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Welcome back! Our most recent article was a comprehensive guide to setting up UET, tracking key events, and even discussed how to integrate it with other Microsoft Advertising features. So, what comes after that?
Now that you’ve set up your Universal Event Tracking in your Microsoft Advertising account, of course, you’ll need to analyze the insights you receive. By taking a look at key metrics, you’ll be able to evaluate the performance of your campaigns and optimize them.
Read on to learn how to mine the data gold!
A good place to start is a set of key metrics typically used to gauge the health of PPC campaigns.
Some key metrics to consider include:
By identifying trends and patterns in your data, you can make data-driven decisions for campaign optimization.
PPC has many metrics. Some are more important than others, but they are still pieces of the analysis puzzle. Your key metrics will allow you to optimize your campaigns and scale your account.
Not a mathematician? Don’t worry, many marketers aren’t, but these calculations can even be plugged into a spreadsheet.
Calculated by dividing conversion by clicks, this metric lets you know whether or not your ads have convinced your visitors to complete your goal action. Conversion rates under 1% suggest you’re not reaching the right people or delivering the right message.
Is there a mismatch between your ads and your landing page? If not, then you should evaluate your landing page and conduct a/b tests on common elements like copy, calls to action, and imagery.
Are you using your website? Try another page to see if it yields better results.
What should your goal conversion rate be? We’d aim for 5% – 10%.
To find this, divide the total cost by the total number of conversions. This metric lets you know whether or not you can afford your conversions. Cost per click (CPC) is one driver of this number, but not the only one.
What should you do to lower it? First, take a look at your CPC. Is it high? You can use Search Engine Land’s benchmarks to better understand this.
You can lower your CPC by improving your keyword quality score and pausing high CPC keywords.
Another place for improvement is your ads. What does your click-through rate (CTR) look like? Is it less than 1%? You should make changes to your ads if it is. If you have a high conversion rate of 5% or higher, it’s probably not your ads.
At this point, you should look at your conversion rate. Is it high or low? If it’s low, you should try to improve that. If it’s high, then you will need to pare down anything that’s not bringing in conversions. Too many non-converting keywords or audiences will raise costs.
Return on ad spend (ROAS) is ad revenue divided by total cost. You can calculate ROAS for the whole account, just one campaign, one ad group, or any particular grouping (within mathematical reason).
ROAS can be determined for both lead generation and ecommerce accounts. You just need the revenue from ads, which may involve tracking leads from ads to signed contracts.
How do you know what a good ROAS is? You need to know what break-even is for you. But, it should be at least 100%.
A ROAS of 500% or more is a fantastic goal for most companies.
Search impression share lets you know how many people you are reaching (or missing out on for that matter). Search impression share is the comparison of the total number of impressions you had the potential to receive.
You may be wondering why this is important. First, it’s an indicator of whether or not your ad budget is high enough. Second, it tells you how many eyeballs you might be missing out on. It’s about scalability. Ideally, most advertisers aim for search impression shares of 70% or more. They really want to capture as much of the available impressions as possible.
There are a few steps to this. You should add the columns IS lost to budget and IS lost to rank. These metrics will show you if it’s a budget issue or a rank issue. Generally, you’ll find it’s a combination of both.
First, you should make sure your keyword quality scores are good. Now, check your ad strength and ensure that it’s ranked at average or better. The higher you make this, the more likely you are to improve performance.
Then use the Campaign Bid Landscape to see how adding more budget will affect performance. It’s very likely that you’ll end up adding to the budget.
UET insights will help you in much the same way Google Analytics does (or…did? Touchy subject right now?). Microsoft will automatically update your tag and you’ll be able to see helpful metrics like:
These metrics will help you understand how visitors are interacting with your site, and where you need to improve. You’ll also get helpful information about page speed, cart abandonment, click interactions, scroll interactions, and more.
The additional information will help you see where your ads are working, and where there’s room for improvement. For example, when users stop at the payment page of your cart, it will allow you to ask if there’s anything hindering them in proceeding to the next step.
While some metrics are important for measuring success and optimizing your campaigns, others are vital to knowing the overall performance of your website once someone clicks from your ad to the site and the demographics of who is visiting.
By reviewing your UET Insights, you can better understand what people do on your site. Do they click around or bounce immediately. How does this correlate with your conversion data? What devices are they using and where do they live? All of this information will allow you to make improvements to your site and improve your conversion rate.
As you can see, without data you’re flying blind. Data from UET can be used in various ways to optimize both your campaigns and also your website. Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a powerful tool from Microsoft Advertising, but it’s nothing if you don’t consider the insights it provides, and how best to leverage those insights for the benefit of your campaigns. Without action, data is just… well… data.
We love talking PPC and spend most of our time chatting with agencies, so if you have a question please do drop us a line!
Also, Adpulse comes with a 14-day free trial, and right now the first month is only $19.99/mth, so it’s a low-risk way to try it for yourself. Sign up now!
