Having trouble deciphering your Google Ads data? Simplify your evaluation with some basic tips on managing your pay per click ad performance.

You're pay per click ads are up and running. You're feeling pretty good about how well you did creating them. You're sure you've covered all the basics to generate a lot of clicks. Now, it's time to work!

There is a lot of work yet to do. Managing your ads' performance is essential to maintain control of your advertising budget. It is now time to start tracking statistics such as, clicks and impressions. You want to stay focused on what your goal is for each campaign and evaluate your data with that in mind.

You can begin by clicking All Campaigns in your navigation menu on the left of your Google Ads account. You can review either by Ads & Extensions or Keywords from the page menu on the left. The statistics table will show you a complete, customizable view of your data.

You may want to start with monitoring the clicks and impressions of your ads and keywords. The very left hand column of the statistics table displays symbols that show whether your ads (ad groups or campaigns) are running or paused. (Note: you can customize the columns to view only what you are interested in at the top right under the modify columns selection).

Don't get caught up in analyzing your ads at a granular level, as delving too far into the data can be overwhelming and time consuming for even the most knowledgeable of analysts. If you begin by following these basics when creating your ads, you should get very workable results that you can learn (and begin managing performance) from:
 1. Set your ad rotation setting to Optimize.
 2. Have at least two Responsive Ads for each ad group
 3. Enable at least three ad extensions.

Your keyword performance is important. Review the Status column of the statistics table on the Keywords page to see if your keywords are Eligible to run. You can hover over the status of each keyword to get a short summary of that keyword's status. You are also able to get a "diagnosis" of the keyword to help guide you if there is a problem.

The Quality Score column helps you manage the scores of your keywords (it is not a default column, so you will have to add it from the " Modify Columns icon). The Quality Score estimates the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions. If your Quality Score is low, research ways to bring it higher. We recently improved a Quality Score for a client by improving the landing page that our Ad was driving customers to, improving their Quality Score from a 4/10 to an 8/10 and you can do it too. The attention to this simple detail during daily management of their PPC campaigns resulted in an ad that was receiving zero clicks and impressions to twenty-eight clicks on the ad in just one month after the adjustment was made. Daily management of your PPC campaigns is a must, for this very reason. (Need help? Give us a call.)

Search Terms are a great way to see the actual words that were used to drive traffic to your ads. If someone else is managing your ads, insist on reviewing the SEARCH TERMS. (Be careful! Some pay per click management companies do not show you these and reference only the keywords. These are not the same!)You can review them on the Keywords page. Click on Search Terms at the top of the page and then in the drop-down that appears.

You can use the search terms information to identify successful keywords and to find new keywords that you hadn't thought of before. You will also be able to identify "negative keywords" here and add them to your negatives keywords list. Your negative keyword list is the list you will create to prevent your ad from showing when these words are in the search terms.

When you look at the statistics of your Ads and keywords, it is important to keep your campaign goals in mind. Some statistics will be relevant and helpful, while others may not be. Is your goal ROI (Return On Investment), creating Brand Awareness, driving traffic to your website or sales and conversions?

Customize your tables and charts using the tools that are most likely to help you reach your PPC advertising goals. Then, continue to review and manage your Google Ads, tweaking, budgeting and optimizing to get the absolute best performance for your efforts.

Visit our Pay Per Click page to learn more about Marketing Angle's services.