Whether you’re managing a Google Ads campaign yourself, or paying an agency to do it for you, it’s essential that you understand what return you’re getting on your investment.
But measuring this isn’t always easy.
The first thing you need to do is define the objective of your campaign, whether that’s enquiries, ecommerce sales or brand awareness. Once you know this, you can identify the information you need to determine the campaign’s ROI.
- Objective: New enquiries
If the enquirer completes a form on your website then you can accurately track whether it originated from a Google Ads click. It’s less easy to identify the source of email and phone enquiries, though if they click/tap to email or call you then tracking is possible. If people phone or email in another way, or simply walk in through your front door, it’s very difficult to accurately identify whether they originated from a Google Ads click.
- Objective: Online sales
With the vast majority of ecommerce systems is easy to track the source of each sale, so you should have very accurate data about the revenue generated by your Google Ads. It’s important to review this data on a per-product basis, as your adverts for some products may be performing excellently, while others need further optimisation.
- Objective: Brand awareness
It’s simple to track visitors to your website who arrived via a Google Ad. You should also be able to report on the visitors’ ages, genders and locations, to give you a good indication of whether you’re increasing brand awareness among the right people.
Even when tracking Google Ads should be straight forward, issues can still arise. Many tracking methods rely on cookies, which are increasingly being rejected. One of the purposes behind Google’s new Google Analytics 4 package is to circumvent this problem and provide accurate conversion reporting without cookies.
User behaviour can also cause problems. People often need thinking time before enquiring or making a purchase. While most tracking systems will recognise users when they return to your website, if the gap is too long (more than a month or two), or they use a different device when they return to make their purchase, you won’t be able to associate that action with the original Google Ads click.
At Open Door Digital we can manage your Google Ads campaign to achieve the maximum return on your investment. Visit our website to find out more.