My favorite Google Adwords Reports for campaign optimization
The pay per click consultant is only as good as the reports they can pull and act upon. Without a steady diet of reports to devour, a PPC consultant’s campaigns languish, get sick – and worst of all – stop converting.
Good reports are essential to healthy campaigns.
If you’re running PPC campaigns, get familiar with the Adwords Report Center. It’s not the only place to get actionable data for your campaigns, but it’s still the most important section for campaign optimization.
Looking at the Report Center can be overwhelming at first. But rest assured, not every report is useful for optimization. That’s why I compiled my favorite Adwords Reports for optimizing PPC campaigns. You may need to brush up on your Excel skills to use these reports, but your client/boss will thank you for the efforts.
Campaign Performance Report
The Campaign Performance Report is the quickest way to grab a snapshot of your account. If you’re managing multiple accounts and you’re pressed for time, you can see weekly spend trends, check falling CTRs, or see if conversions are (hopefully) rising with a quick Campaign Performance Report. It may not help to optimize an account, but it will quickly show any major problems to address.
Keyword Performance Report
The foundation for every PPC campaign is the keyword. That’s why it’s important to regularly monitor the health of your keywords. The Keyword Performance report helps you review high-spend keywords to see if they’re bringing in the sort of traffic you want. If conversions are non-existent with some keywords and you’re spending beaucoup bucks on them, it’s time to make some bid adjustments or pause the keywords altogether. Just make sure there’s enough data to make an informed decision.
Impression Share Report
The Impression Share Report is a modified Campaign Performance report. This report shows any impressions your campaigns are missing and why. Perhaps your campaigns are missing impressions because of lower ad position (rank) or because you’re bidding on the keywords but not spending enough to get the available impressions (budget). Either way this report helps show missing opportunities for impressions, clicks, and conversions.
Search Query Report
Assuming you’re using Phase-match and Broad-match keywords, the Search Query Report will find most of the keywords sending traffic to your websites. The Search Query Report not only helps you find converting keywords you may have missed, but also discovers potential negative keywords. To get more details, check out Mining the Search Query Report.
Placement Performance
If you’re not using Managed Placements on the Content Network, Google will display your PPC ads on sites they deem relevant. The Placement Performance Report reveals those same relevant sites giving your ads impressions, clicks, and conversions. The Placement Report highlights both converting sites and expensive non-converting sites. Having this info will help you construct a Managed Placement campaign or show you what sites to exclude altogether.
Adwords reports are essential for a good PPC consultant. To access the Adwords Report Center, follow this path:
adwords.google.com > Reporting > Reports >“Create a New Report”
