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Your business has decided to jump into the epic world of paid advertising and has created a handful of Google Ads across several ad channels – amazing!
That all sounds fantastic but after a few weeks, you quickly realize that you don’t really know if they are working or if your money has been wasted or not! This is where pay-per-click analysis comes in and puts you on track.
If you feel like your Google Ads and paid advertising has no direction, read on and I will explain the basics of PPC analysis and how it can help.
PPC ads are undoubtedly an effective marketing tool… IF you know what you are doing and take the time to analyze and refine your adverts.
This is PPC analysis in a nutshell. It is the process of dissecting your ads and looking at various associated metrics to define their success in relation to your marketing goals.
From this analysis, the aim is to then make adjustments and improvements so your money is well spent and your ad’s performance continues to grow.
So, PPC analysis is basically a monitoring technique used to improve your Google Ads and make sure they are yielding the best possible results.
But how do you do that? Where do you start and what do you choose to analyze? There is no set list for this as ultimately what you choose to analyze depends on your ad type and marketing goals.
However, the following five metrics are a brilliant starting point and are generally included in most PPC reviews.
The overlords at Google have devised a quality score so you can see if your ads are actually any good. This quality score is incredibly important as it directly affects your ad placement and visibility.
This is because Google wants to maintain a certain quality level across its platform and for its customers. By analyzing your quality score you can make improvements and make sure you have a better chance of placement together with a low cost per click.
Click-Through Rate is one of the most important PPC metrics as it tells you how many people actually click on your ads and visit your website when viewing them.
Without a high CTR, you won’t have a positive ROI as ultimately you need people to go to your website to buy a product or make an inquiry for example.
You can delve further than CTR too, however, and look at detailed metrics relating to website traffic. CTR is a positive thing, but it’s also great to know what the customers are doing when they visit your website.
This falls into a wider SEO auditing process too but is incredibly useful for PPC ads. You can look at metrics like bounce rate, individual page traffic, and time spent on pages.
If you aren’t targeting the right people then regardless of how good your ads are, you won’t get a decent CTR.
Understanding your audience is a key part of pay-per-click analysis and you should always strive to learn more about their shopping and searching habits.
Impression share relates to the frequency your ads are triggered or shown in relation to search queries. This is highly important as it allows you to see if your ad copy and keyword usage are working. A lower impression share means poor ad visibility and ultimately poor PPC performance.
That’s a pretty comprehensive starting list for your analysis but we can go one step further and discuss some important dos and don’ts.
It’s surprising how in many processes the basics are overlooked and PPC analysis is no different. While it’s important to look at keywords, CTR, and ad timing, what about the basic ad parameters and settings? Make sure things like bidding methods, campaign settings, and ad groups are in order and optimized.
To build on the above, there are certain structural aspects relating to your PPC campaigns that must be considered too. These include important PPC data like your budget, the number of campaigns you have, and how your PPC is managed. You should ideally have pre-defined goals and guidelines relating to things like budgets to make sure they are being controlled.
Did you know that when you publish an ad can have a huge impact on its effectiveness? Posting times are a key aspect to analyze and you should look at the data to see if there are any trends relating to particular times of the day, or days of the week that yield better results. Similarly, if you notice certain times result in poor engagement, you can stop running them or alter when you post them.
You can’t assess your PPC ads in a vacuum without considering what your competition is doing. By analyzing your competitors, you can see how your business shapes up. You may gain useful insight too regarding things like keyword usage, negative keywords, ad timings, and copy. Never plagiarise what they are doing, but use what they are doing to your advantage.
You’re Google Ads aren’t going to miraculously improve on their own so it’s up to you to either start analysis today or hire the services of the best Google Ads agency to do it for you!
Either way, don’t let your paid advertising budget go to waste – you need to start practicing PPC analysis today to get an improved ROI and make sure your marketing is heading in the right direction.
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