PPC tips and advice

Google launches AdWords Search Funnels

At the end of March, Google announced the launch of AdWords Search Funnels, a new series of reports made available to advertisers that provide a greater insight into the ad click and impression behaviour on Google that leads up to a final conversion – such as a sale, contact enquiry or newsletter signup.

The new Search Funnels reports are being rolled out to AdWords accounts over the next month or so and are more detailed than the information previously shown about a conversion, which just mentioned the details about the last search term and advert used before the conversion occurred. Now advertisers can see when customers perform multiple searches before finally converting and also show the full picture by giving an insight into the ads customers interact with during their shopping process. With more advertisers trying to track the 'attribution' of a final action, Google is adding a new level of data to try to explain this process.

Google is tracking activity by searcher over a 30 day period, so that it can link previous activity to an eventual conversion. Using a similar report format to Google Analytics, the following reports are now being made available to AdWords advertisers:

• Overview – shows the total conversions; average days to conversion; average ad clicks to conversion; and average ad impressions to conversion
• Top Conversions – gives the number of conversions for each particular conversion type and the value of those conversions (if being tracked)

Sources Analysis

• Assist Clicks and Impressions – shows results based on the number of assisting clicks and impressions, as well as those just from the last click. This means that the keyword was clicked upon, or the impression was shown, on the path to a conversion, but wasn't necessarily the last click or impression that resulted in a conversion.
• Assist/Last ratios – helps to identify keywords that might be more valuable than they appear from a last click perspective, i.e. they might have been instrumental in getting the conversion, but wouldn't otherwise get the credit they deserve, as they weren't the last click. The best way to confirm the assist value of a keyword is by testing it to see if increased bid levels yield improved ROI.
• Assisted Conversions – as above, but performance based on the number of assisted conversions.
• The difference between Assist Clicks vs. Click-Assisted Conversions - the easiest way to understand this is via an example. For a conversion path like: keyword 1 (clicked) > keyword 1 (clicked) > keyword 2 (clicked) > conversion
  keyword 1 would earn 2 Assist Clicks, but only 1 Click-Assisted Conversion.
  The same definition applies for the difference between Assist Impressions vs. Impression-Assisted Conversions.

Interaction Analysis

• First & Last Click Analysis – these reports are based on what was first clicked leading to conversion, or was last clicked prior to a conversion in terms of each campaign, ad group, or keyword. The reports are designed for advanced analysis of conversion paths by being able to drill down into the next hierarchy from campaign level.
• Top Paths (clicks, impressions & transitions) - shows the most common conversion paths based on ads that were shown and/or clicked prior to conversion.
• Click paths - represent the sequence of keywords that were clicked by customers prior to converting.
• Impressions paths - are useful for exploring the breadth of related keywords customers were searching for prior to converting.
• Transition paths - are useful for seeing conversion paths that consist of different keywords and how customers transition between keywords.

Time Analysis

• Time Lag – shows how long it takes for a customer to convert from the first click, first impression, or last click on your advert.
• Path Length – details the percentage of conversions that had a certain number of clicks, or impressions before them. e.g. 1 click 20%; 2 clicks 30% etc. If the majority of conversions happen after multiple clicks, the next step is to identify opportunities to take action using the other reports.

As shown above, the range of different reporting options are now much more extensive and also quite complex. Advertisers therefore need to understand what the data is showing and how it has been tracked. However, this change will allow advertisers to analyse keywords far more effectively and will help with one of the biggest problems companies have when trying to filter out 'research only' terms from 'buying terms', since research terms like 'fashion' or 'cruise holidays' or 'TVs' are often very broad. So through these AdWords funnels, advertisers can now identify which keywords are for research and which keywords are the money terms and develop a strategy accordingly.

This article was first published in the April 2010 edition of our monthly newsletter.

If you'd like more information about how Google's new Search Funnels could improve the marketing of your business, please contact us. Alternatively, please request a FREE website assessment and see what you could achieve with a successful search engine marketing campaign.