As an SEO agency, many clients hire us either to build or improve their Pay Per Click campaigns. One of our favorite things to do is analyze pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine marketing (SEM) data to see what is and isn’t working.
If you’re running PPC ads then the last thing you want to do is waste your money on ads that don’t work. To ensure your money is making a real impact, you need to measure how effective your ads really are.
You must track your results to determine what worked, what didn’t, and what you can do to have better outcomes in the future.
Performance indicators are different for every campaign. We’ll walk you through a wide variety of various campaign metrics and measures, carefully describing each one so you can have a better understanding of how it could affect the ads you are managing.
What is PPC?
Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a kind of online advertising in which the advertiser is charged a fee each time one of their adverts is clicked.
When PPC is appropriately implemented, the fee is low because each click is worth more than you are charged. For instance, if you spend $5 for a click and the click generates a $1000 transaction, then you have made a nice profit.
PPC ads can be composed of text, graphics, videos, or a blend of these, and they come in a variety of sizes and forms. They can appear on websites, social media platforms, search engines, and more.
One of the most well-known types of PPC is search engine advertising, commonly referred to as paid search or search engine marketing.
When someone searches for anything related to their product or service, it enables marketers to compete for ad placement in the sponsored links of a search engine.
Before you measure your PPC metrics
Before you even think about measuring your PPC metrics, you need to create a standard to accurately assess the effectiveness of any ad you put on the internet.
The most essential baseline information to collect are:
- How many people visit your website each day, week, and month?
- How many fresh phone calls, emails, form fills, or communication do you usually receive?
- How many people subscribe to your email list?
- How many people follow you and enjoy your pages overall?
Depending on the sorts of PPC ads you’re running, some of these marketing metrics, such as social media followers and email subscribers, may seem extra, but it’s always useful to be aware of any improvements your search engine marketing (SEM) ads may be causing.
Key Metrics to Measure PPC Campaign Success
Impressions
Impressions are the total number of times your advertisement was seen on the chosen platform. One impression is recorded each time your advertisement is displayed. Impressions are an excellent first step to determine if your campaign has been set up correctly, despite being a wide statistic that frequently requires less investigation.
The number of impressions received divided by the total number of impressions available is a basic formula for calculating impression share.
The total is represented as a percentage and is an excellent method to compare your campaign’s performance to that of your rivals.
Your impression share and quantity of impressions are mostly influenced by two factors:
- Ad Rank – Naturally, if your ads fall below the first page of results you won’t receive as many impressions, since consumers are less inclined to search deeper than that. It would be worthwhile to evaluate your whole campaign to see if any quick wins may push your advertisements back up the search results and see an increase in impressions. Various variables could affect a decline in ad rank, such as quality score and max CPC.
- Budget – If your campaign’s budget is limited, your ads will eventually cease appearing in search results, which means you’ll miss out on daily impressions and the opportunity to obtain worthwhile clicks. You should consider raising your daily budget to remain competitive.
Conversion
The most crucial PPC success metric is conversion monitoring, which helps you to match ad campaigns with overall company objectives. Form completions, online transactions, and phone conversations are some of the frequent conversions beneficial to your business.
Conversion monitoring offers further visibility into how customers engage with your website after clicking on an ad and detecting which keywords and ads are most effective at generating valuable customer activity.
Consider the following strategies to boost your conversion rate:
- Ad groups – Make sure each set of ads is focused on a specific item, deal, or service by organizing your ad groups. By making smaller ad groups, you should concentrate on particular keywords and ensure your message is appropriate to the target audience.
- Campaigns for remarketing – A remarketing campaign enables you to show ads to people who interact with a particular landing page. Segmented lists may be used to build and display ads that specifically target a given conversion activity.
Cost-per-acquisition
Cost-per-acquisition, often known as cost-per-action or CPA, calculates how much you must spend to convert a customer. The amount of ad clicks necessary before someone converts are used to calculate CPA.
Not every click on your advertisements will result in the necessary conversion action. CPA is typically far higher than cost-per-click. Managing CPA well can help you correct campaign expenses and increase return on investment.
Here are some methods to lower your CPA:
- Custom ad scheduling – Look into CPA performance by using past PPC data. With this knowledge, you can adjust your advertising timetable and raise the strength of your ads.
- Improve landing pages: Your ads must connect to the landing page on your website that is most related to the user’s search. To make the conversion activity as simple as possible for a visitor to use, take into account the entire user experience and employ strategies like call-to-action buttons.
Click-through-rate
The term “click-through-rate,” or CTR, refers to the ratio of clicks on your ads to total impressions during a set time. For instance, if your campaign generated 100 impressions in a month and 10 clicks on your ads, your CTR rate would be 20%.
You can analyze how successfully your ads are connecting with your target audience by combining clicks and CTR. To assess the relevance and usefulness of your messaging, you can explore the CTR of particular ads in addition to getting a clear overview of campaign success.
The following are strategies that can help you increase your CTR:
- Calls-to-action: Review your campaign and make sure that every ad has a clear call-to-action (CTA). To improve performance, aim to apply just one CTA for every ad.
- Create urgency by using special offers or persuading language in the headlines of your ads to persuade your target audience to click on your ad rather than that of your rival.
Revenue on ad spend (ROAS)
ROAS compares the income your campaign earned to the entire amount of ad spend.
By comparing the income percentages of various PPC campaigns, ROAS enables you to assess how effective they are.
The greater the ROAS, the more top-line income your PPC campaign will provide for your company.
We suggest you target higher-value customers with your sponsored ads and group them to send the relevant message to increase ROAS.
Average position
Average position compares your ads to other ads that are competing for the same keywords. Your offer amount, quality score, and searcher intent all have a direct effect on your average position.
The effectiveness of your campaign is directly impacted by how well your ad or listing is ranked. It grabs viewers’ attention faster and gets more clicks.
An ideal SERP position is first or second on average. Bidding more is a smart strategy to go up the SERPs, but be careful to stay within your budget.
Conclusion
For any business, PPC campaigns are an integral component of driving revenue. However, the campaign’s success is determined by many factors that contribute to and subtract from ROI.
It’s therefore critical for established and small businesses to be able to measure the efficacy of their PPC ads so that they can continually refine and improve their efforts to stay competitive.
