Last Updated on 2020-12-31 by ppcguybklyn
Google Analytics is one of the most commonly used digital marketing tools. In addition to being Google’s own online traffic analysis tool, its free version has quite powerful features.
Google Analytics is also a very important analysis channel for advertisers who manage PPC ad accounts. This article will analyze what you must know when using Google Analytics as an advertiser, and how to use this tool to make your ad campaigns more effective.
Why look at Google Analytics data?
If Google Ads and other advertising platforms present the data completely in the backend, why should we spend time looking at the data on GA? Many people may have this question.
The reason is that in addition to advertising performance data, there are still many factors that influence advertising effectiveness that we can’t see on the advertising platform, and the most important of them I think are the following two:
Understand the behavior patterns of visitors after clicking on ads
The advertising platform can tell us how many people have seen the ad before clicking the ad, and it can also tell us how many people have converted after clicking through. But in the process from clicking the ad to completing the conversion, visitors are likely to be affected by various reasons and choose to leave the site.
Just looking at the conversion rate of the advertising platform, there is no way to understand why visitors choose to leave without converting. To clarify the behavior patterns of visitors after clicking on ads, we must use the traffic analysis and conversion flow analysis functions of Google Analytics to know which step of the conversion process the visitor is most likely to bounce.Then modify the content of the website based on the analysis.
In-depth analysis of the characteristics and usage habits of targeting audiences
For PPC advertising or social advertising to perform well, it is necessary to find the most accurate advertising audience, so that there is a way to get the maximum revenue at the least cost.
Google Analytics provides a lot of information about user characteristics and usage habits, such as geographic location, gender, device used, and time spent on the website, etc., which can help us effectively find the right customer group and adjust the target of the advertising campaign.
What are the benefits of viewing PPC performance on Google Analytics? ?
In addition to being able to view the performance of paid traffic in traffic analysis, we can also link Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts together so that we can view our advertising performance on GA. Some people may think that this step is redundant and it is better to look at the data directly on the advertising platform, but we need to do this for three reasons:
Some data is only available in Google Analytics
Some important traffic analysis data that can be used to improve advertising performance, such as bounce rate, average session duration, etc., can only be viewed on Google Analytics.
Generally speaking, the bounce rate of website traffic obtained through paid advertising will be high, and the session duration will not be too long, but we can still judge whether visitors are interested in our advertising content based on these data and test other versions of ad copy and landing page to find a combination that can lead to higher conversion rates.
Understand the difference between paid traffic and other traffic performance
In addition to adjusting ads based on Google Analytics data, it is also very important to observe the performance of paid traffic from the perspective of the entire website.
We can use GA to compare the performance of paid traffic with organic traffic and other traffic. For example, if other traffic can attract conversions, but the conversion rate of paid traffic is low, we can probably know that the advertising itself needs to be strengthened. On the contrary, if the performance of paid traffic is much better than other traffic If so, it means there is room for improvement in website content, SEO and other digital marketing methods.
Advertising performance is affected by overall conversion rate
Even if our PPC advertising structure is perfect, the performance of the advertising is still limited by the design of the website and the landing page itself. In other words, if the overall conversion rate of the website itself is very low, paid advertising is difficult to have a very prominent performance. This is why we need to use Google Analytics to view the overall performance of the website. If the conversion rate of the entire website can be improved based on GA analysis, paid advertising will be more efficient.
Why is the Google Ads data different from the Google Analytics data?
This is another problem that beginners often encounter: the click and conversion data in the Google Ad advertising backend is different from that of Google Analytics. The main reasons for this situation are the following two:
Different ways of calculating traffic
The Google Ads click calculation method is very simple, as long as the visitor clicks on the ad, it counts as a click. The traffic calculation method of Google Analytics is determined based on the interaction between different users and the website, so the data will be different.
Use different attribution models
Both Google Ads and Google Analytics provide the function of using different attribution models. If the two use different attribution models, the recorded conversions will be different. So when comparing the data gap between the two , You must first determine whether the two use the same attribution model before they have the same comparison benchmark.
How can I use Google Analytics data to make my ads perform better?
The last and most important point is, how do we use the data and analysis of Google Analytics to make our ads perform better? I think we can start from the following two points:
Design better landing pages and websites
As mentioned earlier, advertising performance is affected by the overall conversion rate of the website, so if we want better advertising performance, we have to set up a better landing page and website content based on the data we see on Google Analytics. Once the overall conversion rate increases, the effectiveness of the ads will be better.
The most direct and effective method is to first use Google Analytics to find out the ad pages or conversion steps that the most visitors bounce, and then design different versions to perform A/B tests to observe the changes in conversion rates and find the most efficient design version.
Find more accurate advertising audiences
The ultimate goal of PPC advertising is to find the most accurate advertising audience and design advertising content for them that can attract their attention.
The user characteristic analysis function of Google Analytics can help us better understand the characteristics of website visitors. For example, if our advertising content is US e-commerce related, it is very likely that advertising to the entire country of United States will be too costly.We can use Google Analytics to find the state or even the city that can provide the most conversions, so that we can greatly lock the scope of small ads and improve the efficiency of ads. We can also use Google Analytics to find the age, gender, and device used to provide the most conversions, and apply these characteristics to network and social advertising.
Conclusion
Although advertisers spend relatively little time on Google Analytics, it does not mean that this tool is unimportant. As long as the right methods are used, the benefits it can bring to PPC ads are extremely positive.
So if you are a newbie in advertising, in addition to being familiar with your own advertising platform, I think it is also indispensable to be familiar with the operation and analysis of GA.
(Original Post inShelly's Adventure)
