How to use Analytics to optimize AdWords?

Google Analytics is full of insights that can benefit your AdWords account, and your business. To help you make the most of this information, we've started an introductory video series called “Google Analytics in 60 Seconds.” The first two videos explain two easy ways to refine your targeting. You can find them below and as part of the Google Analytics Conversion University playlist.

Location, Location, Location
Now, you no longer are flying blind when you target your campaign by location in AdWords. Use the Map Overlay report and location data within Analytics to see, geographically, where your visitors are coming from – or where they aren’t coming from. You can then use this information to refine your AdWords marketing with location-targeted campaigns to build your business.




Note: You can also use the recently launched Geographic Performance report within AdWords to see similar information, but it currently does not have a visual component nor includes some of the metrics available in Analytics, such as time on site and bounce rate.

Improve Your Placement Targeting
The Google content network is the largest contextual advertising network in the world, comprised of high-quality websites, news pages, and blogs that partner with Google to display targeted AdWords ads. And within AdWords, you can hand-pick which sites you'd like your ads to run on by creating a placement-targeted campaign. But how do you know which sites to pick? If you knew which sites were already sending you high value traffic, why not run your ads on these sites? This video will show you how to use Google Analytics to identify the best sites by using the Referring Sites report.




More to come!
There are a number of easy and effective ways to use Google Analytics with AdWords – whether you want to identify the best keywords, save money on bidding, expand your business or refine your campaigns – and we’ll post more of these videos soon!

Announced by Stephanie Hsu, Google Analytics Team

Adwords Auto-Tagging and URL Redirects

URL redirects are like Angel in this respect; they start off as one thing and end up as something else. In the process, Adwords auto-tagging (the "gclid") frequently gets "slain". Let's look at how we can address the resulting reporting problems.

First, a quick review of the back story.

Adwords auto-tagging makes it possible for you to see Adwords information in your Google Analytics reports without manually tagging each keyword. You simply enable auto-tagging in your Adwords account. The auto-tagging option is located on the My Account tab, on the Account Preferences page (click image to enlarge):


If you select this option, Adwords automatically appends a "gclid" parameter to your destination URLs:

www.example.com/?gclid=123xyz

If you already have query parameters in your URL, it will look something like this:

www.example.com/?param=a&gclid=123xyz

(Note that in the first example, "gclid" is preceded by a "?" and in the second example, it is preceded by a "&". Remember this distinction because it will be important later on.)

What if you're also using a third-party tracking system such as DoubleClick, or your destination URL redirects to a second or even third URL before Adwords users arrive on your site? Will the gclid be retained or get slain?

That depends on the tracking system or behavior of your redirects. This is a very important question to address before you enable auto-tagging.

Some redirects strip the gclid. While Google Analytics still records the visit and the subsequent user activity, it doesn't have the information necessary to properly attribute the visit to your Google ad. As a result, some of this traffic will be included in the "direct" category while other visits may show up as "not set". Furthermore, your Adwords Campaigns report in Google Analytics may show cost metrics, but your visits columns may show zeros (click image to enlarge)

Ugh! Can you prevent this from happening?

Absolutely! Performing a simple test before you enable auto-tagging will ensure that you receive valuable information on your Google campaign performance. Here are the steps for two URL scenarios:

Scenario 1
If your destination URL has no query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/:

1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar, but before you press Enter, append "?gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?gclid=test.
   
   
2. Now press Enter.
   
   
3. If the gclid is present on the final landing page URL, you're golden. If not, keep reading to learn about your alternatives.

Scenario 2
If your destination URL already has query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a&param2=b:

1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar and before pressing Enter, append "&gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a&param2=b&gclid=test.
   
   (This is why the "?" and the "&" distinction were important to note earlier. It's a matter of URL syntax. Luckily, auto-tagging knows the difference.)
   
   
2. Press Enter.
   
   
3. If the gclid is still there, you're in good shape, and need only to enable auto-tagging. If not, what are your options? Read on.

If the gclid is not retained during your test, you're not out of luck. Here are a couple of suggestions:

Suggestion 1. Ask your friendly admins or third-party contact to please configure their servers to pass the gclid. If you're not sure what this means, don't worry, your server admin does. It's like repeating something in a foreign language you don't speak. If your pronunciation is good, a native speaker will understand you and all will be perfecto!

Suggestion 2. If suggestion 1 isn't possible, you'll need to manually tag your destination URLs instead of enabling auto-tagging. (This is one of the very few circumstances in which you should manually tag destination URLs in AdWords.)

The best way to get started with manual tagging is to use the online URL Builder. You'll need to fill in your landing page URL and fill in the campaign name, source, medium, and term (keyword). Then, press "Generate URL" and you'll have a URL that will correctly report campaign information to Google Analytics.

You probably already know how to use this tool based on an earlier post we made, but here is an example followed by step-by-step instructions on a recommended way to use i:


Step 1. Put the final landing page URL in the Website URL field. The reasoning behind this is that since the gclid is stripped by the redirects, the manual tags will most likely be stripped as well. In our example above, www.example.com is the URL to which Adwords users are redirected.

Step 2. Fill in each of the additional fields as follows:

• Campaign Source: "google" in lower case
  
  
• Campaign Medium: "cpc" for cost-per-click campaigns or "cpm" for our cost-per-impression campaign model
  
  
• Campaign Term: fill in your AdWords keyword
  
  
• Campaign Content: if tagging your keywords individually, leave this field BLANK. If you're only tracking Google ad unit performance, as in the case of running a campaign that is running exclusively on our content network, fill in an ad unit identifier, such as a text ad's headline or the name you've given your display ads.
  
  
• Campaign Name: this is the name of the campaign you've set up in the Google ad system. Assuming you've linked your Google Analytics and Adwords accounts, it is important to type in the campaign name exactly as it appears in our ad system. Otherwise, the Clicks tab of the Adwords Campaigns report in Google Analytics will have multiple entries for the same campaign. Cost information such as impressions and clicks will be listed next to the campaigns that are running in our ad system, while visit information will be listed next to the campaign names you've typed into the URL Builder, and that would just be confusing!
  

When you generate the URL, you will end up with something like this, personalized with your keyword and campaign, etc.:

http://www.example.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=keyword&utm_campaign=Adwords%2BCampaign%2BA

Once a person clicks on an ad and finishes her journey through the land of redirects, she'll see the URL above in their address bar. Also, in the case of third-party redirects, this is the URL you'll want to send to your vendor to convert into tracking tags.

If you're running a campaign with many keywords, here's a helpful tip: Only use the URL Builder for the first URL. Then, use Excel's handy "concatenation" function to create an Excel worksheet that generates the rest automatically.

Even if your campaigns are free of redirects, it's still a good idea to test for auto-tagging compatibility before enabling it. You may still need to have that cryptic conversation with your server admins about "configuring the server to pass the gclid." In any case, never use auto-tagging and manual tagging in the same Adwords account. Even though your users won't be affected, your Google Analytics reports will not be accurate and you'll spend more time trying to make sense of the numbers than optimizing your Google campaigns.

As always, happy tracking! And now back to Buffy…

Published by James Tipton, Google Analytics Team

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New Google Analytics

The New Google Analytics

Google Analytics has been re-designed to help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site.

Discover. Share. Act.

The new Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.

Test your website and increase conversions.

You can now use your Google Analytics login to access Website Optimizer. Find out which page designs, headlines, and graphics convert the most visitors.

Google Analytics offers a host of compelling features and benefits for everyone from senior executives and advertising and marketing professionals to site owners and content developers.

Fast Implementation

Paste the Google Analytics tracking code into each of your website pages and tracking begins immediately.

Keyword and Campaign Comparison

Track and compare all your ads, email newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, paid links, and keywords on Google and other search engines.

Custom Dashboards

No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom Dashboard that you can email to others.

AdWords Integration

Buy keywords on Google AdWords and use Google Analytics to learn which keywords are most profitable to your business.

Internal Site Search

Find out how your visitors search your site, what they look for, and where they end up.

Benchmarking

Find out whether your site usage metrics underperform or outperform those of your industry vertical. Opt-in benchmarking compares your key metrics against aggregate performance metrics while preserving the confidentiality of your data.

Trend and Date Slider

Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.

Ecommerce Tracking

Trace transactions to campaigns and keywords, get loyalty and latency metrics, and identify your revenue sources.

Funnel Visualization

Find out which pages result in lost conversions and where your would-be customers go.

Site Overlay

See traffic and conversion information for every link as you browse your site. (no download required).

Email reports

Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails that contain exactly the information you want to share.

GeoTargeting

Find out where your visitors come from and identify your most lucrative geographic markets.

Google Analytics helps you find out what keywords attract your most desirable prospects, what advertising copy pulled the most responses, and what landing pages and content make the most money for you.

Free.

Spend on marketing, not on web analytics.

Sophisticated Analytics.

Google Analytics has all the features you'd expect from a high-end analytics offering. It also provides tightly integrated AdWords support, so you can view AdWords ROI metrics without having to import cost data or add keyword tracking codes.

Easy to use.

Google Analytics is easy to use for novice marketers, while delivering all of the capabilities that experienced web analytics professionals expect.

Scalable for any size site.

Google Analytics is a hosted service that runs on the same servers that power Google. From large, high-traffic corporate sites to small sites, Google Analytics delivers consistent service.

Integrated with AdWords.

If you have an AdWords account, you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords interface. Google Analytics also calculates ROI metrics from automatically imported cost and keyword tracking data, saving you time.

Tracks all campaigns.

Google Analytics tracks all online campaigns, from emails to keywords, regardless of search engine or referral source.

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Google takes the trust people place in us very seriously, and is pledged to safeguard the privacy of your corporate data. We understand that web analytics data is sensitive information, so we accord it the ironclad protection it deserves.

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