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Archive for the ‘Reporting / Conversion Tracking’ Category

You could have the best PPC setup around, but if you aren’t able to track conversions and analyze your pay-per-click reports, it really doesn’t matter, now does it? These articles will walk you through the plethora of reports available from the PPC search engines, providing information on which reports are most important and tips for using those reports to their full potential. And with a handful of resources for conversion tracking thrown in, this category will provide you with plenty of insight to get the most out of your KPI’s.

Understanding JavaScript and How it Can Affect Your Analytics Tracking

February 11th, 2010 | Jen | Advanced PPC Strategies, Analytics, Reporting / Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics is instrumental in the way we track the success of our PPC campaigns (especially since it’s free), but as robust as it is, there are certain visitors that just can’t be tracked. There are at least 6 types of those visitors, but today I’m going to focus solely on those that have their JavaScript turned off, and what it can mean for your PPC campaigns.

What is JavaScript?
JavaScript in the simplest sense is a scripting language that uses browsers to do the work for a command. It can be used to dynamically generate many types of elements on …

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Good Bye To Google’s “Other Unique Queries” – We Won’t Miss You

May 20th, 2009 | Amber | Google AdWords, Reporting / Conversion Tracking

PPC advertisers have been waiting a long time for this. Just officially announced yesterday, Google AdWords is removing the ‘other unique queries’ label in the search query performance report. We wrote about this new feature in the search query report back in April but did not find an official announcement from Google until yesterday.

The Google search query performance report shows you actual search terms typed in by users from your phrase and broad match keywords. This was a great new report we all grew to love. However, on the flip side there was much frustration due to a …

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New Yahoo Search Query Expand Report – Not Quite Up To Par With Google

May 13th, 2009 | Amber | Reporting / Conversion Tracking, Yahoo! Search Marketing

I received a phone call from my Yahoo rep saying that they are offering a search query report for our clients. I was very excited about this since I love the search query report from Google.

Unfortunately, I was soon disappointed after hearing that I couldn’t run the search query report out of the Yahoo PPC interface myself. Here’s how it works:

If you want a search query report run in Yahoo, a Yahoo technical person has to run the report for you. Then they review the report for you, and if they find any additional keywords that you could be …

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Yes Friends, Google AdWords’ Search Partners Includes Parked Domains

April 23rd, 2009 | John | Advanced PPC Strategies, Reporting / Conversion Tracking

I’ve been managing PPC campaigns for what seems like a really long time. I work in Google AdWords every day. But you know what? I still learn something new every day. Sometimes this fact is scary. So, there is this nifty little thing called Google AdSense for Parked Domains. It’s a way for domain owners to park their unused domains, aim them at Google’s servers and whalah – earn some cash with AdSense ads. I knew this existed – I’ve even helped clients set up AdSense accounts with the Parked Domains feature. But that’s just it – when …

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Google Updates Search Query Report Functionality: Query Depth = All Queries

April 1st, 2009 | John | Reporting / Conversion Tracking

It’s weird how Google just slips things into the AdWords reporting interface. In the course of pulling some Search Query Reports today, the PPC Hero team discovered that Google now has added a new report setting: Query Depth And don’t you know it, you can choose between Standard (pull the a-typical 1000 “other unique queries” report) OR, you can now choose Advanced! According to the reporting interface, the Advanced option will display “All Queries.”

Initially, we pulled our first Advanced (All Queries) report for the past few months – …

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Let’s Take another Look at URL Tagging and Tracking PPC Campaigns via Google Analytics

March 4th, 2009 | John | Reporting / Conversion Tracking

The more we write here at PPC Hero, the more we learn about pay-per-click in general and the needs and wants of our readers. Of all the topics we’ve touched on over the past few years, the one that has remained most popular is the process for tracking PPC campaigns via Google Analytics. Previously we’ve written on how to properly tag your destination URLs for Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. We even followed up with a post on troubleshooting common problems with URL tagging, but that hasn’t been enough to quench your thirst! …

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Want Better Reporting for the Google AdWords Search Partner Network? You Got It!

January 20th, 2009 | Joe | Reporting / Conversion Tracking

The most recent addition to the Google AdWords distribution is the Search Partner Network. AdWords ads have appeared on these sites for a while but advertisers were not given the option to choose this distribution. Now, you can opt-in or opt-out of this network distribution. And AdWords just inserted additional report features that will help better monitor/manage your performance in the Search Partner Network.

As Google AdWords matures they continue to add on features and reporting that will help you …

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How to Analyze the Most Important PPC Reports

October 24th, 2008 | John | Basic PPC Strategies, Reporting / Conversion Tracking

Of all the reasons to love pay-per-click advertising, the reporting capabilities have to be number one! All of the major (and minor) PPC search engines offer reporting so that you can make smart, informed decisions about your advertising. That being said, reports are only capable of providing the best data when they’re analyzed correctly. So, today’s PPC Basics lesson is based on helping you to get more out of your PPC reports by learning how to analyze and use …

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Use Your Impression Share Report To Increase Clicks and Conversions

October 7th, 2008 | Joe | Google AdWords, Reporting / Conversion Tracking

What do you do when you feel like you’ve hit the traffic ceiling for your campaigns? There are no budgets restricting your ad distribution but you still feel like you aren’t generating the amount of traffic you think you’re capable of. The next step you can take is to focus on your campaigns’ impression share. Today, I would like to define Impression Share within Google AdWords, what it means to you, and how you can improve this aspect of your campaign.

Impression share is a metric that represents the …

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Realize a Higher ROI by Creating, Reading and Understanding Goal Funnel Reports

June 4th, 2008 | Joe | Reporting / Conversion Tracking

At the core of any successful search marketing campaign is clearly defined goals, and tracking and measuring of these goals. This week have been discussing how to use Google Analytics to enhance your PPC performance and today I’ll explore how goal funnels can help increase conversions and your ROI.

First, in order to utilize goal funnels within Analytics, you’ll need to actually set them up. My PPC Hero cohort, Amber, recently wrote a thorough article on how to set up …

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