If achieving Google AdWords success is one of your objectives this 2015, then you should know how to define and track your PPC campaigns. According to experts, Google advertisers are set to profit heavily from AdWords advertisements this year. So if you want to get a bigger piece of the profit pie, you should know how to make the most of paid search.
Mary Weinstein, content director at CPC Strategy, shared some helpful pointers how online businesses and retailers can crush the AdWords game this 2015. According to her, first, advertisers must pinpoint “specific targets and margins” for their ads and campaigns, while taking the goals they have made from the previous year into consideration. She also pointed out that their PPC goals should be clear, specific, definable, and trackable. And most importantly, they also should match the advertiser’s website.
After defining goals, the next important matter on the agenda is to track certain AdWords metrics. This will enable them to gauge the success of their campaign and proactively manage PPC ROI (return on investment). According to Mary, here are important AdWords metrics advertisers should keep an eye on:
Impression Share. Impression share eligibility is based on ad bids, ad targeting setting, ad approval, and ad quality score. It is computed by following this formula: impression(s) on search divided by overall estimated eligible impressions.
Lost Impression Share. Lost impression share is the percentage of time ads weren’t shown on the ad network due to poor ad rank or lower ad bids. Mary said businesses that utilise PPC ads should evaluate this AdWord metric throughout the year so they can identify where competitors are outperforming them. This will also help them improve their ad rank variables and bidding strategy.
Overlap. Overlap is how often a competitor’s ad receives an impression when an advertiser’s ad also receives an impression. It is also the percentage of the time a competitor gets impressions when an advertiser’s ad is also getting impressions.
Outranking Share. According to Mary, outranking share is the number of times an ad ranks higher than another ad, in addition to the number of times an ad shows when a competitor’s ads did not, divided by the total number of auctions the advertiser participated in. Businesses should track this metric so they can identify budgetary and bid changes in their PPC campaign.
To track these metrics, meanwhile, Mary said businesses and advertisers should utilise AdWords reports to the fullest. Take note that Google constantly updates AdWords to provide a better reporting mechanism (among other things) for users and advertisers.
