It can actually be overwhelming when you first start to poke around your PPC advertising campaign or your Google Analytics account to figure out what the most valuable data really is, so let me point you in a couple key places.

The new interface has some really great ways to view, filter and analyze your Google AdWords campaign data quickly and efficiently.  These options used to only be available in the reports area, but now they can be seen for every campaign and ad group.

With the new Google AdWords interface, you now have a great new data reporting tool on the right hand side.  It is a graph that will show you the trend for the time period you have selected on several different data values.  You can change the date range to view as many days as you like – I prefer either 30 or 7 depending on the campaign.  The two data items I keep an eye on from this “30 thousand foot” view are Impressions and Cost.  Basically we are looking for any trends – up or down – of the number of impressions your ads are getting and the amount that is being spent on the entire account.  If either one has an unusual spike, there is going to be some digging to do to be sure everything is running as planned.

Also, while you are getting that overview perspective for your AdWords account, go ahead and sort campaigns and ad groups by Cost (descending). This way, your attention is focused on the highest spenders at a high level.  This will also alert you to situations where your highest spenders shouldn’t be your highest spenders and you can make changes accordingly. If you have PPC advertising questions, you might want to consider contacting a professional PPC management company with questions or to plan a consultation.

Now that there are so many more ways to interact with your local business ad, also referred to as “Google maps ads”, because they appear on the Google Maps site, wouldn’t it be nice if you had some insight into how visitors are interacting with your ad?

Now you do.  Google has given us the ability to see the analytics behind how users interact with your ad.  There is a new feature in the Google AdWords reporting feature – as a part of the Placement/Keyword Report – that allows you to view data on the following actions:

• Info window open from left hand side
• Info window open from map marker
• “Get Direction” clicks
• “Street View” clicks
• Clicks to website from the info window

They are missing my favorite – “Send” – but hopefully that is coming soon – no word from Google yet.

How can you best use this Google Maps ads data? Use it the same as you would when analyzing your site analytics – figure out where to focus your attention based on user activity.  For example, are visitors clicking Street View? Consider putting a picture of your actual location/building on the info window. 

The numbers behind opening from the left hand side vs. opening from the map marker signify to me whether your visitors are typically responding to your brilliant ad copy or if they are more concerned with the exact location of the business.  Google Maps ad data can give you insight into a visitor’s search intent and mind set.  Then let it help you to write even better ad copy for both your maps ad and your regular pay-per-click (PPC) advertising ads.

For more information on the new Google Maps ad reporting features, check out Google’s blog post on this announcement or contact a professional Google advertising agency.

I’ll have to admit that this is something relatively new to me (and a thank you to Michael Whitaker at Monitus for telling me it was possible). A search through Google AdWords help files comes up with nothing, nor did my Google reps ever explain that it could be done – they always pointed to Analytics as the tool to track revenue. And the answer is really simple – when you add conversion tracking to your thank you page, you can alter the code slightly to capture the revenue generated by an order.

You’ll need to change the YOUR-ORDER$ to be the field name of your order subtotal which can differ by shopping cart.

One note on this: I attempted to do it for a client that uses a Volusion cart and processes credit cards offline (meaning they don’t actually process the credit card at the time of order, but do it manually at a later time), but this won’t work for them. I’m guessing that this will hold true for any shopping cart; if you don’t process credit cards in real-time, it won’t work. In fact, for my client above, it also prevented conversions from tracking.

One more thing to know about tracking Google AdWords revenue: you can’t see results within the Google AdWords interface, you have to run a report to actually get the data. You’ll need to select the field “Sales Conv. Value (many-per-click)” in order to add that data to a report, and then you’ll be able to see revenue by Account, Campaign, AdGroup and even keyword by keyword, and learn how profitable your PPC campaigns really are. If you need help getting Google AdWords Revenue Tracking implemented and/ or analyzed, contact a reputable PPC management company for assistance.

More about Nikki

Google Analytics provides great information, but one issue that can arise is when Google Analytics transaction numbers and the Google AdWords conversion tracking numbers don’t jive. I know that different packages are not going to track exactly the same, but most of the time, they are close enough that it’s not a big deal. However, a big issue arises when you have an e-commerce site and a decent percentage of people don’t order on their first visit, but come back and order at a later date.

Here’s the problem: Google AdWords tracks “first touch” – if someone searches on a term, clicks on your ad and comes to your site, does not order at that moment, but comes back a week later, AdWords will log the conversion back that first date and attribute the sale to AdWords. Analytics on the other hand tracks “last touch.” In our same scenario, if someone were to search, click an ad, visit the site and leave, then come back a week later, Analytics would attribute that search to organic or other, unless they did a search and clicked on an ad again. Not a big deal if a majority of visitors order on the first visit, but if you have a large amount of people who order at a later date, this can be present a huge problem.

I have two clients who have this issue. For one of them, 40% of visitors don’t order on their first visit, and the other is 50%. And you guessed it, there’s a 40% and 50% difference in AdWords conversions and Analytics transactions. They can’t get a true picture of their PPC ROI with Google Analytics because they only see the revenue for anyone who ordered the first time they visited the site.

The big question is why is that? You would think that, both being Google products, they would track the same way, or at least have an option to track that way, but they don’t. Frustrating for both me and my clients!

But, I’ll explain how to get around this dilemma in my next Blog.

More about Nikki

As I was reviewing the analytics data for our own JumpFly PPC advertising accounts, I noticed a significant increase in visitors from various sources that previously did not account for much traffic. Analytics data informed me that users from these specific sites were staying for just 0-5 seconds, while users coming from most traffic sources typically stay at JumpFly for several minutes. Some of these increasingly significant traffic providers included websites like ToSeeka.com, CouponMountain.com and FindStuff.com. Hmmm. Now I needed to determine what was responsible for making my ads appear at these websites. A little research revealed that these sites and other offenders were all Yahoo! search syndication partners. A-hah!

Currently Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) customers are automatically advertising on these partner websites and others too, without the option of turning off the search partner network. However, thankfully YSM advertisers do have the ability to block domains where they do not want their ads to appear, and blocking applies to both Sponsored Search and Content Match. I quickly blocked these offenders at YSM and my ads were removed from their websites within minutes. Having analytics in place was critical for me to identify where less valuable traffic was originating. Do you know where your website traffic is coming from? If not, it is free and fairly easy to implement Google Analytics.  Additional analytics tools are also available from various reputable providers. Analytics tools are great for many reasons, which may be further explored in a future blog.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to eliminate your PPC ads from appearing on undesired URLs at YSM.

Let’s take a closer look at Yahoo!’s search network. A recent survey reviewed by Aaron Wall at SEObook.com indicates that Yahoo!’s syndication network is the largest, representing 55% of traffic provided by YSM. This research also revealed that the average Yahoo! advertiser appeared on 1,196 websites where Yahoo! search ads were being served. In contrast, Google’s syndication network reached an average of 431 sites per advertiser and accounted for 41% of Google AdWords traffic. In both cases, syndication partners represent a large portion of overall traffic and clearly warrant the need to be monitored.

Do yourself a favor and implement some form of analytics tool to help better manage your PPC accounts.