Judging PPC Performance: Focus on Conversions

Last week, when I discussed PPC bidding strategies, I promised to start a discussion about how and when to make decisions about your PPC campaign's keyword and ad performance.

But first, it's worthwhile to emphasize an important point: almost every action you take to improve your PPC ad campaign should be based on conversion data.

Many PPC newbies neglect to set up conversions tracking, and base their assumptions about campaign performance on the number of impressions and clicks, on ad position, and on CTR.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Those metrics are useful to gauge a campaign's ability to drive traffic to your site -- and especially the ability for a particular ad to attract clicks. But they tell nothing about your campaign's ability to drive sales or leads.

Tracking and reporting on conversion data, and fine-tuning a PPC campaign's performance based on that, sets PPC advertising apart from other advertising channels that have no such built-in abilities.

Here's how you should view the most important metrics regarding your campaigns:

The number of impressions indicates how often your ad is displayed, and is a measure of the number and effectiveness of the keywords in your campaign.

The number of clicks and the CTR indicates how well your ad is working to convince those viewing the ad that your site/offer corresponds well to the intent of their search.

The number of conversions and the conversion rate indicates how well your keywords, ads and landing pages are working together to convince PPC-driven site visitors to take the action that is the objective of your site -- usually sales or leads.

Since conversion data is necessary for you to judge how well your PPC campaign is working -- to decide whether you've chosen the right keywords, written compelling ad copy, adjusted your bids to obtain maximum ROI, and designed your landing pages correctly -- it's essential that you set up your site with conversion tracking.

Doing so is a one-time operation that's simple, fast and free -- you simply paste a chunk of JavaScript code into a "Thank You" page on your site. That's the page that site visitors see just after taking the desired action -- immediately after finishing a purchase, or submitting a lead form.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft supply clear instructions for accomplishing this, so I won't describe the process here. Google's especially-clear instructions can be downloaded in PDF form here.

Side note: if your in-house or outsourced web design folks tell you that setting up conversion tracking is hard/expensive/time-consuming: get a second opinion. Fast.

Second side note: be sure to test conversion tracking after setting it up -- and test it periodically to make sure it's still working. Though the setup is straightforward, tiny mistakes, like leaving off a JavaScript line or punctuation mark, can render tracking inoperable. And pay close attention to whether your Thank You page is a secure one (with a URL prefixed by https://) -- if so, a different version of the conversion code must be used.

Third side note: many PPC advertisers need to know and report data that is difficult or impossible to obtain via the conversion tracking described above. For example, for many eCommerce advertisers, knowing the number of conversions (sales transactions) is insufficient; they need to know the exact revenue from each conversion in order to determine their PPC campaign's effectiveness (profitability).

Fortunately doing so is straightforward -- measuring exact revenue is the forte of most web site analytics packages. One fine example is free: Google Analytics. For AdWords advertisers, Google Analytics is automatically "tied" to their PPC campaigns, and can be easily set up to track revenue per transaction -- start here to see how. Google Analytics (and other web site analytics packages) also show you a wealth of information that will help you optimize your PPC campaigns -- like data regarding how many shoppers are leaving your site before completing a shopping transaction.

Next Monday, I'll resume the description of how and when you should adjust keyword and ad group bid prices. As usual, let me know your comments and questions via the feedback form below.

Source: Click Here

Google's Greatest Act of Charity

Google has been recognized for a number of positive environmental and public policy initiatives to benefit people around the world. But its most under-appreciated act of charity is the fact that it serves ad-haters.

I don't know who generates all of Google's pay-per-click advertising revenue, but it's not me. I can't think of the last product I purchased as a result of an online ad. I can't think of the last time I clicked on an online ad.

That's only partially because I use Firefox and AdBlock Plus at home and at work. I usually don't bother blocking specific ad providers unless they're serving something that's really annoying. The main reason I don't click on online ads is that ads are inherently untrustworthy and they're not relevant to my interests.

If I let Google know more about my interests, I might see more relevant ads. Maybe, in a moment of weakness, I might buy something as a result of such an ad. But I work hard to avoid that by not using search personalization.

Google worries about people like me. In the Form 10-Q it just filed, Google lists ad blocking among the potential risks to its revenue. "Technologies may be developed that can block the display of our ads," the filing says. "Most of our revenues are derived from fees paid to us by advertisers in connection with the display of ads on web pages. As a result, ad-blocking technology could, in the future, adversely affect our operating results."

I'm not sure why Google frames this as a possible future. The technology is here now. Late last year, Forrester published a report that found 81% of high-speed Internet users employ pop-up blockers and spam filters. The report, "Consumers Love to Hate Advertising," describes how I feel, and how many others feel, apparently.

Advertisers invariably react to ad blocking by trying to figure out ways to prevent it or by trying to make advertising more engaging. Neither strategy works, at least as far as I'm concerned.

If there's anything that's likely to me dig in my heels and refuse to ever do business with a company or purchase its goods, it's advertising designed to avoid being blocked.

And the idea that advertising can be made more appealing presupposes that the viewer is open to persuasion to begin with. While I can't claim to be immune to branding messages, I do consciously resist them. No amount of McDonald's advertising, for example, is going to make me hunger for a Happy Meal. And I know I'm not alone in this.

Maybe resistance is futile and I'm being manipulated subconsciously to prefer Apple computers, Peet's coffee, TiVo and Jet Blue over competing brands. But I like to think there's rational thought behind my brand affinities that's not based on the number of ad impressions I've been exposed to.

Whatever the case, I'm grateful that anti-ad heretics aren't excommunicated from the Internet. I can only imagine how irksome it would be if I had to pay a few cents for access to every ad-free Web page I viewed. So thanks, Google, for all the free information. I owe you one.

Source:www.informationweek.com