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

You should check out conversions before you do the optimization. I will show you how to do this in another post.

The first keyword has clicks on Yahoo and MSN. However Google shows zero clicks. Find out the problem on Adwords

You now know why you should test increasing bids during unseasonably good weather–read the previous post if you don’t know why. However there are local exceptions. Yesterday I caught the middle of an interview on the BBC. The interviewee explained that whenever there is good weather in Iceland, people take time off from work. If this is the case–increasing bids may not help since no one will be online.

Good weather can influence the success of your Google Adwords campaign. However you may have to turn your strategy upside down in Iceland. Photo credit: Martino!

Further proof that localization should be part of your Google Adwords, MSN and YSM ad campaign strategy.