Paid media, PPC (pay-per-click) ads… whatever you want to call them, online ads are a hugely important tool to help your business grow. From display and shopping ads to paid video content, a well-run PPC campaign can transform your company’s fortunes, attracting new customers from across the globe.
Anyone can set up a paid media campaign, but it takes knowledge and experience to make a success of it. And when your company’s money is on the line, making a success of your ad campaign is all-important: the last thing you want to be doing is throwing money at a campaign that doesn’t perform.
What’s the key to running a successful paid media campaign, then? Well, besides having the expertise to set things up correctly in the first place, the most important aspect is knowing how to track the performance of your campaign – and how to make ongoing adjustments as and when they’re required.
Just like an SEO campaign, a PPC campaign is a living, breathing thing. You can’t expect to set it up and leave it alone for years to come. If you want it to perform at its best, you’ll need to keep a close eye on its performance and make tweaks regularly.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of key metrics to keep an eye on once you’ve got your campaign up and running. Bear in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive list – Google Ads and other similar platforms allow you to track dozens of different metrics in a variety of ways, so you can really dive into the data if you so choose.
Available on a number of platforms, including Google and Meta ads, quality score (or quality ranking) is a crucial metric to keep tabs on. In a nutshell, it uses an algorithm to score your ads based on how relevant they are to your target audience. The quality score is important for two reasons: for one, it gives you a clear indication of how well the ad is likely to perform, and it can also result in a lower cost-per-click (more on that later) and more favourable ad placements.
Speaking of ad placements, average position tells you exactly that – the average position of your ad in search results compared to others competing for the same terms. The average position of your ads is partly determined by the quality score, but also by your bid amount. Naturally, the higher your ad is positioned, the more people are likely to see it. If you manage to score position one or two, you must be doing something right!
How many times users were shown your ads. Naturally, the higher this number the better, but a discrepancy between the number of impressions and the number of conversions could indicate that your ad isn’t well-optimised.
This metric takes your ads’ number of impressions and compares them against your competitors, giving you a clear picture of how visible your campaign is versus those of your main rivals. This is a particularly vital metric if your main objective is to build brand awareness; if your impression share is low, you might not be bidding high enough or your ad’s content might not include the right keywords.
We don’t need to explain this one or tell you how important it is. You should always keep an eye on the volume of clicks your ads are receiving and examine how this statistic changes over time; if you make any alterations to your ad content and generate more clicks as a result, you know you’re going in the right direction.
Calculated by dividing clicks by impressions, click-through rate is one of the most widely referenced paid media metrics out there. It’s a great way to assess the effectiveness of your ad’s content in just a single number. The higher your CTR, the more convincing your ad’s content is. If you have a high CTR but a low conversion rate, it might not be your ad that’s the problem, but the landing page you’re linking to.
How many conversions your ad has generated, be it purchases, email signups or any other conversion action you’ve chosen to track. Again, the higher this number, the better your ads are performing.
This metric adds a little context to your conversion numbers, showing you the percentage of ad clicks that turned into sales or signups. This is perhaps a more insightful statistic, as it demonstrates not only the effectiveness of your ads (in terms of their ability to pique user interest) but also how well your landing page is performing. After all, even if you write the most compelling ad copy out there if your landing page falls flat, so too will your conversion rate.
The average amount you pay for each click your ads generate. Improving your quality score can help bring this number down, allowing you to reach more potential customers for less.
CPA is much the same as CPC, but instead of measuring how much you’ve paid per click, it measures how much you’ve paid per conversion. In a world where ROI is king, it’s vital to keep tabs on your campaign’s CPA; the lower this figure, the more efficient your campaign is at turning users into customers.
The top dog of PPC metrics? We’d say so. ROAS simply shows the amount your campaign has generated versus how much you’ve spent on it. The higher this figure, the better the ROI for your paid media campaign. If you’re running multiple campaigns, ROAS is the perfect way to tell, at a glance, which ones are performing well and which ones aren’t.
Need a helping hand with your paid media campaign? With more than 20 years of experience, we can make sure your ads convert day after day, month after month. That’s exactly what we did for Corinthian Sports, reducing their cost-per-lead by 70% and generating a 91% top impression share via Google Ads. If you’d like us to do the same for your business, get in touch today.
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