Course 5 Sec 8: Metrics

What can you do to improve your CTR results?

-Alter your bid or budgeting settings. Your ad might be reaching too narrow of an audience. By altering your bidding and budgeting targets, you can widen your reach and hopefully increase click-through rates. -Reconsider your keywords. Perhaps you could select keywords that serve you better. Check that your keywords closely relate to your ads and to your business. -Edit or create more ads. Maybe the fix is as simple as making your headline more catchy. Or perhaps you need to make more ads that can rotate, meaning that the same ad won't be shown all the time. Ad rotation can help you figure out which ads perform best.

What are examples of Conversion-Related Metrics?

-Conversions can be defined in many ways, depending on the company type (e.g., purchases through a website, account signups), but conversions are essentially the number of visitors reaching your desired goal or taking a specific action. -Conversion rate is the percentage of users who reach your desired goal or take a specific action, compared to all the users who receive the marketing (such as receiving an email or visiting a website). -Cost per conversion is the price you pay when a potential customer converts. This can also be referred to as cost per action: the price you pay when a potential customer takes an action after clicking on your ad, such as making a purchase.

What are examples of traffic-related metrics?

-Impressions: the number of times users view an advertisement -Clicks: the number of times users click on your ad -Click-through rate (CTR): the percentage of users who saw your ad and clicked on it, compared to the total number of people who visited the site but didn't click -Cost per click (CPC): the price you pay when a potential customer clicks on your ad

What are examples of ROI-related metrics?

-Sales: the number of sales made -Cost per sale: the amount an advertiser pays for each sale generated by an advertisement -Revenue: the income generated from sales or services before costs or expenses are subtracted. -Marketing ROI: ROI is calculated by subtracting the cost of the campaign by how much you made, and then dividing that number by the cost of the campaign.

What to do if no one is clicking your ad:

1. Ensure your ad has a clear call to action - make sure your ad has a clear call to action that lets the user know why they should click your ad. 2. Implement frequency capping - Another factor to consider is creative burnout. Are users getting tired of seeing the same ad? Frequency capping is the Display Network's solution to address creative burnout. It allows you to limit the number of times your ad appears to the same person (also called "unique viewer"). Frequency capping is unique to the Display Network, so you won't find it on the Search Network. Tip: Avoid using frequency caps if campaigns are using automated bidding as they can hurt performance.

Tweak your campaign to maintain performance by making which small changes listed?

1. Swap your creative for a fresher version to avoid creative burnout and see if another version will perform better. 2. Review your assisted conversion report in Google Analytics to understand how many conversions each channel initiated, assisted, and converted. Use your findings when making budgeting decisions. 3. Run A/B split testing on your ads to understand how many more visits or conversions occurred as a result of your Display ads. You can split your audience into two groups: people who were shown your Display ads versus people who were not shown your Display ads. 4. Measure the true impact of display advertising by reviewing view-through conversions because you can optimize your campaign performance based on how users are responding to your Display ads, even if they don't click. 5. If performance is still poor, consider combining targeting options layer your targeting options in order to reach a more qualified or targeted audience, but please know, this approach will significantly reduce volume.

What 3 groups are search and display ad metrics divided by?

1. Traffic-related metrics 2. Conversion-related metrics 3. ROI-related metrics

Describe the benefits of using both types of campaigns:

A Search Network campaign that's opted in to the Display Network can help you reach more people as they use Google Search and visit sites across the web. With both options selected, your ads will show on the Search Network first, and your remaining budget will be used to place the ads on the Display Network. You can add the Display opt-in feature to your Search Network campaign when you create it, or you can upgrade a pre-existing Search Network campaign.

Why might a business find it beneficial to track conversions rather than clicks?

A click can only tell you so much. You could have lots of clicks that don't lead to any further action. A business is probably more concerned with how many people are taking an action (converting) than how many people are clicking on an ad.

Question: You're going to A/B test a new version of a search advertisement against the old version. When people search on Google for a certain keyword, they will sometimes see one of the two versions of your ad at the top of their search results. The answer options below show the most common journey a customer might follow. Select the point of the journey that you would measure as the KPI. 1. Many people search for the keyword. 2. Some of those people will get one version of the ad or another. 3. A certain percentage of people who see the ad will click it, bringing them to your site. 4. A few people buy the product after getting to your site. 5. A very small number of people leave a positive review on the site.

Answer: A certain percentage of people who see the ad will click it, bringing them to your site. Explanation: Since the change you made was to the advertisement itself, the metric that would most likely be affected is the number of people who click on your ad, so the click-through rate of the ad would be your KPI. This happens in the third step above.

After you test the new ad, you decide to run another A/B test on the checkout process on your site. You change the checkout button to a different color. Which step in the process should you measure as the KPI? 1. Many people search for the keyword. 2. Some of those people will get an ad for your site. 3. A certain percentage of people who see the ad will click on it, bringing them to your site. 4. A few people buy the product after getting to your site. 5. A very small number of people leave a positive review on the site.

Answer: A few people buy the product after getting to your site. Explanation: Even though the process is pretty much the same, the point in the process where the independent variable kicks in is different. This time, the test is most likely to affect purchase rate, which is the KPI that shows up in the fourth step above.

CTR formula

Click-Through Rate = Total Clicks / Total Impressions

What are two common metrics you measure when A/B testing with search and display ads?

Click-through Rate (CTR ) - CTR tells you the percentage of people who click on your ad after seeing it. Click-through rate is a good way to assess how elements of your ads are resonating with your audience. A higher CTR means that your ad is a good match for your target audience, while a low CTR means your target audience likely doesn't like your ad. Conversion Rate (CR) - Conversion rate is a critical metric for measuring the profitability and effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Conversion can be defined in many ways, depending on the company type (e.g., purchases on a website, account signups), but it is essentially the visitor completing your goal action. Marketers usually consider conversions to be quantifiable victories.

Conversion Rate (CR) formula

Conversion Rate = Total Conversions / Total Clicks

Your goal is to increase signups on your website. You want to find out the percentage of people who sign up compared to those who don't. What metric should you track?

Conversion rate will tell you the number of people who take a specific action (such as signing up for something on a website) after seeing an ad, compared to all the people who see the ad.

Your boss is interested in how often clicks on your ads are leading to sales and wants you to put together a report to address this question. Which Google Ads metric would you analyze?

Conversion rate will tell you what percentage of those who clicked on your ad actually ended up purchasing.

Which metric group is more important?

Conversion-related metrics are arguably more important. Perhaps even more important than conversion-related metrics are ROI-related metrics, which tell you which campaigns, ads, and keywords are actually making you money. -traffic-related metrics might provide clues as to why your ad isn't performing as well as it could be; they give you a good view of how engaging or relevant your ad is.

If your goal is to increase visitors to your site but you want to track how much it costs to get visitors to your site, what metric should you track?

Cost per click would be a good metric to track. This metric would tell you the price you pay when a potential customer clicks on your ad.

Why is it important to separate Search and Display campaigns for greater control?

Different campaign settings may be more effective on different networks, so consider creating separate Search and Display campaigns to manage budgets independently and optimize accordingly to get the best results.

Describe the benefits of a display campaign:

For the Google Display Network, marketers use signals to influence and capture intent, such as past behavior, context of a page, or demographics. In this same example, you can reach people who have purchased products from your joke shop before, or who have recently browsed prank blogs.

Example for selecting the best KPI for an A/B test:

Let's think about an example. Imagine you're going to test a new promotional email design. The only thing you've changed is the button in the email that says "Click here to buy now." Think about the steps a customer goes through for this campaign, which might be as follows: 1. Everyone receives an email. 2. Most of those people see the email. 3. A lot of those people open the email. 4. Some of those people click on the button in the email. 5. A few of those people make a purchase on the site. 6. Some of the purchasers choose to share their purchase on social media. Look at this flow and consider these questions: -What are your goals for your test? -What metrics can be collected? Here's what's most likely: -Your goal is to increase click-through rate of emails and conversions. -You can collect a metric for virtually every step of the process above: impressions, opens, clicks, purchases, and shares. While there are many metrics that can be tracked, you are trying to figure out if changing the button in the email that says "Click here to buy now" has made a positive difference in your campaign. This change doesn't affect anything before step 4 because users won't even see the button until they get to step 4. The KPI of the test is the metric that measures the step most associated with the variable you've changed. In this case, the KPI would be the click-through rate of the button. However, it's still a good idea to observe the metrics after that step of the process, too, in case there are some other surprising changes. Let's try out more examples.

What to do if you have a high bounce rate but high click through rate:

Next up: high clickthrough rate and high bounce rate. Google Analytics shows you what percentage of users who clicked your ad are leaving your site without exploring any further than the landing page — this is the definition of bounce rate. The good news: if you have a high clickthrough rate your ad is grabbing users' attention and they are clicking. The bad news: if you have a high bounce rate, your landing page isn't maintaining their interest. Let's fix this. 1. Revamp your landing page: Ensure the landing page you are using in each ad directs users to the most relevant part of your site, not just the homepage. So, to promote the "Prank your brother kit," make sure your ad directs viewers to the page to buy the kit, not to your joke shop homepage. If your bounce rate is above 60 percent, consider updating your landing page. 2. Reduce Load Time: Is your page loading slower than a turtle after eating a holiday feast? People are not likely to hang around and wait for the page to load more than a couple of seconds. Not only are you missing out on conversions, but you're also lowering your quality score. Be sure to upgrade your site to load quickly! 3. Add Google Analytics Data to Google Ads: Once you've linked your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts, you can import Google Analytics data into Google Ads and see it in your Google Ads account. You'll find instructions to do so at the end of this course. By comparing Google Ads metrics like conversion rate side-by-side with Analytics metrics like bounce rate, pages/sessions, and average session duration, you can see which landing pages are driving the best results.

Which report answers What the paths that lead people to conversions for my business are?

Once you've set up conversion tracking, Attribution reports show you the paths customers took to complete a conversion, and attribute the conversion to different ads, clicks, and factors along the way.

Definition: Metrics

Quantifiable measurements that are used to track the status of a specific business or marketing process.

Describe the benefits of a search campaign:

Search and Display ads both introduce customers to your brand and move them closer to purchase. However, they reach consumers in different contexts. On the Search Network, keywords capture explicit intent. For example, you'd know someone searching for "jokes" is probably looking to purchase prank products.

There are several reports that can help you measure and optimize your ad performance. Which report answers what searches and site terms have triggered my ad?

Search terms report lists the searches and terms that people have used before seeing your ad and clicking it. If a term is getting you in front of customers, add it to your keyword list.

Which report answers What triggered your ad (geographic)?

The What triggered your ad (geographic) report shows your customers' physical locations and locations they had shown interest in through searches or content they had viewed. If customers interested in certain locations are finding you, update your campaign to directly offer something they're looking for.

Which report answers where were the people who triggered my ads?

The Where your users were (user locations) report shows only your customers' physical locations (regardless of any locations they may have shown interest in). If customers in a certain region are gravitating to you, update your campaign to directly target them.

Example: It's been three weeks since you launched the "Prank your brother" kit campaign and after a strong first two weeks, clicks have started dropping off. Which action should you take to improve performance?

The key here is that the campaign was performing well and then performance started dropping off. If there was an issue with the landing page, load time, or creative call to action, those issues would have impacted performance from the beginning. The problem here is creative burnout, which frequency capping and new creative designs address.

Which report answers Whether my landing page need work?

The landing page experience report estimates the quality of your landing page — which is part of your Google Ads Quality Score and strengthens or weakens your ad position. If you have a weak landing page, a link is provided with tips to make it better.

Which report answers How people are finding me — with and without my ad?

The paid and organic report shows how people got to you — comparing Google's free organic search results to your paid ads. Learn the ways customers are looking for products and services like yours and update your own keyword list or create new ad groups to directly target them.

Definition: return on ad spend (ROAS)

This is a measure of an ad's effectiveness not containing aspects such as cost of goods or other costs of the business and still works with the equation (Profit - Cost) / Cost Perfect for if you wanted to look solely at the effectiveness of your ads

Definition: Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

This is a metric that helps you understand how you are doing in relation to your objectives. The best strategy for determining good KPIs is to think backwards and look at the whole journey a customer takes with your brand. It is vital to look at every step a customer takes to understand how all of the different actions tie together to create an overarching desired action.

Definition: Return on investment (ROI)

This metric tells you how effective your ad spend is by showing you how much return it's bringing you. ROI is calculated with this formula: (Profit - Cost) / Cost. Example: If your ad resulted in $1,200 of sales for a product that cost $600 to make, and your advertising cost was $200, then your ROI is [$1,200 - ($600 + $200)] / ($600 + $200) = 50% ROI.

Project question: You change the call to action buttons from "Sign up" to "Get your ticket," which sounds more personal and explains more clearly what the user will do. To track your results, what metric or metrics might you look at?

You could monitor click-through rate. This would show that more people were excited about this call to action and clicked "Get your ticket." You could also monitor conversions or conversion rate. In this instance, the desired action would be buying a ticket. If more people bought tickets after you changed the call to action from "Sign up" to "Get your ticket," this change might have increased your conversions.