Google Analytics Pivot Chart is the Best Kept PPC Secret
Running PPC campaigns in 3 search engines has its challenges. There are many 3rd party pay per click management solutions to help, however Google Analytics can do many of the same reports.
One of the biggest challenges is to make sure all 3 campaigns are targeting all the important keywords. The best way to analyze this is to have a chart which compares the traffic for all 3 search campaigns by keyword.
How the Pivot Chart Optimizes PPC campaigns
- In Google Analytics go to Traffic Sources > Search Engines and click on paid
- On the left drop down go to Keyword
- Click on the pivot icon – the 2nd from the right
The pivot chart should be part of your pay per click analytics routine when using Adwords, Bing and Yahoo
- Compare the numbers across the search engines
- If you see a zero in one search engine you are probably missing that keyword or underbidding—because the other search engines shows clicks
- Next step is to go and optimize those ad campaigns
- Find out if you:
- Forgot to add this keyword to Adwords
- If the bid is too low
- If there is another reason the keyword is not showing
The first keyword has clicks on Yahoo and MSN. However Google shows zero clicks. Find out the problem on Adwords
You should check out conversions before you do the optimization. I will show you how to do this in another post.
Tags: Adwords, Bing pay per click, Google Analytics pivot chart, pay per click campaign management, PPC campaign management, YSM
July 14th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I guess it also throws up any anomolies such as Yahoo getting more traffic than you think. can this technique add facebook in as well?
July 14th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Yes it will work with Facebook and other sources such as Linkedin and Busineess.com. Just make sure it is tagged properly to differentiate from non commercial clicks. And instead of viewing through “Search engines” on Google Analytics go to “All traffic sources”