Google AdWords & Microsoft AdCenter Reporting

Creating pay-per-click reports in Google’s AdWords and Microsoft’s adCenter allows you to monitor your budget by tracking how much you are spending overall and on each campaign. You can also monitor conversions and evaluate your ads and keywords performance, to gain insights on how best to optimise your campaigns.

Report data is customisable and can be scheduled to run automatically if you regularly need to run the same report; however the process of running report data is different for AdWords than it is for adCenter. The following is a quick guide on how to run reports from each;

Google AdWords

1. Choose Your Campaigns

Once logged into your AdWords account, to run a campaign report you need to ensure you are in the campaigns tab both in the top menu and the sub menu. You have the option to create filters to view certain groups of campaigns; this is found in the ‘filter’ button just below the sub menu. Alternatively, you can run an individual campaign report by selecting the campaign you want to view from the list on the left-hand side.*

2. Choose Your Metrics

To choose which metrics you would like to be included in your report, click the ‘columns’ button (found next to the afore-mentioned ‘filter’ button), and simply add and/or remove metrics from the list and click save.

3. Set the Date Range

You need to ensure that you are looking at the time range you require, you choose this with the date ranges in the top right of the page.

4. Set Graph Metrics (optional)

You also have the option to change the metrics displayed in the graph by clicking on the graph symbol next to the columns button and choosing your desired metrics from the two drop down menus.

5. Set up Scheduling (optional) and Download Your Report

Finally, with all your settings in place, you can download the report by clicking on the download symbol, found next to the graph symbol. The menu which comes up allows you to choose your file name and format, and gives you the option to schedule the report to run automatically in the future. Once ready, click the ‘create’ button.

*You can run reports for ad groups and keywords in the same way by selecting the relevant tab in the sub menu. For all ad groups or keywords, ensure you have selected all campaigns in the list on the left hand-side, or you can run these reports based on filters or for an individual campaign as before. The dimensions tab allows you to run data by time segments, i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, yearly etc.

Microsoft adCenter

1. Reports Tab

For adCenter, reports are run from the reports tab in the top menu. Once in the report centre click on the ‘create new report’ button which will direct you to the settings menu for your new report.

2. Choose Report Type and Date Range

Under ‘basic settings’, you can choose the type of report you would like to run, for example, a keyword performance delivery report or an age and gender targeting report. You choose the time segment and date range here too.

3. Choose Your Campaigns and Metrics

Under ‘advanced settings’, you can choose whether you want the report to cover all accounts or you can select certain accounts, campaigns or adgroups. You are also able to change the columns and layout of the data tables to display the metrics you are interested in by clicking ‘change columns and layout’ and adding or removing the metrics on the menu which drops down.

4. Set up Scheduling (optional)

The final ‘templates and scheduling’ section allows you to change the name and format of your report and choose whether you want to schedule the report to run automatically in future.

5. Create Your Report

Once you have finished the settings click the ‘create new report’ button.

Summary

Both adCenter and AdWords allow you to look at analytics data within your ppc account, allowing you to see the location your visitors are coming from for example, or to see not only how many conversions there have been, but also the type of conversion completed (e.g. a registration or an uploaded CV etc).

Reporting is certainly simpler to do in Microsoft adCenter with everything in one place (which as a beginner I certainly appreciate!), it’s just a shame there isn’t nearly as much data to look at compared to in AdWords, as Google dominate the search engine market.

Google Docs Keyword Traffic Tool

I’ve just started to play around with some of the more advanced functionality of Google Spreadsheets to import data from other services such as Adwords and Analytics and one of the experiments left me with a little tool that will pull in the traffic a keyword has received each month for the previous 12.

I’m sharing this mainly to see if there are improvements that can be made so I would welcome your ideas, opinions and feedback.

Before we look at how the tool works let’s set it up.

The Spreadsheet

You can get the spreadsheet tool here. But you’ll need to create your own copy so you can change the settings and keep the data private.

http://bit.ly/rZzW2k

Within the document is a sheet named ‘Settings’ where we’ll need to input the login details of your Google Analytics account and the source and medium for the traffic data you’d like.

I’ve included a key to show examples of medium and source settings but by default it’s set to call organic visits from Google.

Add Profile ID Keywords

Firstly you’ll need to get the profile ID for the analytics profile you wish to get the data from. Once you’ve selected it from the profile view the ID number will appear in the address bar  you’ll want everything after the ‘p’.

Finally, replace Keyword 1, Keyword 2 etc. with your desired keywords.

The Formula

I’ve used the following formula to pull in the Google Analytics data from the account we’ve specified in the settings sheet. Hopefully by breaking it down you’ll be able to not only understand but improve it and get around some of problems the limitations I’ve found.

=getGaMetric($B$6,”visits”,B17,C17,CONCATENATE (“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5,”;ga:source==”,Settings!$B$6,”;ga:keyword==”,A10))

=getGaMetric()

Tells Google Docs what the formula is to do, in this case it will request metrics from a Google Analytics account.

$B$6

The cell that holds the analytics profile ID

“visits”

The metric we wish to fetch

B17,C17

The start and end date of the period we wish to call data for

CONCATENATE()

I was unable to write a formula that could pull in the keyword automatically and fetch the data without doing it in fragments. I would welcome your ideas on improving this.

“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5

Fetch visitor data where the medium by which they arrive exactly matches the value in cell B5 on the settings sheet.

“ga:source==”,Settings!B$6,”

Fetch visitor data where the medium set above is true and the source exactly matches the value in cell B6 on the settings sheet.

“ga:keyword==”,A10

Fetch all the data that matches the medium and source specified where the keyword matches exactly the value in cell A10.

Issues

Data Can Be Slightly Off

It’s logical to think that as the data is being pulled directly from Analytics the figure outputted should match exactly the figure given within the Analytics interface yet it seems to always be less, albeit by a small amount.

It’s possible that Google Docs works on a different time zone to that set within the analytics account but I’m unsure.

Too Many Requests

I’ve only included 4 keywords as 4×12 months = 50 requests for analytics data at any one time. This seems to be the limit as if you add anymore it returns an error.

Does anyone know if 50 is indeed the limit or if there’s a way to get around this?

Changing The Year

This method requires a start and end date be specified for the data you wish to collect, hence the table January to December. Is it possible to have the year held in a separate cell and pulled in to make the date valid?

I have tried this method and while it’s entirely possible to concatenate two cells to give a valid date format the getGaMetric function does not seem to like it.

Here’s the spreadsheet again – please get in touch if you find it useful or have any suggestions on improving the usability.

Yahoo! Provoke Summit | Internet Week, London 2011

I attended ‘Has the Digital Age Forgotten the Art of Storytelling?’ at the aforementioned, Yahoo Provoke Summit, yesterday 8th November at the Hospital Club. It was held as part of Internet Week Europe and offered some useful insight into how the creative industries were engaging within the digital arena.

The presentation was opened by Krane Jeffery, Head of Yahoo Studio, the new creative solution from Yahoo developed to complement their editorial and advertising service and is said to provide effective brand building campaigns.

Andrew Cracknell author of ‘The Real Mad Men’ followed with some great examples of how story telling over the last 50 years has delivered some persuasive advertising campaigns, which would still stand as commercials today. His argument however was that the cleverness of the web and digital advertising platforms has distracted from the art of storytelling. He went on to say that the key to great creative advertising is persuasion. He explained that creatives need to remember it is not about what ‘they’ want to create but what they ‘need’ to create in order to make sales. A great point that often gets lost in the excitement of new technology developments and new ways of interacting with customers.

The panel consisted of Cracknell and Jeffrey joined by Paul Kemp-Robertson, Co-Founder of Contagious Communications, Richard Morris, Deputy MD of Carat and Anrick Bregma, Interactive Director of unit9.

Each of the panellists were asked to showcase their favourite examples of digital storytelling. During this process, a key argument was raised and directed to the panel, “Where is the storytelling in the examples of digital work presented today? It seems that you are offering free stuff in return for interaction, not storytelling”.

This led to an uncomfortable and awkward response from the panel but Kemp-Robertson tried to address the question. It seemed to me that the question was put forward to address the need to engage with users in the digital age. You need to give the customer what they want and often an incentive fulfils that. However Cracknell’s response clearly stated that there was a fundamental error with the approach here. Advertisers should not be asking what the customer wants – they should be using the art of storytelling and creative advertising to persuade, this is how it has always been and perhaps what is missing in digital. People are trying to be too clever with the tools available rather than meeting the objectives.

On a day to day basis I have to understand how search, social and creativity can work together in harmony so though an interesting debate followed, I felt there was no conclusion. I find it hard not to work to the end result of generating more sales or enquiries as everything is so measured and perhaps this is where the crossover falls. Digital marketing could focus on storytelling and persuasion, but if it isn’t generating results then it is time to try something different.

Google Caffeine Gets An Upgrade

Google seems to be on an update frenzy at the moment what with the SERP integrated website blocking feature being rolled out, the secure search roll out to logged in users and the new Google Analytics features announced over the last few months (and there are many more!). The latest change is in effect an upgrade to the caffeine release that occurred last year – Google’s latest attempt to ensure search results are as fresh and relevant as possible.

Caffeine was designed to crawl, index and display results faster than ever before and is estimated to have affected around 17.5% of search queries, but the latest update (yet to be given a catchy nickname) is said to affect around 35% of all search queries.

So what kind of search queries will be affected by this change?

From Google…

• Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.
• Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you’ll see the latest information.
• Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.

It’s worth noting that Google has not renewed its agreement with Twitter which expired in July this year, something that limits Google’s ability to crawl the most up to date index of new and popular content on the web (although Google says this is only delayed by minutes rather than hours).

How Will it Affect Me & My Website?

As a website owner creating content relevant to the types of searches mentioned above you may see pages indexed faster and traffic arrive in a shorter space of time. Of course it’s possible your page will be ‘flushed out’ as newer pages are crawled and indexed so while it may be tempting to pump out targeted and spammy content to get the ‘quick wins’, the wins won’t last long and that content will soon sink down into the lower results pages never to be visited again.

Quality content combined with a lucky break through the new algorithm changes will mean your content will get noticed and the long term benefits will be worth the extra effort!

Block Websites From Google Search Results

A new feature of Google we’ve noticed recently is the ability to block sites from within the search results – further extending the personalised search service that Google gives its users. While this feature was officially announced in March 2011 it’s the first time we’ve seen it in the wild so we thought we’d include a walkthrough of how the feature works.

Step 1: Enter your search query and go the results

Step 2: Click on a search result – I went with animatedknots.com

Step 3: Press back on your browser to return to the search results and you’ll see the following fade in from red to blue:

Step 4: If you click the link you’ll either be asked to log in or you’ll see the following:

And that’s it – I will never see results from animatedknots.com again! I of course have no problem with this website and have removed the block.

What does this mean for website owners?

It’s no secret that Google is on a march to stamp out bad content from appearing in its search results as the Panda updates show, but this is giving people the ability to filter their own search results based on their own personal tastes and opinions on what constitutes relevant and quality content.

As a website owner it means that low quality content is going to be subject to blocks from logged in Google users. While this isn’t a significant percentage of Google users it is a percentage that’s likely to increase.

Could this affect my SEO?

As with most things Google do, it’s hard to say for sure what the real intentions are but it’s not unreasonable to imagine Google penalising websites that have been voted down by many of their own logged in users and I expect it won’t be long before we start hearing about examples of this.

Google Secure Search Announcement Affects Website Owners Data

On Tuesday October 18th, Google announced on their official blog that over the next few weeks visitors to Google.com who are signed in to their Google account will be redirected to a secure version of the search engine (SSL Search) as found here:

https://www.google.com

Amy Chang from the Google Analytics blog said:

“As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users…”

“…This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet café.”

What Does This Mean For Website Owners?

Currently when a user visits your website through the organic search results the search query used to find your website is recorded in your analytics package. This data is often used to identify the phrases that contribute to sales or goal conversions on your website which can then be used in marketing activities to grow sales further – this is especially true in regards to SEO where the focus is improving rankings on these keywords. It’s also useful in identifying pages on your website that attract visitors with certain search queries but causes them to bounce.

For example a visitor may arrive using a query that is perfectly related to the content of the page but if the term or a variation of it is not immediately obvious on screen it may cause people to bounce, despite it being precisely hat they were looking for.

With the new changes starting to take affect this data will no longer be available where a visitor meets the criteria above. Instead this data will be grouped under “(not provided)” within Organic Search Traffic Keyword reporting.

Currently the changes only affect a small number of Google users that search through Google.com rather than regional versions such as Google.co.uk however it is likely to be rolled out to all signed in users in the coming weeks.

FAQ

How much of my analytics data will be affected by this?
The percentage of your visitors data that will be affected by this change in the short term will depend on the percentage of your visitors that arrive through Google.com, however even when completely rolled out Google estimate less than 10% of that traffic will be affected, even when .co.uk users are redirected to the secure search.

Will this change be rolled out to non-logged in users?
While Google has not said as much there is speculation that this will be the case as it was with personalised search results that moved from being exclusively for logged in users to all users in December 2009.

Should the changes be rolled out to all Google users it will result in the search query data currently available becoming completely unavailable for visitors arriving through organic search.

Will Bing, Yahoo! & Ask organic data still be available?
Yes, this change only affects traffic arriving from Google properties; however it’s important to keep in mind that Google’s UK share of the search market was 90.78% in October 2011 compared to 3.7% for Bing and 2.5% for Yahoo! so data is likely to be sparse and not necessarily reflective of the search queries that convert from Google.

Is there an alternative source for this data?
While there is not another source for the data in its current format you will be able to access the search query data that is supplied by Google Webmaster Tools through your Google Analytics account. At present this data is only held for 30 days and is not associated with ecommerce of goals data.

Will this affect data collected from AdWords?
No, only organic search data will be affected. All keyword data that is currently available for Adwords will remain available.

Which analytics packages will be affected by this?
All analytics packages will be affected by these changes, including but not limited to:

• Google Analytics
• Adobe Omniture
• WebTrends
• ClickTracks

Will this change the way SEO is carried out?

If secure search is rolled out to all Google users as discussed above, it would mean a change in the way SEO is carried out as the data available to help with developing effective strategies will become limited.

Data gleaned from Google AdWords will become increasingly important in this scenario and the quality of a website, both in terms of content & usability will become even more important than before. While such a scenario would pose problems for website owners looking to carry out SEO, it simply poses new problems to be solved and almost certainly they will be solved with the kind of well rounded, forward thinking and holistic strategies that that practicing SEOs who adapt will be able to provide.

However it’s important to note that this is speculative at the moment and while it’s important to think ahead, it is equally important not to get carried away worrying about what might be. For now you should keep practicing SEO as you always have but keep monitoring the announcements that Google makes and be prepared to change as required.

What Can I Do To Prepare?

Retroactively analyse your data
While it’s still available it’s important to go back and look at historic analytics data which will give you an idea of the keywords that drive sales and those which could with improvements in rankings, something many of you are no doubt doing anyway.

If you’re a retailer you should be especially interested in the seasonality of these keywords so you can co-ordinate your marketing with this.

Learn from AdWords
As previously discussed this data will still be available for AdWords traffic so make use of this data wherever possible to guide you on making marketing decisions. Keep in mind that the paid search keywords shown in Google Analytics are the keywords set in the campaign and not the actual search query used by the user. That data is available from within your AdWords account.

Integrate social sharing ability to your website
Google has made no secret about its desire to move away from the link trust model it currently uses to rank web pages for search terms as it is open to manipulation. Over the last year or so new ranking factors have been introduced that look at how popular a page is on Twitter, Facebook & Google+ and this is set to become an ever more influential in time. If the keyword data available is going to be reduced it makes sense to get any head start you can and having a strong social presence is important.

Make Google+, Facebook & Twitter most prominent, and if desired include social bookmarking sites but hide them to avoid clutter.

Social Media Advertising Diversifies As Revenues Rise

New post by Reggie James looking at the growth in Social Media advertising platforms and how Digital Clarity can leverage their contacts and years of experience to help guide companies through an ever increasing and complex maze.

Read it here - http://www.reggiejames.org/

New Google Analytics Features

It’s been a busy time for those of us that live inside the reports of Google Analytics. The last few weeks have seen great new features being rolled out to help website owners and marketers get a better understanding of how users arrive and interact with a website. I’ve provided a link to each of the original posts which will provide more in depth information of each,  I suggest going through and reading them but let’s take a top level view for now.

Google Analytics Real-Time

Announced September 29th, this was a real ‘oh, wow’ moment for me. Still in beta, this feature lets you see how users are interacting with your website right now, and while it lacks some more advanced features I would like to see (Real-time ecommerce tracking for example) it’s still insightful and slightly addictive!

If the new feature is available to you, you’ll find it under the ‘Home’ tab on the left hand side navigation. If it’s not, you can apply for early access here.

Please note that you’ll need to be an administrator of the account to access this data.

Check out the original post

Google Webmaster Tools Integration

Next up we were given the ability to integrate Google WMT with Analytics which can be accessed in the left hand menu shown here. This was announced October 4th.

For those familiar with Google WMT the data here is nothing new but the ability to see it from within your analytics account certainly streamlines the process when you’re digging deep and trying to understand problems.

You’ll need to be the administrator on both the Google Analytics account and WMT account to connect the two but otherwise this feature is available to all.

Check out the original post

Google Flow Visualisation

Flow visualisation is a powerful new feature that was announced by Susan Wojcicki and Phil Mui at the Web 2.0 Summit, October 19th and gives website owners and analytics users the ability to see users flow through their website with easy to understand graphical visualisations.

At the moment the feature provides two basic report types; visitors flow and goal flow but you’re able to apply any advanced segments you’ve created to them.
Of all the new features announced to date, this is by far the most useful to those looking to maximise the ROI seen from marketing activity, so I’d strongly recommend checking out the original post over on the official Google Analytics Blog.

The visitors flow visualisation can be found on the left hand side navigation under the visitors section. You can find the Goal Flow visualiser in the Conversions > Goals section of the “Standard Reporting Tab.”

Check out the original post

But wait, I don’t see these new features!

As all of the new features discussed here are so new, it’s going to take a little time for them all to be rolled out to every analytics user so it’s possible you’re yet to see these available in your account. Sit tight but keep an eye out and trust me; they’re all worth the wait!

Why the U.S. Is an Important Market for Digital Clarity

In the recent turmoil of the financial markets and talk of deficits and debt, many investors and advertisers, brands and agencies alike, are looking at new markets.

The BRIC economy’s always feature when people talk of new markets and expansion. The BRIC market, Brazil, Russia, India and China are definitely exciting and expanding markets. The need and adoption of digital service has been growing steadily over the last few years.

Also, no one can doubt that to ignore these markets would be commercial suicide as in time; these regions will be the new powerhouses of the future. Though all the above is true, lets take a step back and examine the situation and more importantly let us not ignore something that is right under our nose.

For all their massive populations and middle classes, fact is China and India are still maturing. Their growth is being tempered by global markets and the power of the US dollar. The companies setting up there are from the west and the brands that are being consumed are in the main, luxury US and European brands.

When everything is weighed up, the creative services market is centred in the US From Hollywood to Universal Music, the creativity of the US market is hard to beat. The growth of Social and Digital platforms are no different. Whether you are a ‘Google’ or a ‘start-up’, the talent comes from tech and media hubs in California & New York.

This is why Digital Clarity is currently seeking offices, talking to partners and slowly raising its profile in both the East and West coasts of the US.
Digital Clarity’s DNA runs deep in the interactive arena and after reading numerous reports about the growth in the digital economy in the US, it made sense to ramp-up activity in New York first and support the work that has being going on in the background with Fiona Bloom.

This exciting development will be kicked off by a forthcoming visit to NYC and then followed to pursue interest that has also been expressed by a number of parties in LA and San Francisco.

Recently a report by Forrester Research highlighted that U.S. interactive marketing spending will reach $76.6 billion by 2016. According to the report, search and display will continue to be the biggest pieces of the interactive spending pie, comprising 44% and 36%, respectively, in 2016, though search will have lost share from 55% in 2011. Mobile paid advertising and search will experience astronomic growth and are surpassing email and social this year.

Digital Clarity is firmly in this space and whilst keeping one eye on the BRIC market, the prospect for growth by a ready-made company to work in a ready-made market, the US looks promising.

Power Is Nothing Without Control

Music is a powerful force. Augmented to video and strong imagery it becomes even more so. If one adds Social into the mix, then it goes beyond power and into a new realm. Understanding this power and harnessing it is the next stage of evolution within the entertainment industry.

Read Reggie James’s new blog post here http://www.reggiejames.org/