Digital Marketing Tips – The Basics of Google Ads Part 3

Last month, our Search Engine Marketing (SEM) blog series covered the basics of creating an enticing ad copy and understanding campaign structure.  This month our SEM blog series will continue its focus on Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing for business.  Last month’s blog covered the fundamentals of organizing campaigns to ensure you are reaching the ideal target market.  This month’s blog will cover the most important key metrics in understanding whether your business’s ad campaigns are performing.  We will highlight key metrics for PPC advertising such as:  Clicks, Impressions, Clickthrough Rate (CTR), Average Position (Avg. Pos.), and Quality Score (Qual. Score). 

Google Ads Campaigns – Measuring Campaign Success

If you have been following our SEM blog series on Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing for business, you have all the information you need to create campaigns in Google Ads and to set them live, but how do you gauge their overall success? There are a few key metrics that you need to know about to understand whether your campaigns are performing well.  Below are a variety of basic key metrics that are important to understand and monitor daily. 

Understanding Google Ads Metrics – Important Campaign Marketing Metrics 

Clicks: Every time a unique user or prospective client clicks on your ad, it is counted as a click. Typically, extremely relevant, targeted ads tend to receive more clicks. When it comes to setting an appropriate budget, keep in mind, the more you spend (the higher the allocated budget), the higher your click volume will likely be.

Impressions: Every time a user or prospective client performs a search and your ad appears from that relative search engine in the results, it is counted as an impression. Impressions tell you how often your ad is being seen. If you have a ton of impressions (how many times your ad is displayed) and fewer clicks, you should consider changing the keyword’s match type, or adjust your ad copy and verbiage. See last month’s blog for a better understanding of creating a proper ad copy.  

Clickthrough Rate (CTR): This measurement tells you how often people click on your ad when it is displayed and can help you determine how effective and successful an ad or keyword is. The CTR is calculated by the number of clicks your ad or keyword receives, divided by the total number of impressions or views. Google and StandOut Advertising consider 2-3% as a relatively strong clickthrough rate. Typically, branded keywords will have a much higher clickthrough rate than more general terms and basic keywords. 

Cost: This tells you how much money each campaign has spent during a selected range or period of time.  The range in which a campaign runs can be easily set and manipulated. 

Average Cost-Per-Click (Avg. CPC): This is the average amount that you are spending on a click within a specific campaign. This amount is calculated by dividing the total spend for a campaign (campaign budget) by the total number of clicks. You can control the maximum amount you want to spend on clicks for each keyword by setting the keyword’s max spend (Cost-Per-Click). Allocating a strategic campaign budget, is the key to success, when it comes to Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing for business

Average Position (Avg. Pos.): This metric tells you where your ad ranks in comparison to other advertisers and your overall competition. Typically, the higher your ad is ranked, the better performance you will see regarding an ad campaign.

Quality Score (Qual. Score): Each keyword receives a quality score, which is an estimate of the quality of your ads and landing pages that are triggered by specific keywords. The score is rated on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest quality score and 10 being the highest. It is difficult to determine exactly how Google’s algorithms calculate the quality score, but it does have an impact on your overall ads’ strategic positioning.

Google Ads Extensions – Advanced Campaign Features & Conversion Tracking  

Now that your business understands the essential components of a PPC advertising campaign, as well as key campaign metrics to determine if your campaign is working, you are ready to set your campaigns live! In our next SEM blog series post, we will cover more advanced campaign features including different types of ad extensions and how to set up and track conversions from your ads.  This will be the last blog, in the SEM blog series, related to Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing for business.  It will cover the fundamentals of sitelink extensions, location extensions, call extensions, callout extensions, as well as tracking conversions through Google Ads and Google Analytics. 

Let Us Help You Stand Out from The Competition

Overwhelmed with Google Ads and all that a PPC marketing service can do for you?   Contact our staff at StandOut Advertising to help you start, develop, and implement, your own PPC campaign to promote your business.  StandOut Advertising is a full-service, digital marketing and consulting agency designed to bring your company’s brand, story, and vision to life.  It is our mission to help your business StandOut from the rest of the competition. For more information on digital marketing, expertise in PPC (Google Ads) marketing, or increasing your digital media presence, please use our contact form or contact us at (716) 800-5270.  Let us, help you…StandOut today!