad appeared on a given page
• Time tells which part of the day, week and so on your ad performed better on

Dimensions

The Dimensions tab is another way to view data. Using Dimensions, you can observe your performance from the account level all the way down to an ad group. As with segments, you can separate your data into a few different categories. These tend to be the most useful:

• Time
• Geography
• Landing page

Time and geography are exactly as they sound, and sorting by landing page allows you to see which page a user is going to after they click on your ad.

Search Terms and Top Movers Reports

Google AdWords offers several bundled information reports covering a wide array of insight. The Search Terms Report indicates which terms were searched for as Google displayed your ad. Altering keywords and match types can provide additional information. The Top Movers Report relays which of your campaigns has the most difference in clicks, costs, and conversions, plus explanations to explain why this is so.

Paid & Organic and Auction Insights Reports

Paid & Organic only works if you activate a Search Console account on your site and connect it with your AdWords account. If you do, it’ll show you the frequency in which your pages are appearing in search results and the searches that caused them. Auction Insights demonstrates the extent to which your ad appears before other advertisers’ ads in search results. It also contrasts the amount of total possible impressions your ad has with how many the competition's ads have.

Google AdWords Tools

Google AdWords offers a number of tools enabling you to further analyze the performance of your ad. Some of the most valuable are:

• Conversion tracking
• Google Analytics
• Campaign experiments

Any of these tools will give you the information you need to tweak the position of your Ad to target the placement that will give you the best presence for your prospective customers.

Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics

Conversion tracking allows you to account for a number of statistics, such as clicks, impressions and clickthrough rate. You achieve this by embedding a little HTML and Javascript on your thank-you page so Google knows when a customer has been converted. Google Analytics will show you the manner in which users locate and peruse your site. If you link it with your AdWords Account, it can provide additional information in the form of advanced metrics.

Campaign Experiments

It can be difficult to know exactly what changes you need to make to your Ad Campaign. Even if you know approximately which changes will be made, it isn’t always easy to be confident in how the changes will play out. If you make an Experiment, Google will randomly decide whether a search applies your new specifications, or the original ones. After a while, the experimental data will reflect differences like new keywords, ads, or placement and higher bids.

Relevant Metrics

With all these new options and the potential to collect far-reaching data, you should look into which kind of information is best for the goals you are setting for yourself. There is a lot of potential revision and you can get overwhelmed if you’re not being precise. Here are some of the most important ones:

• Clicks
• Clickthrough rate
• Keywords
• Search terms
• Conversion Rate
• Cost-per-conversion
• ROI
• Page views
• Leads
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Improving Your Campaign

There are as many ways to improve a Campaign as there are ways to track how it is failing. You’ll need to incorporate the right metrics in order to figure out which element of your performance you should focus on. While it may be tempting to make a whole host of adjustments, your end is better served by implementing gradual improvements so you can track which changes have a positive effect on your campaign.

Strategies For Elevating Your Performance

Some of the ways you can elevate your ROI are by creating a more relevant landing page, keyword and ad text as well as tinkering with your bid price and identifying sites on which your Ad performs well. To improve a keyword, use negative keywords for framing, take out any copies and address your lowest performers. For ad text, identify which stage of the buyer's journey your consumer is in and rephrase your ad accordingly. Extensions may help CTR by offering more information.