Events as Goals

One really useful new feature is the ability to add Events as Goals in Google Analytics v5 - in turn, this allows you to import Events (as Goals) into AdWords, and track them as you would with your other conversions.

First of all you need to set up event tracking around those actions on your site which don't lead to a unique URL; typical examples include static URL forms; mailto links; document downloads; and video interactions. You can then choose to track these events as goals; note that you can match all PDF downloads for example (by matching at the Event Category level) or set up seperate goals for each specific PDF download (by matching at the Event Label level): 

Importing these non-URL based goals back into AdWords gives you extra conversion data with which to identify the keywords and ad copy that is working for you; as well as identifying and taking action on those that are not. Remember, you want to track all useful visitor interactions; not just the all-important sale or form completion.

Matched Search Queries

This gives you information on what visitors actually searched for to get to your site (rather than which keyword their query was matched to, as with the Keywords report). This gives you an even more granular level on which to identify the types of keywords that have high bounce rates, or that have great goal completion rates - again more data to help optimise your account. As we always say, more data equals better decisions. 

If it ain't broke...

Remember, there are several incredibly useful reports in Google Analytics dedicated to AdWords which can help you today:

• Campaigns report - real top level stuff; this lets you see the usual engagement metrics, e.g. bounce rate and goal conversion rate at campaign level. Don’t forget that it’s possible to drill down into specific ad groups, or add in secondary dimensions if you want to understand ad copy by ad group for example. Whenever you look at AdWords campaigns/ad groups/keywords in GA, it will compare their engagement metrics with the site average as in the screenshot below:

If PPC is kicking the site average's butt, then shout about it!

• Keywords report - you can also see the same metrics by keyword (e.g. bounce rate); giving you extra leverage if you have been desperate for a new landing page – particularly given the new developments in AdWords quality score recently 
• Hour of day - View your PPC campaign performance by hour of day, or by day of week (or hour by day by day of week for those interested in performance at 3pm on Tuesdays across a given date range…)
• Landing pages report - a dedicated report giving you stats for your landing pages; very useful when combined with 'keyword' (or ad copy / ad group) as a secondary dimension
• Display campaign reports - you can get data at a very high level (placement vs. automatic targeting stats) or drill down into individual URLs and see bounce rate, goal completion rate or percentage of new visits by this dimension. Another very useful feature to help guide your Display campaign optimisation
• Keyword ad positions report - see your visits, bounce rate, goal completion rate and more by ad position for a specific keyword. This report is particularly useful if you have a couple of very high traffic keywords in your campaign as getting the ad position right will be crucial in making your PPC a success.

Finally, an honourable mention to every analyst's best friend, the weighted sort function, which has found its way back into v5. This applies when you are sorting by percentages and lets you weight that sort by the number of data points, allowing you to see much more interesting data. So, rather than seeing dozens of rows of one page visits with 100% bounce rate, you can see pages with a large amount of visits that have a relatively high bounce rate.

Now - if something there hasn't sparked something for you, you're either an accomplished data ninja or in the wrong game. For the ninjas amongst you, we'll soon be writing another post about other GA reports that you can use to analyse your PPC so check back soon. 

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