With so many pay-per-click reporting options, PPC managers can find it difficult to know which PPC reports to use. It can be easy to neglect reports that might make the most difference in your PPC management.
It’s important to experiment with all available reporting. This is really the only way to know which reports are the most effective. Through our experimentation at PurePPC.com, our team has found four very handy reports which we use on a regular basis. Interestingly, these reports are all found in Google Dimensions.The dimensions tab is located at the end of the second navigation bar in AdWords. The dimensions tab helps slice and dice specific data into segments. The following are four Google dimensions reports that help our team isolate opportunities for success.
Time
The Time reports are a great way to optimize PPC campaigns. Understanding how users respond to your website by time frame is critical. The dimensions time report gives insight into performance by day of the week, day, week, month, quarter, year, and hour of the day. Understanding how your PPC campaign performs by a given time frame can definitely improve your account performance. For example, if you are generating a lot of clicks and cost on Saturday and Sunday with minimal to no conversions, it’s probably wise to exclude or limit spending on the weekend. You can also determine which days of the week have the highest number of conversions. By that same token, you can determine which days of the week to avoid. Trimming the fat and maximizing results is possible with this valuable report.
Search Terms
The search terms report is a great way to determine which keywords are driving clicks and cost. I always find it amazing which search queries trigger our ads. Often times, I come across search terms that are completely irrelevant to the product or offering. It’s not uncommon for Google’s matching to miss the mark. One of the biggest benefits of the search terms report is the opportunity to uncover negative keywords. Critical negative keywords can be added once you understand which queries are driving clicks and costing you money. This will help reduce the amount of wasted clicks that are coming to your site. This report is a great budget saver and efficiency driver.
Destination URL
This handy report gives insight into how pages are performing. Understanding conversion rates by page is very important. You can also determine which pages are generating the most conversions. Coupled with Google Analytics, this report will help determine which pages are working and which pages need improvement.
Call Details
The call details report is great if you are tracking phone calls. One of the biggest benefits of this report is that you can determine if any calls are coming from your PPC campaign. With this report you can also find out the status, call duration, area code, and cost for each generated phone call. If you are considering purchasing more expensive call tracking software, this report can justify the need if calls are coming in through your PPC management efforts.
Using these reports on a regular basis can really improve campaign and account performance. There are several other dimensions reports that are also important. I strongly suggest reviewing and testing the available reporting options. Start taking advantage of the Google dimension reporting today and start improving your pay-per-click management efforts.
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