29 super useful PPC tools you need to try this year

Since the dawn of mankind – and since the dawn of pay-per-click marketing – we have been inventing new tools to help us survive and overcome challenges. All our tools began as very primitive and basic, but have evolved greatly as time went on.

Now in 2016, tools are essential for professional marketers. The right PPC tools will save you time, provide crucial insights, inspire you, and ultimately make more money for your company or your clients.

If you’re ready to take an evolutionary leap of your own, check out this list of 29 amazing PPC tools you need to try this year.

Note: These are all tools that I use and recommend. Some I use daily, others less often or I have used in the past, but each tool on this list is valuable and useful. None of the creators of any of these tools asked to be included on this list or paid for the privilege.

PPC management

1. AdWords Editor

If you regularly work on large campaigns or campaigns across multiple accounts in Google AdWords, then you need AdWords Editor. It has almost everything you need for bulk edits and optimizations. Although it looks similar to the AdWords you’re used to online, the desktop version is probably about three to five times faster. Essential!

2. Bing Ads Editor

If you’re using Bing Ads (and you should be), then Bing Ads Editor is a must-have. It’s a solid all-in-one tool for managing your Bing Ads campaigns.

3. Optmyzr

At the U.S. Search Awards, Optmyzr won for having the “Best PPC Management Software” and for good reason. Optmyzr offers a variety of tools (optimization suggestions, data visualizations, advanced reporting, and scripts) to help you manage AdWords and Bing Ads campaigns. Plans start at $116 a month, and you can try it out for free for 14 days.

4. Free AdWords Performance Grader

Get a thorough audit of your AdWords account in 60 seconds or less with the Free AdWords Performance Grader from WordStream. Full disclaimer: I’m the CTO of WordStream. So seriously, don’t take my word on it. Here’s an actual review from Sharon H. on G2Crowd:

“WordStream makes sense out of Adwords and goes a long way to eliminate the frustration and cost. WordStream gives me important feedback on critical performance factors, and makes it easy to adjust and improve campaigns.”

5. AdEspresso

AdEspresso is a great tool for Facebook advertisers to create, optimize, and analyze campaigns. You can check it out for free with a 14-day trial; monthly pricing starts at $49.

Keyword and competitor research

6. SEMrush

Need to gain insight into your competition? SEMrush is one of the best tools to find valuable, detailed keyword and domain data. It costs $58 per month if you sign up for their annual plan.

7. Spyfu

SpyFu has some really cool features other tools lack, such as the ability to download all of your competitors’ keywords. It also has a slick interface with plenty of important at-a-glance information easily available. Annual plans start at $49.

8. iSpionage

ISpionage is easy-to-use competitive intelligence tool. It provides accurate, up-to-date competitive intelligence information and is a great way to size up competing websites and their online marketing efforts. Plans start at $59 per month.

9. Google Keyword Planner

I’d be shocked if you aren’t already using Google’s Keyword Planner. It’s an essential PPC tool for keyword research.

10. Google Trends

Search trend data can be incredibly valuable when adjusting campaigns to match seasonal demand. Google Trends is an essential free data source smart PPC marketers should be consulting.

Call tracking, analytics, and conversion rate optimization

11. Invoca

Phone calls are incredibly valuable to businesses. You need to understand who is calling and why. Invoca provides an solution to capture, manage, and track those all-important calls. It integrates with 30 platforms. Pricing starts at $1,000 per month.

12. Twilio

Twilio is a great option for call tracking and analytics. You can cheaply and easily buy phone numbers (local or toll free) and record phone calls to those numbers. Pricing is on a pay-as-you-go basis.

13. Call Rail

CallRail is another option for phone call tracking, recording, and analytics. CallRail features Google Analytics and AdWords integration. Pricing starts at $30 per month, with a 14-day free trial.

14. Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides everything you need to track the effectiveness of your PPC campaigns and website performance. It’s free, but there is a Premium option for large enterprises.

15. Twitter Analytics

Twitter Analytics provides a wealth of data. I won’t lie, I’m a bit obsessed with Twitter Analytics data. You can discover how many people are really seeing and engaging with your tweets, whether your campaigns are effective, and all sorts of valuable demographic data about your followers.

16. Certified Knowledge

Brad Geddes has a nice suite of tools at Certified Knowledge that will help you analyze data, create tons of ads; and optimize your quality score. Prices start at $79 per month.

17. Unbounce

Need to build a landing page? Meet Unbounce, which offers more than 80 templates for just about every type of landing page you need (products, sales, lead generation, eBooks, etc.). Pricing starts at $49 per month, but you can sign up for a free trial.

18. LeadPages

LeadPages offers a simple landing page builder, as well as dozens of landing page and minisite templates to choose from. Yearly packages start at $25.

PPC ad copy inspiration

19. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is all kinds of awesome. It shows you the most shared content. Catchy article headlines (the type that get tons of shares and links) will also make catchy PPC ad headlines! BuzzSumo plans start at $99 per month.

20. Ubersuggest

You can get some good keyword ideas from Ubersuggest. This popular free keyword tool offers thousands of suggestions based on the keywords you type in.

Display ad image inspiration and creation

21. Share as Image

Share as Image is mainly touted as a tool for content marketers, but you can also use it to quickly create awesome display ads. Just be sure to check image copyrights before taking your ad live! Share as Image offers a free account, as well as a monthly plan starting at $8.

22. Canva

Canva is another tool that you can use to easily create striking display ads with their drag-and-drop interface. Upload your own assets to work with (for free), or pay a small fee to use images from their library.

23. Pinterest

Need some inspiration for display ad images? Spend some time browsing on Pinterest. It’s a fantastic tool for saving, organizing, and discovering amazing visuals to get your creative juices flowing.

24. Facebook Text Overlay Tool

Facebook has a frustrating rule that your ad (images and video thumbnails) can’t contain more than 20 percent text. To make sure you’re compliant so your ads can run on Facebook (and Instagram), use the Facebook Text Overlay Tool. If your text spills into 6 or more boxes of their grid, you’ll have to edit your ad and check it again until you get it right.

25. gifntext

Gifntext is so baller – and non-obvious. You can use it to create amazing GIFs for use in social and display ads! I almost hate to give this one away because I love that nobody is using it. So seriously, don’t use it. :)

PPC Automation

26. AdWords Scripts

Love AdWords Scripts? Who doesn’t? Scripts let you automate nightmarishly time-consuming tasks. Daniel Gilbert and Brainlabs have an insanely awesome collection of AdWords scripts – everything from advanced A/B testing, to close variant matching, to competitor tracking. Amazing stuff here!

Apps

27. Google AdWords App

If you ever need to do some AdWords campaign management in a taxi/Uber/whatever, you’re in luck. This beautiful and fast app for Android and iOS lets you adjust keyword bids, enable/disable AdWords objects (e.g., campaigns, ads, ad groups), and act on various recommendations from AdWords. You can’t create new text ads or campaigns or add keywords manually, however.

28. Facebook Ads Manager App

The Facebook Ads Manager App (for iOS and Android) lets you manage your campaigns. You can track the performance of your ads, edit ads, adjust your budgets, and even create new ads – all from your mobile device.

29. Google Analytics App

The Google Analytics is a bit limited – and by a “bit” I mean a “lot”. But if you’re on the go and need to quickly check on your stats or reports, this app will let you do just that.

What’s your favorite tool?

What PPC tools from this list do you use and love? Any tools I missed? Share your recommendations in the comments.

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6 Steps to Become a Conversion Scientist

NOW that’s what I call Diversity Bias!Here’s how to conduct a Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) test like a real scientist. With this approach, you can assure your client that you’re conducting the right tests in the right way, to get the best return on their investment.Look for cluesMake a hypothesisChoose […]

The post 6 Steps to Become a Conversion Scientist appeared first on Receptional.com.

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AdWords Smart Goals: not a smart move for advertisers

If I told you that your company could automate your paid search advertising bids based on the conversion data of thousands of other businesses, but not your own data, would you tell me to take a hike?

I think it’s safe to say that many of us PPC professionals disagree with Smart Goals for various reasons – and think this new offering from AdWords is just downright dumb.

There’s certainly been some heated conversations around the web on the issue of Smart Goals, and this post from Julie Bacchini of Neptune Moon has some very good points.

Let’s look a little closer at what I believe the issues to be, and I’ll end on a positive note by highlighting something interesting that Smart Goals is doing.

Companies that might use Smart Goals are not all that unsophisticated

First, it really doesn’t matter if the company that would use Smart Goals is a local brick-and-mortar storefront or an enterprise business. In my opinion, the data is not providing anything valuable to anyone.

However, AdWords talks it up as something that the small to medium-sized business can use, because, hey – if they’re not using any tracking conversion at all, they might as well use some kind of data.

From the announcement (as linked to previously):

To generate Smart Goals, we apply machine learning across thousands of websites that use Google Analytics and have opted in to share anonymized conversion data. From this information, we can distill dozens of key factors that correlate with likelihood to convert: things like session duration, pages per session, location, device and browser. We can then apply these key factors to any website. The easiest way to think about Smart Goals is that they reflect your website visits that our model indicates are most likely to lead to conversions.

That’s like saying to a lost traveler, “Since you don’t have a GPS, I’m going to draw this map on a napkin, and I’m really not familiar with the area, but [shrug] it’s better than not having any directions at all!”

While the positioning statement via Google (and some of the surrounding opinions I’ve heard) is geared towards advertisers who may not be as sophisticated as others, hence, they don’t have conversion tracking – I bet if we looked a little closer, we’d see just who those advertisers might be.

For example, would you call a global multimillion-dollar brand that spends $30,ooo a month on AdWords an unsophisticated advertiser?

No?

Because those types of companies often don’t have conversion tracking for one reason or another – usually because there are so many layers to getting updates on the site (let alone installing a tracking code) that it creates a roadblock to getting anything done.

Plus, there’s also this interesting requirement to get Smart Goals going (from the Google announcement):

Note that your Google Analytics view must receive at least 1,000 clicks from AdWords over a 30-day period to ensure the validity of your data.

That’s not really small potatoes. So you have to get 1,000 clicks from AdWords to validate unreliable data? Hmmm …

To play devil’s advocate, let’s just pretend you run a small business and you advertise in search and you now have access to this Smart Goals feature.

And let’s say you’re the type of person who is focused on running a business – not your advertising – and aren’t tracking conversions, probably don’t have Google Analytics installed on your site, and if you do, never look at the thing.

So here comes this feature that again asks you to take some form of action with your tracking, and gives you data but doesn’t give you the tools to optimize your AdWords account in a smart way so you’re set up for real ROI.

Does this sound reasonable?

Smart goals + target CPA = more $ for Google

Okay, I said it. As PPC pros, we don’t want to bite the hand that feeds us, but we look out for our clients first and foremost, and something stinks about this Smart Goals/target CPA pairing.

From the announcement, Google says:

One of the benefits of measuring conversions in your Adwords account is the ability to set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) as opposed to just setting a cost per click (CPC). If you aren’t measuring actual conversions today, importing Smart Goals as conversions in Adwords allows you to set a target CPA. In this way, you’re able to optimize your Adwords spend based on the likelihood of conversion as determined by our model.

Translation: let’s get these advertisers on autopilot.

I’ll venture to guess that Smart Goals + target CPA may be the new up-and-coming default setting AdWords will include on all those business accounts that are never touched beyond the initial set up. What do you think?

I shudder at the thought, but I wouldn’t be surprised if businesses start getting cold calls from agencies that promise to ‘optimize’ their AdWords accounts on a monthly basis using Smart Goals for as little as $200 a month.

On a positive note …

I said I would end on a positive note, and I do think it’s interesting how Google created a workaround for conversion tracking using engagement factors. And I see how that can work.

Remember that example I gave of a multimillion-dollar brand not tracking conversions? I know this because of experience my agency has with this type of scenario.

And often in this situation, we’ll optimize ad campaigns for engagement factors like time on site and pages per session.

Right about now, you’re probably wondering why, if I do this type of conversion optimization around engagement factors, do I have such a problem with Smart Goals.

Here’s one difference: My agency is a partner with our clients and actively manages the bids and their ad accounts based on metrics we’re closely watching, taking into account their business and advertising goals, budgets and preferences.

One client that didn’t have conversion tracking and that we were optimizing their campaigns for engagement metrics did see a 20% lift in their revenue coming from the PPC channel, so we know it works.

But, engagement metrics differ from business to business. As Julie pointed out in her article (linked to at the top of the page):

A very simple example here, if a site has calls as their conversion goal, their pages per session and session duration are often quite short. If you have a good landing page, calls happen fast and goals are achieved. Conversely, if you have a lead generation type of site, people often need to spend longer on your site and consume more page content before filling out your lead form.

As you can see, I’m simply not a fan of Smart Goals, and am less of a fan of what this might imply for countless businesses and their advertising.

But maybe I’m wrong… maybe it will help some companies – and I’d love to hear your take on it in the comments below.

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Bidding for top position on a SERP: what does it get you?

Automatic bidding algorithms have been a part of paid search tool sets for a long time and artificial intelligence is gaining more and more traction every day. 

While I think this is a tidal wave of information and computing power that’s coming towards every industry, I also think that there are very important strategic decisions that will always be in the hands of the search marketer.

One of those most often debated is the value of a top position. Many find themselves bidding to a top position simply because it feels like winning (which is a fantastic reason why removing human emotions in marketing decisions could be a great thing – score one for AI).

It is innately good to see your brand at the top of a search page, but I wanted to take a look at the difference between the top and side position. How does the rank of your ad impact its results? Does it differ on Google vs. their search partners? The findings were very interesting.

Top vs. Side

I started looking at data across the last 13 months across all verticals and terms. There is a point to be made about excluding branded terms, but for now I included them simply because they often will be displayed as a side ad even if they are the only ad in the auction.

This data can be pulled from Google using the Top vs. Other segment where you can pull this data for specific levels of your own accounts and brands.

The differences when combining all search traffic (Google + Partners) makes a very compelling case for top placements.

Not only does the user click-through on top ads at 10% (compared to 0.5% for the side), but the conversion rate is almost twice as high and the cost-per-click is significantly less. What could be better than that?

Another way to look at it is for every 100,000 impressions, the top ad position would net 3,349% more sales at a 63% lower cost per acquisition.

Again, I think branded terms have some level of impact to this analysis, but I think the idea that consumers have a better branded association with top ranked ads on the search results page is true.

Google vs. Partners

The difference for the partner network also tells a pretty interesting story.

The mothership outperforms the partner network in click through rate and conversion rate. This does however come at a premium. The CPCs are slightly higher.

Overall the Google domain yields a better CPA by 7% for side ads and 40% for the top ads more than offsetting the increase in cost per click.

According to the most recent earnings report, Google saw a 2% growth in partner traffic vs. a 40% growth in their own traffic. I’m sure that some of the shifts in their partner network have a lot to do with this, but maybe advertisers are getting savvier with their data and opting out of the partner network for these very reasons.

What should you do with this info?

1. Dig into your own metrics. Measuring top position is almost never the right metric to judge success, however understanding the building blocks that make up your success is important.
2. Consider if the search network is right for you. If you have a constrained budget it probably doesn’t make sense to extend your full keyword list to the partner network. This doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be an all or nothing proposition. Determine the right keyword set or campaigns that perform best for you across the networks. The same can be said for extending your campaigns to Yahoo! and Bing.

Data is the best part of being a search marketer. I’ve said it a million times before, data is what separates success from failure in this business and it’s simple data like this that can help uncover some great opportunities for your business.

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WordStream’s Larry Kim on how paid social ads can become your ‘unicorns’

Reporting live from Connect, our two-day search event in Miami, here’s the second in a series of posts summarising a few of our sessions, covering either organic engagement or paid search innovation.

Yesterday, we heard from the awesome Larry Kim from WordStream, the most influential PPC expert for three years in a row and a man who can rattle through 156 fascinating and incredibly helpful slides without taking a breath.

What’s the current landscape of PPC?

Well, it doesn’t look great. As Larry says, “We’ve had a good run. It’s been 15 years, but there are headwinds on the horizon.”

And those ‘headwinds’ are…

1. Paid search CPCs are at an all time high, across Google and Bing.
2. Certain verticals are insanely expensive.
3. Mobile is responsible for 50%+ of all Google searches.
4. There are fewer ad spots on mobile.
5. Apps are stealing from desktop searches, people are just opening a Yelp-type app and searching within there.
6. 95% of time online is spent consuming content, but only 5% are actually searching for it.

WordStream’s @larrykim: 95% of time online is spent consuming content but just 5% searching for it. http://pic.twitter.com/fqBl6Dpii4

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) February 4, 2016

But there is a new power rising in PPC: social media ads.

Social media ads

PPC marketers should pay more attention to social ads. Don’t be sceptical about this, because we can move far beyond the ‘like campaigns’ from a few short years ago.

The key to future social ads success is to focus on ‘assisted conversion’; using paid social ads to indirectly assist organic posts.

Social ads do fantastically well. They allow you to build up and amplify your brand, and create demand for your products or services.

Here you need to create content and “amplify the crap out of this stuff” in a very cheap manner and target the right people who will consume it.

The other thing that social ads do fantastically well is they can convert visitors into customers really easily, because you can filter users into very accurate demographics and remarket to a very narrow segment of those people.

As Larry says, “when you get this working, it’s like printing money.” And here’s the major reason why you should be doing social media ads…

Big ad budgets are not required. You can do extremely well with paid social ads for $50 or less.

Use paid social ads like a firestarter or an accelerant. You don’t have to spend much. @larrykim #sewconnect http://pic.twitter.com/VFW3gpqYjK

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) February 4, 2016

Social media ad tips

Be aware of Facebook’s relevancy score. The higher the post engagement of the thing you want to promote (minus negative engagement – hiding it, reporting it as spam), the higher your relevancy score, and the more often your post will show.

Incidentally, Twitter copied the above exact process with its ad campaigns, they just called it a ‘quality adjusted bid’. Of course both of these have ripped off Google’s ‘quality score’ anyway, so fair enough.

The key to you ads appearing often on social is getting high engagement and increasing your quality score.

In order to achieve this, you must only promote your best stuff. The top 1% – 2% of your content, as Larry describes it, “Your unicorns.”

Because they’re so rare and wonderful.

One example from Larry is a tweet of his, sharing a blog post he wrote about Alphabet (the new parent company for Google). Although this initially got a low 2-3% engagement rate, Larry then promoted it to influencers who had used the #alphabet hashtag in the previous seven days.

The tweet then increased to a 27% engagement rate, generated 2,100 visits, 348 retweets. All of this using just $49.

The worst thing you can do is divide your social ads budget equally between every post and promote them all equally. Again, pick your unicorns. Also don’t try promoting something this month that didn’t work last month, it won’t work this time either.

How do you find your unicorns? Larry uses the following ‘pyramid’…

Please enjoy @larrykim‘s Organic & Paid Social Sharing/Posting Pyramid Scheme diagram #sewconnect http://pic.twitter.com/bVrBMGhQ2Z

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) February 4, 2016

“This pyramid scheme won’t land you in prison.” In fact it will help you see which posts have worked organically, and it’s these ‘winners’ that you’ll promote on social channels. Like you’re ‘auditioning them’.

It’s easy to find which social posts are the best because Facebook and Twitter lets you see how well they’ve performed in their own respective analytics tools, easily accessible from your page’s menu.

Larry goes on to say that the biggest difference between using paid social and organic social is your own ‘pickiness’. Organic posts are you casting a wide net, whereas paid is you casting a narrow net, but hopefully vastly increasing your engagement.

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25 useful metrics for content marketing success

Content marketing has been widely adopted but how are people measuring whether it works or not? Which metrics should we be looking at?

The answer to that last question will depend on the business and its goals. Measuring for its own sake is pointless, it has to align with business goals.

With this in mind, I’m not going to tell you which metrics are most important, but will simply present the various metrics you could use.

The basic (obvious) content metrics

These are perhaps the most obvious and often easiest things to look at, and can be found with Google Analytics (other analytics platforms are available of course).

Pageviews

Simple enough. How many views did your article, video, infographic etc attract?

It’s a good measure of popularity and indicates whether your content has hit the mark, especially in comparison with other pages.

If the aim is to build an audience and measure popularity, or to convince advertisers, it works.

However, if your goals are different, pageviews will only tell part of the story.

If you’re targeting a specific audience, the number of people viewing your content is less important than whether the right people are. 

For example, I could write a piece of clickbait on Kanye or Trump (don’t worry, I won’t) and attract 100,000 views.

However, would it help Search Engine Watch? Would those visitors become regular readers or decide to attend our events? I doubt it.

Users

This can be more precise than pageviews as views can be distorted by other factors. Dirty tricks like pagination for instance.

Sessions

This was previously known as visits in Google Analytics and refers to a single visit form a user, and may include them viewing several pages.

Bounce rates

I’ve covered bounce rates in more detail previously, but basically it tells you the percentage of people that left a given page on your website without viewing any other pages.

It’s a good general measure of whether your content is successful in sending traffic to other, perhaps more valuable areas of your site, if that is the purpose of the content.

What constitutes a good or bad bounce rates depends on the nature of the content and the business goals.

Average time on page

This is a metric I like to use, and it’s relevant for a publisher like SEW. We aim to produce useful content that people will find useful.

If we write a detailed article, and people take the time to read, that suggests it worked well and that the topic was interesting. This can them inform future decisions on content.

For example, this article on internal linking has and average time on page of 4 minutes and 6 seconds, which is higher than the site average.

It suggests that at least some people found it useful (I hope).

Visitors viewing multiple pages

Unless your content’s goals can be met with one pageview, then you’re likely to want your content to lead people to another page. Perhaps to sign up for a trial, make a purchase, or download a white paper.

There are a few ways to measure this, but I use a custom segment which filters out the visitors which view three or more pages.

So, for the article mentioned above, we can see how many viewed that and went on to view other pages on the site, and compare this with other pages.

New and returning users

If the aim on your content is to attract new visitors, then this is the metric for you.

Traffic sources

Where is the traffic coming from for your content? Are you targeting social users, or perhaps search traffic?

Which sources deliver the ‘right’ visitors? Which work over time?

Engagement and social metrics

Some of these metrics can be found on Google Analytics, for others there are plenty of useful tools (free and paid) to use.

NB – the bounce rate, time on page and page depth metrics described above could easily fit into this section too.

Social shares

Now that Twitter has killed share counts, third party tools are the easiest way to find this data.

Here’s the most shared posts on SEW from the past six months, shown on Buzzsumo.

Not the same as the most popular posts though. It’s interesting (and useful) to note the differences.

Shares by content length / type

Which kinds of content hit the mark on social? Do longer posts work better?

Who is sharing your content? Are you reaching influential users?

Look into the detail – are you reaching people who are likely to amplify the reach of your content?

Are you reaching people whose profiles match your target audience?

Number of comments

While a lot of opinion around articles is now expressed away from the site, the number of comments on a post can still give an indication of whether the content has hit the mark.

Quality of comments also matters. Are people having an intelligent discussion around the points raised by the article, or are they just insulting each other? Hopefully the former…

CTR

Are people clicking through from your content to the relevant pages? Sign up forms, lead generation forms etc.

Comments / references to your content

Is your content working from a PR perspective? Are other sites and sources picking up on your content and mentioning your brand?

Search metrics

SEO goals are part of content marketing, so it’s important to see what effect it is having.

Search traffic

You’ve launched a content-driven campaign, or perhaps a blog. Is it driving more search traffic over time?

Keyword goals

If you are using content to improve rankings for certain terms, measure how the content moves the rankings, and which pages are being returned for them.

Link building

Is your content attracting links? Which content attracts links from the best sources?

Is it evergreen?

Are you producing evergreen content that delivers traffic and leads over time?

This may require more effort and investment, but it can pay off more handsomely.

Brand metrics

These are harder to measure, but remain important.

Branding

Does the content help to promote your brand? Do people recall your brand? Do they have a favourable impression?

Reputation

What are people saying about your content and brand? Social monitoring tools, surveys etc can provide some insight here.

Content perfomance

Does your content drive sales and leads? Does it move the bottom line? This is the ultimate aim of content marketing, whatever the goals.

Direct sales

Are people clicking through from your content and making a purchase?

For example, Repair Clinic produces content relevant to people’s repair issues which ranks well in Google and leads visitors to pages like the one shown below.

How many are actually making a purchase?

Leads

Are people signing up for test drives, calls for more information, visits to showrooms etc?

Increasing conversions

Did the content you added at a certain part of the sales funnel increase conversions?

It could be better product page copy, or even a piece of micro-content explaining form fields.

Email subscribers

Does your content help to build you email list? This may not deliver an immediate return, but it contributes to email marketing ROI.

ROI

How much did the content cost to produce? How many sales or leads can you attribute to it?

This is the ultimate measurement, though outcomes which can’t be easily quantified should be considered.

For example, if the content helped to build awareness of the brand or increased sign ups to emails, then this may deliver a return on the investment long-term.

Which metrics have I missed? What works for you? Let me know below and I’ll add them to the list…

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An absolute beginner’s guide to setting up Google Analytics for your website

This article was originally published on our sister site ClickZ, but it’s so helpful we thought we’d share it here too.

Our beginner’s guide to Google Analytics teaches you how to set up an account that is linked to your site and recommends a few basic metrics to look at.

Google Analytics is a free service that tracks and reports website traffic. Providing insight into the demographics of site visitors, the performance of a specific campaign, and how long people are staying on your site for, are just a few of the many things the program is capable of. 

This data gives you an all round better view of how your site is doing and allows you to understand what improvements can be made to make sure you’re optimizing different areas for maximum conversion. 

In the below tutorial, we will walk you through some basics of Google Analytics and what you need to do in order to get started.

Set up an account

If you have a major Google account such as Gmail or YouTube, you are eligible to create a Google Analytics account by following the below instructions.

This account should be only accessed by YOU. Of course, you can authorize other people to act on your behalf if necessary. However, you will not want them to take full control over your data.  

For example, ClickZ has granted me access to the company account, but I cannot change account and property settings. This is done to protect the publication and ensure that if I leave, other admins will still have access to the overall account.

In comparison, I can do whatever I want with my personal Google Analytics.

Add tracking code to your website

Google Analytics cannot work until it is linked to your webpages. When you finish setting up a new account, Google will ask you to “Get Tracking ID.” Click on the button and you will see your code.

You can always go back to your tracking information under “Property.”

This code needs to be added to every page. How to install it depends on your content type. For instance, some Tumblr templates only require the Universal Analytics (UA) code, as show below.

While some blog platforms like WordPress may ask for full script, if you build a website with HTML files, you can edit HTML and paste the code before “</head>”. 

Today many websites like ClickZ are using Google Tag Manager to implement tracking code.

Manage your site search

Once you connect Google Analytics with your website, you can set up site search to know what visitors are looking for on your website.

In “View Settings,” turn on site search tracking and enter your website name and URL. The query parameter is usually “s” or “q.” You can determine yours by searching on your own site.

For example, if you enter “mobile” into ClickZ’s search bar, you will see s= (ClickZ’s query parameters) followed by your query.

You can also contact your company’s web development department to identify the query parameter for your site.

After you save all the settings, Google Analytics will be able to track any searches made on your website.

Goal set up

Aside from site search, you should also set up a goal so Google Analytics can track important activities on your site. For example, an e-commerce platform may trigger a confirmation page for every placed order, or a digital publisher may create a “Thank You” page when a reader subscribes to its newsletter.

To set up a goal, go to “Goals,” create “New Goal,” and choose “Custom” under “Goal setup.” Then go to “Next Step” where you can name your goal (“Subscribe Success” for example) and select “Destination” if an activity ends on a “Thank You.” If your conversion goal is one step further and you’d like your visitors to watch a video clip after they have reached the Thank You page, then you can add “Event” tracking to your goal set up in order to measure this. 

Each goal type has its own requirements and can be customized to what your own KPIs are. In the example of “Subscribe Success” below, I decided to forego “Destination” and go straight to “Event” in order to measure conversions. 

Google Analytics will start measuring conversation when a described activity is triggered. You can create up to 20 goals on your website.

Basic Google Analytics metrics

You can customize many Google Analytics reports based on your needs. But in “Audience Overall,” you can find some basic yet useful stats around your website.

Take our sister publication Search Engine Watch (SEW) for instance – you can view positive changes in pageviews and sessions from last September to date. Hovering over the line will show you the number of pageviews and sessions for a particular day. (We’ve erased some of the data below as we don’t want to give away all our secrets!)

Under the graph, Google Analytics tells you more about the number of users, bounce rate, average session duration, as well as the ratio of new visitors to returning visitors.

Beneath those main metrics, Google Analytics also shows demographics of SEW’s readers, including their countries, languages, and devices where they consume content.

Other more in-depth metrics include audience report, acquisition report, behavior report, and conversions report. For example, once you have linked social media and Google Analytics, you will be able to track a particular social media campaign and get related stats under “Acquisition.”

We hope you’ve enjoyed our first installment of Google Analytics for beginners. Stay tuned for the next in the series soon!

from Donald Jarrett digital marketing news http://ift.tt/1nGzxr6 via transformational marketing
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