Last Updated on May 24, 2017 by Ritwik B
I am assuming that Google Adwords & Analytics are properly integrated & Goals / Transactions have been defined in GA
Here are the Adwords powerful reports which you should be optimizing everyday to avoid having unexpected increase/decrease in CPA, CPC, CTR, Bounce Rate, etc.
The Good part is you can discover the problems sooner & avoid discovering it when its too late.
Here are the 4 reports:
- Adwords Targeting Analysis Report
- Adwords Trend Analysis Report
- Adwords Search Query Analysis Report
- Search Query, Ad Copy & Landing Page Relevancy Report
1.) Adwords Targeting Analysis Report
This report has 5 sub – reports
- Campaign Report
- Device Report
- Ad Network Report
- Ad Content Report
- Destination URL Report
The following metrics are used in the reports.
(Click below Gif to enlarge)
You can also use the following metrics depending on your setup
- B2B or leads websites – Goal Completions (leads) , Cost / Goal , Goal Conv. Rate, Goal Value.
- B2C or Transaction websites – Transactions, Revenue, Cost / Transaction, Ecomm. Conv. Rate
You can choose any metrics to monitor through the reports.
Lets Say, CPA > 1$ is alarming for me
Next, we’ll go through the reports one by one and write down the dimensions having high CPAs.
Campaign Report
- Here, AW – Apparel campaign is having CPA of 29.22$.
- Also, AW – Electronics campaign has incurred 35.6$ cost with 0 goals.
Device Report
- Tablet is having CPA > 1$
AdNetwork Report
- Search Partners has incurred cost of 24.7$ with 0 Goals.
Ad Content Report
- Check the performance for the ad headline
- Here ‘Google Online Store’ has incurred CPA of 6.46$
Destination URL Report
- Use the filters to check the performance of category pages.
- Analyze the Bounce Rate & Conv. Rate for landing page.
After analyzing the overall dimensions, you can now deep dive to find the source of high CPAs. Do the same for below reports.
2.) Adwords Trends Analysis Report
You’ll get tremendous learning from these reports about the particular industry/niche.
When you get an old account from other agency or client, do take a look at these reports. These reports will tell you how the performance had been daywise/monthwise/weekdays/weekends and more…
This report has 4 different sub – reports
- Daily Report
- Day of the Month Report
- Day of the week Report
- Month of the Year Report
Daily Reports
- Do take a look at past daywise CPAs, Cost, CPCs, Goal Completions, etc
- Analyze the sudden Dips & Highs in those metrics.
Day of Month Reports
- Select date range of more than 3-4 months & check if there are any trends at the start/mid/end of the month.
- Check the CPAs, Cost, Goals Completions Rate & Use regex filters as follows
- ‘0[0-9]’ : 1st 9 days of month
- ‘1[0-9]’: 10-19 days of month
- ‘[2-3][0-9]’: Last 9 days of month
- ‘0[0-9]|1[1-5]’ : 1st 15 days if month
- ‘[2-3][0-9]|1[6-9]’ : Last 15 days of month
Day Of Week Reports
- Use the following regex filters to analyze the CPAs and other metrics for weekends and weekdays
- Include ‘^S’ : Weekends
- Exclude ‘^S’: Weekdays
Month of the Year Reports
- Select Date Range of atleast 1 year.
- Check for the seasonal trends if any. Use following regex filters
- ‘0[1-4]’ : 1st 4 months of a year
- ‘0[5-8]’: mid 4 months of a year
- ’09|1[0-2]’ : Last 4 months of year
3.) Adwords Search Query Analysis Report
Analyze the relevant search queries performance. You can also use this report for analyzing the negative keywords.
This report has 3 different sub-reports
- Search Query Report
- Query Word Count Report
- Keywords MatchType Report
Search Query Report
- Analyze the search queries having High CPAs or bounce rates.
- Filter out the queries irrelvant for your business.
- Use different combination of filter to understand visitor intent
- ‘BrandName‘ – Users searching for brand keywords
- ‘Why|What|Where|When|How‘ – Users asking questions
Query Word Count Report
- The Query Word Count denotes the no. of words in the search query.
- Check for the High CPA & less Converisons, then check the search query by applying it as secondary dimension.
- This report can also be used to find high converting long tail keywords for SEO.
Keywords MatchType Report
- Check for the keyword matchtype having high CPAs and less conversions.
- Mostly you’ll find its BMM or broad match type, but do monitor it as this might not be the case for you.
After writing the dimensions having high CPAs, now its time to dig in.
4.) Search Query, Ad Copy & Landing Page Relevancy Report
- You can use this custom report to check the relevancy of Search Query, Ad Copy & Landing Page. These also contribute to the Quality Score of the Keywords.
- CTR – Search Query & Ad Copy Relevancy
- Bounce Rate – Search Query & Landing Page Relevancy
- Try sorting this report by Cost or Clicks to know the stats for high spent search queries and.
- Check if the ad copy resonates with landing pages & search queries.
- Also check the trio (Search Query, Ad Copy & Landing Page) for highest transactions, revenue, and conv.rate & focus more budget on it.
- Adding Campaign, AdGroup or keyword name as a dimension would give you the trigger for those search queries.
- You can also use this Report to analyse bounce rates.
Monitor these reports on daily basis to avoid any unexpected changes in the campaigns
Ritwik is a product owner at DigiXport. He also loves to write technical & easy to understand blogs for Marketers & Entrepreneurs. A Firm Believer in Teaching -> Learning -> Growing. :)