5 Reasons Why PPC Specialists Should Learn Google Analytics

With the typical sponsored search campaign returning two dollars for every dollar spent in Google AdWords, more and more businesses are recognizing the advantages of paid search. A planned sponsored search campaign requires a lot of thought and planning—after all, you want to ensure that your campaign budget is being used as efficiently as possible. As a PPC professional, it's critical to regularly analyze data and generate reports from your PPC campaigns, and if you haven't already, it's highly advised that you use Google Analytics (whether on its own or in conjunction with other analytics tools).

Here are some of the many advantages that Google Analytics offer PPC specialists.

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1. The Ability to Link AdWords and Google Analytics Accounts

If you’re a PPC specialist working on ads for Google, then you already have an AdWords account. While your AdWords account alone can provide some useful data, you also have the option to link your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts together, which can offer maximum insights. In addition to seeing site and ad performance data, you can also import essential metrics, such as session durations and bounce rates.

In a recent announcement from Google, the AdWords name will soon disappear in an effort to streamline, which won’t change any processes for users. They’ll simply be referring to Google Ads in place of AdWords.

2. Landing Page Performance Tracking

As a PPC specialist, picking the right landing page to go with your paid search campaign is crucial. After all, this is what potential customers will see when they click on your ads. With Google Analytics, you can monitor landing page performance to see what pages are doing well and which ones aren’t. If some landing pages have a high bounce rate, for instance, you can choose to try a different landing page for your next paid search campaign, or work on improving the current landing page.

3. Attribution Tracking

In some ways, paid search campaigns can have an impact on organic search as well. Although organic search may not be your department, also monitoring this type of traffic can offer some valuable insights for current and future AdWords campaigns. Plus, when reporting to executives about the value your team brings to the table, it’s important that you paint a full picture around your team’s efforts and its return on investment.

4. Multi-Channel Funnels Reports

When you link your AdWords account to your Google Analytics account, you can easily view reports generated through multi-channel funnels. Because not all conversions happen directly from a paid ad, these reports are extremely valuable to a PPC specialist, because they follow a customer’s journey and their sequence of interactions that lead up to a conversion. A multi-channel funnels report can show you if a paid ad was the first touch point for a conversion, even if they revisited the site and became a paying customer later on through another digital channel (i.e. social media, a referral website, etc.)

5. Data for Remarketing and Dynamic Remarketing

When you execute a PPC campaign, you want to be selective about the investment you’re making, and ideally only have your ads displayed to consumers who are more likely to make a purchase. You can increase your chances of conversions by re-engaging people who already showed an interest in your service or product before. By linking your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together, you can generate data reports that allow you to create remarketing lists for future PPC campaigns. For example, you can use the data to target people who performed specific actions (such as adding merchandise to their shopping carts, but never followed through with their purchases.)

You can also kick it up a notch by using your Google Analytics data for a dynamic remarketing campaign. Unlike non-dynamic remarketing, this type of remarketing uses additional data and metrics for retargeting, such as a specific product that a customer was looking at.

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