How to Measure the Performance of Your Google Ads
Your marketing budget is limited. When you decide to invest in paid marketing like Google Ads, you need a way to track how well it’s working.
Luckily, Google does a pretty good job of providing helpful analytics that make it easy to figure out your ROI and look for ways to improve your campaigns for better results over time.
What You Can Learn from Google Ads Analytics
Google understands the importance of analytics, so they make sure businesses that advertise with them get the data they need to properly track the success of each ad and campaign.
With Google Ads’ client reports, you’ll be able to see:
- Clicks The number of times people clicked on each of your ads, and the number of total clicks for each campaign. This is the main metric that lets you know whether your ads are doing their main job: getting people to notice your link and convincing them to click through.
- Click-through rate (CTR) How the number of clicks compares to the number of times your ad was shown.
- Impressions How many times your ad was seen.
- Impression share This is Google’s calculation of how your impressions compare with the number of times your ad could potentially have been seen based on how many searches met your criteria. It lets you know if spending a little more could make a big difference to how often your ads show up.
- Average position – If your ad shows up alongside a few other PPC ads, gaining the top spot will be more valuable than being second or third. This tells you where in the listing your ad shows up on average. If you’d prefer to be higher, then it pays to spend more.
- Average cost-per-click Because Google Ads uses a bidding pricing model, the amount you pay for each click will depend on how competitive your keywords and placements are at any given moment. This metric lets you know how much you’re generally paying for each click.
- Quality Score Google wants to deliver good, relevant ads to its searchers. Therefore, in addition to budget, their program looks at how well your ads are performing and determines a quality score that influences how often they’ll show up and how much you pay.
- Converted clicks Clicks are nice, but ultimately you want each person clicking to take an action such as signing up for your email list or making a purchase. Google Ads will help you track how many of the visitors who come to your website through an ad follow through with the actions you desire.
- Conversion rate This shows the comparison between the number of clicks and the number of times they lead to your desired actions.
- Average cost per conversion Google makes it easy for you to figure out how much each conversion is costing you by providing a comparison between the amount you’re spending on ads and the number of conversions they’re bringing you.
These metrics will teach you how to recognize what works best in your ad campaigns and how your spending pays off in specific terms.
Get More By Linking Google Analytics to Google Ads
Google Ads provides you with a lot of good data, but you can get even more valuable information about the success of your ads by connecting your Google Ads account to your Google Analytics account.
Where Google Ads tracks how people interact with your ads, Google Analytics provides a wealth of data on what people do once they’ve clicked through to your website. When the two accounts are linked, you’ll start to see some of the data from Google Analytics in your Google Ads account and vice versa.
(First, you’ll need to add Google Analytics to your WordPress site. Here’s how to do that.)
For example, in Google Ads, you’ll start to be able to see:
- Bounce rate How often visitors who click on your ad leave your website before moving to another page on the site.
- Pages per session How many pages and which one visitors go to after landing on your website from an ad.
- Average session duration How long your PPC visitors typically spend on the website before leaving.
- % New sessions How many of your PPC visitors are coming to your website for the first time.
In addition, you’ll be able to connect the data for conversion tracking you’ve set up in Google Analytics to the data you have in Google Ads, to better see the full journey your PPC visitors take from the time they click on an ad to when they take the actions you’ve determined are most valuable. And the data that Google Analytics tracks on demographics and user behavior from your site visitors can be used to further strengthen your remarketing efforts in Google Ads.
Basically, the more information you have and the better you’re able to connect it, the more you’ll be able to refine your ad campaigns to get the results you want.
Track Your Results with Expert Google Ads Management
Advertising with Google is often a great way to reach a new audience and get more visitors to your website. But you can get so much more out of your advertising when you make use of the data Google provides to learn as you go and make your campaigns continually better.
Want to get more out of your Google Ads campaigns? Learn about HostGator’s Google Ads services.
Kristen Hicks is an Austin-based freelance content writer and lifelong learner with an ongoing curiosity to learn new things. She uses that curiosity, combined with her experience as a freelance business owner, to write about subjects valuable to small business owners on the HostGator blog. You can find her on Twitter at @atxcopywriter.