Here's  what savvy advertisers should monitor in Google Adwords Account.

This is super important if you already advertise on Google Adwords and also good to know if you're considering advertising on Adwords.

Recently I've been asked, "what should I look at beyond total number of monthly clicks and costs?" and "what metrics should I look at to be a smarter customer of Adwords and your services?"

Here is what's important to look at, watch the video above for a walk thru of how to view these things along with commentary.

•  Clicks
• Spend
• Knowing your top keywords
• Knowing your top ad groups.
• Impression Share
• Click Thru Rates
• Conversion Rate
• Cost Per Conversion
• Testing Ad Copy
• Testing Landing Pages - big improvements to conversion rates happen on your website maybe only a little in Adwords.

Last but not least look at the change history of the account to see what is actually being done.

Let's start out with clicks and spend.  These are 2 very basic, superficial numbers.  Obviously they are important the issue is if these 2 things are the only things you look at.  You have to dig deeper.

Next is knowing your top keywords maybe this number is in the dozens or hundreds if you're a larger player.  Bottom line is that you have to know your top keywords and know your Click Thru Rates, Conversion Rates, and Costs per Conversion on these keywords.

Do the same for your top Ad Groups and Campaigns.  Looking at the data at the keyword level allows you to get more granular.  Make sure you have not lost impression share on an important keyword.

What is Impression Share?

The impressions you’ve received on the Search Network divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive.

So if you know your top keywords and ad groups you want to maintain a very high impression share on these keywords.  Otherwise you're missing opportunities.   When people ask how much will it cost or I want to spend "X" per month, all this really means is that the $$ amount given is a number the business owner is comfortable with.  And that's fine, but it could be too little, or too much - you won't know until you've run the campaign for a bit, achieved good click through rates and costs per click.

Click Thru Rates is the percent of people who click on your ad divided by the # of people who saw your ad.  Google want's high click thru rates because that tells them that if people click and stay on the page the advertiser is promoting relevant info.  So this is good for Google and they reward you with cheaper clicks.  HOWEVER, high click thru rates are not the be all and end all sometimes an ad that has better CTR has a poor conversion rate meaning a higher cost per lead or sale. So this does not work out well for YOU the advertiser.

Cost Per Conversion/Cost per Converted Click.  This is the $ amount spent to get someone to do something on your website.  That might be subscribing to a newsletter, opting in for a free report, making a phone call, or buying a product. Conversion Rate is the Rate at which these people "convert" on your website.

Bear in mind that while some ads may convert better than others what really moves the needle as far as improving conversion rates happens ON YOUR WEBSITE NOT IN YOUR ADWORDS ACCOUNT.

Testing.  Is testing being done in your account?

Are you testing different landing pages or just sending everyone to the home page or a specific Adwords or PPC landing page?

Testing is a good idea.

Ads about running sneakers go to a page about running sneakers.  There's cohesion there.  The person clicks and then sees what they would expect in this case running shoes.

It's best to have numerous ads, and it's best to echo ad text ON THE LANDING PAGE.  So this means lots of landing pages.  This will also help, conversion and quality score.  If you convert more then you get more responses from your ads.

A word about testing.

Testing is important BUT it can get expensive and in verticals where click costs are high and there's not that much volume it can lead to a tail spin.  Specifically the LEGAL niche where you may only get 100-200 clicks per month and average click costs can be $5+

What does this mean exactly?

Keywords and ad groups don't perform the same month to month, but there are averages you can see when you look at it on a yearly basis.

For instance 10 months into the year you have a keyword with 12 conversions and a conversion cost of $150.  Now you want to test a new ad against this keyword.  Fine.  But it may take a while to get back data, and if the ad test is not a winner, your lead cost an go over $200 again using this expensive keyword with low to decent traffic.  Obviously this worked in the past so you don't want to kill it...this is where testing can be tricky, combined with the fact that Adwords has a hard time doing perfect 50/50 rotation of ads in verticals w/ less click volume.

What do you do?

This is the art and science of Adwords.  This is where you need to rely on the experience and instinct of the person managing your account.  When to test and when not to.  Like a person skilled in speaking with people it's very important for the good conversationalist to know when NOT to speak.

Almost like a restaurant hiring a new chef.  The chef has to know what budget he's working with, what kind of people eat there and what they like along w/ food costs and how much profit can be made per plate.  Can the new chef in his first 30 days rework the kitchen and menu into something that makes money and gets repeat visits from customers or is it a crap shoot that may never work?

Very similar to Adwords.

The Adwords manager must know what keywords are appropriate, what message is going to work for both ads and landing pages, and then the manager has to go to work in Adwords to make sure the numbers work out for the business.

A chef can make food that's good - but is not profitable.

Just like it's possible to write good ads also are not profitable.

Till next time,

Eric