Introduction
Google Ads helps you improve campaign results by showing you what’s working and what’s not. This course explains how to assess performance with Google Ads and update your campaign to support better results.
What you’ll learn:
The reports and metrics available through Google AdsHow to use reports and metrics to address your campaign objectives
What would you do?
Your boss is interested in how often clicks on your ads are leading to sales and wants you to put together a report to address this question. Which Google Ads metric would you analyze?
Measure your results
Once your campaign has been running for awhile, you’ll want to measure your ad performance. You can analyze account, campaign, and ad group information using Google Ads reports and metrics. Here, we’ll cover what Google Ads can track and which metrics can help drive your business goals.
Understanding Google Ads and statistics
We're going to take a very close look at many of the top metrics and reports to track in Google Ads to have key indicators of your campaign performance. For now, however, let’s follow Jean, a travel agency owner with a campaign well underway. We’ll see how he makes use of some of the evaluative tools Google Ads provides to monitor how things are going for his campaign.
At first Jean was a bit overwhelmed by the various reports and statistics that his Google Ads account provided. So, he decided to tackle the challenge head-on and perform a weekly check-in on a few key performance indicators.
Once he became more familiar with the kinds of stats and reports available in Google Ads, he started to feel better. He now has much more clarity into his campaign performance — at just the amount of detail that he feels comfortable with. Now his check-ins typically consist of looking at overall campaign performance, something he can quickly do on the Overview screen of Google Ads. This screen shows him many aspects of campaign performance at a glance.
For campaign performance, he checks out two key areas: The Campaigns screen for a snapshot into overall campaign performance.The Ad groups page to see how well he’s promoting his brand by looking at the impressions. These screens provide snapshots into his performance at different levels, where he can see the impact of his marketing efforts.
And for a more granular perspective, Jean also dedicates his check-ins to viewing details on how specific ads in each of his two ad groups are doing: one for rafting trips and one for hiking adventures.
To keep his check-ins super efficient since he looks at the same stats routinely, he’s learned to customize the columns on each of his screens. This way, he can return to a customized view of those metrics he’s interested in! Key indicators he makes sure to include are the conversions he’s been able to drive with his marketing, as well as clicks and impressions (Impr.) by users. To keep his budget in line, he’ll also keep track of costs and cost per conversion (Cost/conv). He’ll also keep an eye on average position (Avg. pos.) and clickthrough rate (CTR).
Finally, his weekly check-in would not be complete without a review of two key reports. These are the ones that he turns to time and again — that seem to really bring his attention to exactly what his campaign needs to make it better.
In the Search terms report, he sees that searches for Grand Canyon rafting tours generated clicks. Since he sells this package, he decides to make some ads for rafting trips.
Finally, he checks out the Auction insights report where he can see how well his ads are performing in similar auctions. When he sees that his competitors’ ads are showing up higher on search results pages, he decides to work on his keywords.
As you can see, there are several reports that can help you measure and optimize your ad performance. Let’s see some specific performance questions that Google Ads can help you answer.
What searches and site terms have triggered my ad?
The Search terms report lists the searches and terms that people have used before seeing your ad and clicking it. If a term is getting you in front of customers, add it to your keyword list.
Where were the people who triggered my ads?
The Where your users were (user locations) report shows only your customers' physical locations (regardless of any locations they may have shown interest in). If customers in a certain region are gravitating to you, update your campaign to directly target them.
What geographies do my ad viewers care about?
The What triggered your ad (geographic) report shows your customers' physical locations and locations they had shown interest in through searches or content they had viewed. If customers interested in certain locations are finding you, update your campaign to directly offer something they’re looking for.
Does my landing page need work?
The landing page experience report estimates the quality of your landing page — which is part of your Google Ads Quality Score and strengthens or weakens your ad position. If you have a weak landing page, a link is provided with tips to make it better.
How are people finding me — with and without my ad?
The paid and organic report shows how people got to you — comparing Google’s free organic search results to your paid ads. Learn the ways customers are looking for products and services like yours and update your own keyword list or create new ad groups to directly target them.
What are the paths that lead people to conversions for my business?
Once you've set up conversion tracking, Attribution reports show you the paths customers took to complete a conversion, and attribute the conversion to different ads, clicks, and factors along the way.
Drive performance with metrics
Metrics are an effective tool to measure and help drive campaign results. Let’s take a closer look at the keyword screen and the various parts within it that can help you answer valuable questions about your campaign’s performance.
Impressions: shows how often your ad was shown on a search result page or site on the Google Network.
Clicks: shows how many clicks your ad has received. Clickthrough rate (CTR) shows the percentage of people who could see your ad and clicked on it.
Conversions: show how many people clicked from your ad to your site and did something you valued, such as a purchase, sign-up, phone call, or download.
Cost per conversion: shows how much each ad conversion cost you. (Also called cost per acquisition, CPA.)
Conversion rate: shows how many conversions on your site resulted from an ad click. Example: 50 conversions from 1,000 clicks, 50 ÷ 1000 = 5 percent conversion rate.
What is the return on investment for my ads?
Return on investment (ROI) tells you how effective your ad spend is by showing you how much return it’s bringing you. ROI is calculated with this formula: (Profit - Cost) / Cost. Example: If your ad resulted in $1,200 of sales for a product that cost $600 to make, and your advertising cost was $200, then your ROI is [$1,200 - ($600 + $200)] / ($600 + $200) = 50% ROI.
If you wanted to look solely at the effectiveness of your ads, you’ll also want to look at return on ad spend (ROAS), which is a measure of an ad's effectiveness not containing aspects such as cost of goods or other costs of the business.
Recap
Use Google Ads reports and metrics to gain valuable insights to tweak your campaigns and make your advertising budget go as far as possible! In this course, we covered common reports, like checking your search terms’ performance, as well as which metrics to track for different business goals.
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