One of the primary benefits of PPC campaigns is the massive amount of data they provide. This is your key to a better understanding of your campaign, target audience, customer satisfaction, success and failures, and more to hone your next approach!
With so much information at your disposal, and many different PPC trends to consider, which PPC metrics are the best to use, and how do they help improve your campaigns?
The 8 Key PPC Metrics to Track
Metric #1: Clicks
Clicks and impressions are possibly the two most important metrics, especially if you want to build brand awareness. The paid ad click is the start of the sales process, and the number of clicks is directly related to how much money you’re spending.
Here, you are looking for trends or variations in clicks that may indicate opportunities or problems. For example, if clicks are on the rise, it may be time to up your budget on keyword bids (something that can be done automatically with AI). If clicks are down, however, you likely have some problems with the ad text or your chosen keywords. You might also need some help boosting your customer support skills to encourage quality traffic.
Metric #2: Cost Per Click (CPC)
Just like clicks, they can let you know some very valuable trend information. CPCs are based on the competitiveness of your chosen keywords, so if they increase, longer-tail keywords should be used to attract more targeted traffic. You can also bump up your maximum bids on important keywords to stay competitive.
CPCs can also help you form your budget. Consider your average click cost, your average conversion rate (for which we have some great strategies), and your sales goal per month (clicks x conversion rate = sales).
Metric #3: Impression Share
Impression share refers to the percentage of all potential impressions on your ads. For example, there were 1,000 searches on your keyword, and your ads were shown 700 times; you have a 70% impression share.
Google also offers two lost impression share categories:
- Loses due to budget
- Loses due to ad rank
This information lets you know whether or not you should increase your budget, raise your bids, or increase your quality scores in search of a higher ad position.
Metric #4: Conversion rate
Conversions are a goal for most businesses, and once again, trends are important here. Changes in conversion rates can be seasonal or the result of more specific changes in the industry. Improving your interactions with customers helps to boost your conversion rate, but sometimes you may notice a dip.
Here are our quick tips for investigating a decrease in conversion rates:
- Check that you have a working tracking code.
- Ensure all destination URLs are functional.
- Review search queries to ensure your ads are showing up for unrelated searches.
- Make sure the ad copy is not outdated.
- Verify that your keywords and ads are not disapproved.
- Clarify that there are no conflicts with positive and negative keywords.
- Ensure that you optimize your conversion rate regularly.
Metric #5: Cost per Conversion
To determine if your Cost per Conversion is good or bad, you need to decide what you are willing to spend to get a sale. Take into account your profit margins and the lifetime value of a customer. For example, is there a chance your clientele will need to re-purchase your products every few months? Is your customer base growing? If so, a high Cost per Conversion may be worthwhile. You should also consider your lead generation strategy, and whether or not it needs a refresh.
Method #6: Click-Through Rate (CTR)
This metric helps you understand your customers by telling you what works (and what doesn’t) with your target audience. For example, a low CTR likely means that you are targeting the wrong audience or failing to speak their language in a way that will convince them to click.
These will vary wildly at different times throughout the week and can be evaluated by the keyword or ad level. These should be assessed on a month-to-month basis and not more frequently to save your sanity.
Metric #7: Quality Score
Remember that quality score is calculated based on:
- The past CTR of your keyword.
- Your overall account.
- The quality of your landing page.
- The relevancy of your keywords when compared with your ad text and the user’s search.
Your quality score is important because Google takes it and the keyword’s bid amount into consideration when determining the positioning of your ad. A higher-quality score sometimes means jumping a competitor ad with a higher bid.
This is Google’s way of ensuring that the sought-after ad positions aren’t reserved for those who pay the most. Rather, everything is determined by whichever creates the best experience for searchers. If you hit the mark for a particular keyword and provide a relevant, high-quality ad to the right audience, your quality score goes up.
Our tips for increasing your quality score are:
- Create well-organized ad groups.
- Have landing pages with plenty of keyword use, relevant to whatever is being advertised.
- Use the keywords in the ad copy.
- Feature a call to action (CTA) and make the value proposition very clear.
Metric #8: Total Conversion Value
If you want to compare between campaigns, ad groups, and keywords, you’ll use your Total Conversion Value. This can be helpful when finding out if shoppers who are looking for particular products spend more than those who are looking for different products. The total conversion value of each product lets you know which is better to promote as it brings in more sales. If you are considering a retargeting strategy, this can be a helpful metric as well.
Pay Attention to the Metrics
So there you have some of the key PPC metrics you should be taking note of. Data is your friend, and the time you give to understanding it will be well spent if it means creating more successful campaigns. This goes for ads, social media video posts, and any other online content you create. Best of luck!
