New e-Commerce Metrics in Google AdWords
Building your eCommerce business with Google AdWords requires a marketing team keen on details. Learn how to understand and analyze important AdWords metrics to make smarter businesses decisions.
Google has an expansive network with opportunities brewing for online businesses everywhere. Their reach is expansive and advertisers know it. It’s the reason they chose to work with AdWords in the first place. Getting started with Google AdWords is very simple. So if you’re an eCommerce business that’s just starting out, don’t feel intimidated! We’ll help you along the way and lay out the basic groundwork so your team has a solid foundation to build off on.
Understanding the Fundamentals of AdWords
The first step is to head on over to Google AdWords and click start now (yes, it’s that simple). Enter your company’s information into their respective areas and then you’ll be ready to start your campaign. What’s up next is a little more on the heavy side, and you’ll have to determine what kind of ad you want to run.
Will your ad be a search or a display ad? Search ads appear after a user enters certain keywords into a search engine and display ads are shown across Google and the Google Display Network. You can even choose to run video advertisements on YouTube since the video streaming site is in the Google family. Determine which avenue your business will go down and what goal you’re trying to accomplish.
Display and search ads are a safe bet and their structure is straightforward. Headline, description, display, and destination. However, if your team feels confident in their video editing skills, go for it! For the rest of us, let’s breakdown the makeup of search and display ads, shall we?
The Structure of An Ad
Your headline should be inviting and prominent because it is arguably the most important part of your advertisement. Intrigue users with your ad by creating a captivating headline. A great way to keep it interactive is to pose a question. Tired of the cubicle lifestyle? Does your iPhone cable break frequently? Do you want more miles on your car? Keep it simple and remember your users are looking for an answer to solve their problems. Help point them in the right direction by gearing them toward your company’s answer.
Your descriptions are your teasers; they should include your call-to-action while being informative at the same time. Give users just a taste of your products and services, but leave them hanging so that they’ll want to click to learn more. Your display versus destination URL can either be your website or a specific page on your site where your users can complete their actions. Determine where you want users to land on your webpage to increase the possibility of a conversion.
Now that we’ve laid out the basics, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty.
A Marketer’s Toolbox
Operating a functional and profitable paid media campaign can be difficult. That’s why there are countless tools to help make your life as a marketer easier. From content creation to content distribution, there are tools for all types of businesses and professionals at any given level.
For writers who need another lesson in their ‘they’re,’ ‘there,’ and ‘theirs,’ there’s Grammarly to help them out. And while it’s important to present well-crafted visuals to clients, sometimes a graphic design is just not realistic for the bandwidth of a small business. That’s why there’s Canva.
These tools are all to help your marketing team create astounding content. However, analyzing the performance of your content is a completely different story. In order for your business to be and stay successful, we’ll show you how to monitor these 5 key eCommerce metrics.
Know Your CPC’s Like Your ABC’s
Your Cost-Per-Click and Cost-Per-Conversion (also known as cost per action CPA) are two of the most important metrics to monitor. This is how you will be able to judge if your bang is worth your buck, so always keep them in mind. Your cost-per-click is an indication of whether or not users are clicking on your advertisement and what it’s costing your team for each person to click.
Do not confuse it with your cost-per-conversion, which is completely different. Your cost-per-conversion is all about whether or not your users are completing their actions versus what it’s costing you. Did they sign up for your newsletter or make a purchase? Did they follow your social media or exit out of the ad? Keeping up with these two metrics will help your team gain an understanding of how well users are responding to your advertisements.
What’s It to You?
After tracking your cost-per-clicks, the next item you will need to determine is what all of this is doing for you. What’s the value in each of these conversions? Tracking your value per conversion will help you understand how much revenue you can gain from each of your user’s actions. Once you see how much it costs, look at how much you’ve gained.
Quality Over Quantity
Your Quality Score is a reflection of how relevant your ads are and whether or not they will do well in Google’s advertisement auction process. Case in point, your quality score determines if your cost-per-click will be high or low. It’s important to focus your attention on understanding and improving your quality score because higher scores mean your business will have a better ROI.
Back to Your Roots
Philosopher, poet, and novelist George Santayana once said,
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Understanding the history of your advertisements will help you make knowledgeable decisions about what to try next and what to never to again. Look through the history of your quality score, ad relevance, landing page experience and click through rate. This will show you what actions on your end have been fruitful and which have not. From your company’s past, analyze the data in order to make better educated decisions for the future.
Backtrack
Staying on top of your Google AdWords account isn’t as daunting as it may seem, especially if you know what you’re looking for. Keep these metrics in mind to make the most out of your digital advertising. Let’s see what you’ll need to keep track of one more time:
- Cost-per-click
- Cost-per-conversion
- Value per conversion
- Quality score
- History
