AdWords & Analytics Sessions at SES Chicago

Next week on December 7th and 8th, you can catch presentations by the Google AdWords team at SES Chicago. We'll be offering practical tips on how to quickly improve your search and display ads performance in the following sessions:

• What's New and Exciting with Google Analytics: the latest tools and reports from our Analytics platform.

• Getting the Most Out of AdWords Optimization Tools: improve your campaigns with recently added AdWords features like the Opportunities tab, new data segmentation options, and custom alerts.

• The Next Generation of AdWords Bidding: Conversion Optimizer: learn how the Conversion Optimizer tool can help you achieve double digit percentage increases in conversions without increasing the cost per conversion.

Finally, if you want to learn more about AdWords optimization tools, you can also watch a video walkthrough of the improvements we've made to AdWords this year. Ariel Bardin, the lead Product Manager for the AdWords web interface, will take you through the major new features and give you tips on managing your campaigns more efficiently.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords Conversion Tracking is now even easier

If you use AdWords Conversion Tracking, you may have noticed that the interface for this tool has been redesigned so that it's easier to implement, monitor, and troubleshoot.

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There are now 3 easy-to-use tabs - Conversions, Webpages, and Code - that help you manage your conversion data. Let's take a closer look at each of them:

Conversions: This is where you see information about the conversion actions you're tracking.

• The "Tracking Status" column lets you know whether a conversion action is tracking properly. It shows you if a conversion has ever been recorded, if it has recently stopped recording, or if it's working just fine.
• The "Value" column shows the accumulated value of the conversions you've received based on the value you've assigned to each action.
• The "New Conversion" button allows you to easily create new conversion actions or import them from a linked Google Analytics account. (Note: In order to import Google Analytics goals, you'll first need to follow a few steps.)

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Webpages: Here, you'll see which pages on your site are getting conversions. You can also see a breakdown of the number of conversions per page on your site. This is useful for troubleshooting, as you can make sure conversions are coming from the pages you expect and identify pages that are not reporting conversion activity.

Code: This is where you get the tracking code for each conversion action. You can also change the value of an action, which helps you calculate ROI.

If you're not currently using AdWords Conversion Tracking, now is a great time to start. Conversion Tracking gives you an accurate way to measure the success of your AdWords campaigns. You can learn more about the benefits and how to implement it here.

We hope you enjoy the new interface and happy optimizing!

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

Import your Google Analytics Goals into AdWords and use them with Conversion Optimizer

In order to track your return on investment (ROI) from AdWords, you need to be able to see which keywords, ads and campaigns lead to conversions on your site. If you use Google Analytics, you can now import your Google Analytics Goals and Transactions into your AdWords account to use as conversion actions. This lets you track the ROI from your AdWords campaigns directly inside the AdWords interface. In the past, you needed to separately install AdWords Conversion Tracking to make use of this feature.

If you're new to Conversion Tracking, a "conversion" happens when a visitor to your site completes a desired action (such as making a purchase or requesting a quote). A conversion is very similar to the concept of a Goal or Transaction in Google Analytics, and is crucial to assessing the ROI from your online advertising spend.

One of the benefits of importing your Google Analytics Goals and Transactions into AdWords is that you can use them with the Conversion Optimizer, an AdWords CPA bidding tool that has been shown to help advertisers get more conversions from AdWords. Conversion Optimizer makes it a lot easier to manage your AdWords bidding and maximize results.

Here's how to get started importing your Google Analytics Goals and Transactions into AdWords:

Link your Accounts, Enable Sharing and Setup a Goal

First you need to link your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts and create at least one Google Analytics Goal or track at least on Google Analytics Transaction. You'll also need to enable data sharing in Google Analytics by completing the following steps.

1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
2. Click "Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings."
3. Make sure you've selected at least the "With other Google products only" options under "Share my Google Analytics data."
4. Click "Save Changes" to finish.

Import your Goals into AdWords

1. Navigate to the "Conversion Tracking" page from within your AdWords account.
2. Click "Link your Analytics goals and transactions" from the Conversion Tracking table.





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3. Select the Goals or Transactions you want from the list.
4. Edit the action name so you can identify the goals in your AdWords reports.
5. Select "Link" from the bottom of the table to finish.

That's it! Your imported Goals and Transactions will show up in your account, along with AdWords conversion metrics. You can use this data to see which ads, keywords and campaigns are bringing in the best ROI and then optimize your campaigns based on this information.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Update: Analytics Webinar with Avinash Kaushik

A couple weeks ago we posted some upcoming Google webinars, and last week, Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, led a discussion on the 'Top 5 Things Marketers Can Do Now" in order to maximize ROI. We realize some of you may have missed the opportunity to hear Avinash speak, but may still be interested in the tips he was able to provide. As such, we've posted a recording of his talk onto the Google Brand Channel on YouTube.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

New Interface Thursdays: Tailor your account with customizable columns

Today on New Interface Thursdays we'll be taking a look at customizable columns. Customizable columns are one of the ways that new AdWords interface helps you manage your campaigns more effectively. With customizable columns, you can select which metrics are most important to your business, and then quickly view those metrics in your campaigns.

To get started, click on the Filter and views button in your account and select Customize columns.

From there you'll see a variety of columns that you can add or remove from your account.

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On the left hand side you'll see that the metrics are broken into two groups: Performance and Conv., which is short for Conversions. Keep in mind that you'll only see conversion columns if you've enabled AdWords Conversion Tracking in your AdWords account. You can select all the columns in a category by checking the box next to the category name.

While on the topic of conversion columns, let's go over the new conversion metrics. Last month, we announced an update to how AdWords reports conversions. Now, you can choose to see columns for many-per-click, 1-per-click conversions, or both. To get a better understanding of the new metrics you can read this article.

Getting back to the Customized Columns panel, let's take a look at the right side of the box, the Preview section. You'll notice some columns are gray and others are green. The gray columns are fixed, so they're always shown. The green columns are metrics you've selected to be shown. You can rearrange the order of these metrics by clicking and dragging them. This is great for setting up a side-by-side comparison for metrics like average cost-per-click and average position, for example.

One last thing to keep in mind is that columns vary across the different tabs in AdWords, depending on the metrics presented within each tab. For instance, you'll find a Quality Score column in the Keywords tab, but not in the Campaigns tab.

That's it for customizable columns. We hope you'll give this feature a try so that you can tailor your account and see only the information you want.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Improvements to Google Ad Planner data

Do you use Google Ad Planner to find websites for your display ad campaigns? If so, you'll be glad to know we launched the Google Ad Planner Publisher Center, a new feature that improves the quality and accuracy of the site data you see in Google Ad Planner.

The Publisher Center enables publishers to contribute directly to the site data provided in Google Ad Planner. Website owners can specify their site descriptions, content categories, supported ad formats and sizes, and share their Google Analytics traffic data in Google Ad Planner. With shared Google Analytics data, we can supplement our traffic estimates with actual, site-measured data from the publishers themselves. In turn, you'll have access to more robust and accurate information in Google Ad Planner to make better-informed decisions about which sites to include in your media plans.

Here's an example of a site profile you will see when the site owner updates information through the Publisher Center:

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We hope you'll take advantage of this improved Google Ad Planner data for your media planning activities. To get started, please visit www.google.com/adplanner.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Delay in updating campaign statistics

Starting this morning, we've had to perform some unexpected maintenance in AdWords. Due to this maintenance,  your statistics may be delayed up to 12 hours. This delay is temporary, and only your statistics will be affected. Your ads will continue to show as per your campaign settings.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this. Please check our known issues page for updates.

Update 3-5-2009:

All stats are now up-to-date.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Google Analytics and AdWords: Better Together

Regardless of the year or economic climate, it's always been important to optimize the return on your advertising investment--but now it's more important than ever. Google Analytics specializes in providing you with the metrics you need to make informed advertising decisions.

By linking your Google AdWords and Analytics accounts, you can optimize your AdWords investment even more effectively with increased trackability and customized reporting. Check out this short video and learn more about the benefits of linking your accounts.

To learn more about advertising more effectively with Analytics you can watch the "Google Analytics in 60 Seconds" videos - a series of videos that illustrate simple tips such as how to optimize keywords and how to use placement targeting.

Posted by Cynthia Benin, Inside AdWords crew

Delay in updating campaign statistics

Today, we have been experiencing delays in the reporting of your AdWords account statistics. This delay is temporary and does not affect the serving of your ads as per your campaign settings. 

We have been working hard to get this fixed, and at this time, click and cost statistics have been updated and show the correct numbers. Correct impression counts will follow soon. As a result of these reporting delays, your clickthrough rate (CTR) may show a higher than actual number until the impression counts are also updated. This delay in reporting is unrelated to the ads quality improvements that we wrote about on Monday. We regret any inconvenience that this may cause you and appreciate your patience as we work toward a resolution.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Quick tip: Increase traffic with the Impression Share report

Recently, the AdWords Help Forum started posting weekly tips to help advertisers improve their campaigns. This got us thinking... why not share the love with our blog readers? In this spirit, we'll periodically share some of these tips and tricks with you, covering everything from new tools to optimization strategies.

Today, we'll start with unlocking the mystery behind why certain campaigns have low search traffic. First, it's helpful to understand the impression share of your ads. Impression share is a metric that represents the percentage of impressions your ad received out of the total available impressions in the market you're targeting. The Impression Share report, available through the Report Center, gives you insight into how you stack up against others in your industry, helping you make more effective changes to your campaigns and boost traffic. 

With insight into potential traffic, you can make more informed decisions and get answers to question like:

• Do I have room to expand in my targeted market?
  
• Am I losing impressions due to low ad rank?
  
• Am I losing impressions due to a low budget?
  
• What's my impression share for the specific keywords I'm using?

Once you have an understanding of where you're missing out on potential traffic, the next step is improving your ads' impression share. So, before you start restructuring your whole account to increase traffic, get clued in by running an Impression Share report. 

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew