Let Us Help You Learn The Science Of Google Ads
Everyone knows that all marketing is a gamble. It’s like a trip to Vegas where the house seems stacked against you.
That’s why it’s important to always track your return on investment with any marketing element you use for your business.
Google Ads are no exception.
What Google doesn’t tell you, though, but Google certified Google Partners do, is that Google Ads gives you control over your return on investment in two ways: the first through bidding strategies and the second by tracking conversion rates.
Look at it this way: if Google is the house that always wins, then bidding is like betting. You increase your Google Ad budget when you are comfortable with paying more for a click.
Conversion tracking is like counting cards in blackjack. Google doesn’t tell you how much it costs to get someone to buy something, but they do give you the tools to discover how valuable each customer actually is.
In fact, when you use Google Ads to market your business, you have more data than any other type of marketing tool. It’s important that you learn how to use all the data versus getting lost in it all. You can even use all the data they give you together with Google Analytics if you’re hungry for even more data.
The Value Of A Click: Conversion Tracking
How valuable are Google Adwords clicks? That’s what conversion tracking is all about:
1) Go to Google Ads and click “Tools & Settings” at the top, then under the measurements column click “Conversions” .
2) On this page you will see the conversion actions you have already set up. This page shows you how many Google Adwords customers your company has, as well as how they found you. You could be tracking things like phone calls from ads or landing page views. You can also track things like button clicks and thank you pages after form submissions have been completed.
3) Google will tell you what Google Ads is doing right, and then they’ll give you some suggestions on “experiments” that might improve your results. Some may be valuable for you; others not so much. You can complete up to five experiments at a time within the Google Ads interface.
4) You can also create your own experiments using the Google Analytics Goals tool. The Google support article above shows how this works – just click around in Google Analytics until you figure out which campaigns are working best for you (the ones with the highest numbers). If only we had thought about doing this 15 years ago! (Well, if all the tools were available!)
You can even use Google Analytics to help you track other metrics that Google Ads doesn’t track. For example, Google’s tracking for newsletter signups is not very accurate – they’ll count somebody who signs up for two newsletters when it really only happens once. But, Google Analytics will pick up the statistics more accurately because there are less variables (if you’re using the same Google Ads account).
This process can take a while and may require tweaking some settings and campaign names, so be patient. Once you get this all set up, Google recommends running your Google Ads continuously in order to gather statistics over time. This is where a digital marketing agency can help you make sure that Google Adwords run optimally!
Once you’ve logged into Google Analytics, you’ll be able to see the statistics in a few different places:
Google Ads > Keywords > Search > Landing Page Behavior > Goals with Destination ‘Site’. This will show how many people visited your store and “bounced.” – Google Ads > Settings & Tools > Data Studio. You can find your conversion data here!
Google analytics shows me this information at least once per week so I can make sure that my Google ads are profitable! Don’t worry – it’s not too much work (and if you have a digital marketing agency helping you manage your Google Ads, they’ll be doing this for you!), and Google Analytics is free.
If you need help with your Google Ads, call us, and let’s talk about consulting with you to help you run your own ads, or of course, we can do all the heavy lifting for you.
