Google Adwords data is included in your Google Analytics data and includes metrics like click through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). Google recently released AdWords API v201101, which allows you to more efficiently run reports, as well as implement campaign experiments and other recently released advertising features at scale.

But how do you track success after PPC visitors are on your site? What metrics should you investigate to ensure that you are getting high quality traffic and capitalizing on opportunities to convert?

For these types of performance metrics, you need web analytics! Here are 4 important metrics you should review on a daily basis to evaluate PPC campaign performance.

1. Conversions

It pretty much goes without saying that conversions are the best metric to determine how a PPC campaign is performing. You should have your web analytics set up to record both online conversions (newsletter subscriptions, content downloads) and offline conversions (phone calls, offline campaigns).

To track online conversions, configure your web analytics to record a conversion every time someone arrives on a specific URL. In the case of web forms, this URL would be something like a thank you or confirmation page. For downloads, you might need to add a piece of tracking code that will register the download as a pageview.

To track offline conversions, see one way of doing this in our previous post on Measuring Success of Offline Campaigns in Google Analytics. There are plenty of other solutions out there for tracking other offline conversions (e.g. by telephone) which will integrate directly into your web analytics program so you only have to access one dashboard.

2. Bounce Rate

A bounce is when someone lands on a site and leaves without viewing any other pages. Your bounce rate will vary for each campaign. A high bounce rate may be an indication that your content is not relevant or engaging to visitors.

3. Pages Per Visit

The interesting data comes from a very low or a very high number of page views. Very low could mean that visitors are not finding content useful or interesting, and have resigned to go back to search results to find a more relevant page. A high number of page views could mean either you are producing interesting and engaging content (look at time spent on page for engagement), or that the visitor cannot find the content they are looking for.

In both cases, review the relevance of the page content to traffic-producing keywords, and make sure the information people appear to be seeking is on the landing page, or a click away.

4. Average Time on Site

It goes without saying that a higher time on site is better than a low one. Extremely low (0-1 second) — There is no way to read a page’s content in this amount of time. If there are a lot of visitors spending less than a second on the site, it may be the result of one of two things:

• Invalid clicks – Check with your PPC platform to ensure you are not being charged for these.
  Slow site load time – May cause people to get frustrated and hit the back button before ever arriving on the landing page.
• Low (less than 15 seconds) — Generally, those visitors who spent 10 seconds or less on a site quickly decided that they were in the wrong place. This may be because at a first glance they didn’t find any relevant information, see their keywords anywhere on the page, or were confused by the landing page’s layout.

Look at these 4 web analytics metrics and you will have a better idea of your PPC performance. Once you have gathered enough data to draw conclusions about which parts of your campaign work well and which don’t work so well, you can start implementing small changes and tracking the different outcomes. By taking this methodical approach you should be able to optimize your campaigns to get the best ROI.

This is a guest post written by Kirsty Lee from Bime Analytics, an SAAS business intelligence and data visualization service.

• Most search queries (over 40%) that use branded keywords are by people who have made up their mind and are ready to make a decision and buy.
• About 35% of solution focused queries (i.e. a query for surveying software) generally fall into the consideration phase when a person is researching multiple vendors.
• 40% of issue/opportunity queries (i.e. a search for what motivates customers) are by people who are not yet aware of the solution to their problem.

Implications For Paid Search

It’s easy for advertisers, particularly in b2b to put all their focus on the later stage brand and solution focused keywords. Generally these terms convert the best, and fill the immediate need for qualified leads. These search queries often show good results on a landing page where the goal is to have the visitor sign up for a demo, or to request a call from a sales rep. However, a potential problem with bidding only on these types of keywords is that you’re limiting your addressable market .

Once you’ve optimized the later stage keywords it’s logical to expand onto capturing issue/opportunity type queries. However, these keywords require different landing page tactics. By their nature, people in the awareness phase are in research mode. Therefore, sending these early stage visitors to a trial demonstration page, or expecting them to request a sales call is out of the question.

Instead, early stage queries often perform better on informational landing pages, which discuss and present a solution to the specific problem. A different goal is also required for these queries. The main offer that could work well on these pages are whitepaper and ebook downloads.

Understand how keywords fit in the overall purchase cycle and you’ll be able to run a more profitable search campaign.

However, increased spend in paid search is increased competition, driving up the costs of leads and sales. This trend will put a serious damper on ROI without constant attention from a seasoned search marketer managing a ppc campaign. Setting and forgetting is not a ppc strategy that generates results.

One way to beat rising costs is to boost your ppc campaign conversions.

Optimizing For Conversions

1) Keyword Insertion

Put yourself in a searchers shoes. If you’re searching for “red gift boxes,” which ad would you more likely click?

The winner is the ad that uses the search term in the ad title and copy. In ppc advertising, specificity converts. Also notice the keyword search term is bolded to draw attention. Not only will the first ad benefit from a high click through rate, they’ll also bid less per click. This is because Google knows they’ll make more from an ad with $2 bid, and 5% click through than another ad with a $5 bid and 1% click through.

2) Differentiation

Quantitative statements are crucial to increasing click through rates for ppc ads. Instead of a generic statement like “many red gift boxes” the first ad sets expectations by stating there are “Red Gift Boxes in 8 sizes.” Once again, it’s important to be specific in your ad copy.

3) Destination URL’s

Keyword insertion in the display url of a ppc ad is another way to increase relevance for the searcher, to say I have what you’re looking for. This could be accomplished with a subdomain, or trailing url that redirects to the landing page.

4) Value Propositions

You need to have the right promise that motivates people to buy. To get people to click you should introduce the value proposition in your ad copy, and follow through with those same statements on the landing page.

While Jam Paper does a good job of setting expectations in their ad copy with the No Minimum Order and Same Day Shipping guarantees, these are absent on their landing page. This disconnect could be causing searchers to abandon the landing page.

5) Set Expectations & Follow Through

In some respects the Jam Paper landing page delivers on the ppc ad promise. The landing page shows only red gift boxes, it’s not a generic category page for various colored gift boxes. Another important factor, both the ad title, and page heading contain the dynamically inserted keyword. This combination increases relevance between the ad and page, increasing the chances that the searcher will convert.

However, as I noted previously the value propositions in the ad are conspicuously absent on the landing page. What’s happening is an interruption of the scent trail, which leaves the searchers stranded. At the very least, the Jam Paper landing page should include above the fold text or graphics that reinforce their value propositions that appear in the ppc ad.

Hopefully I’ve illustrated an important idea in this post – that all these techniques are inter-related. Each is crucial, and supports the others in creating high converting ppc ads and landing pages.

Photo credit epublicist