Google Analytics Archives

Google Ads: Best Basic Practices

Morgan Moresco on March 24, 2023

Written By: Danielle Gazda

What Are Google Ads?

Promoting businesses and products through Google Ads is one of the most effective ways to increase conversions, revenue, and meet business goals. Google Ads, also known as Google AdWords, makes building campaigns easy through automation and machine learning, but there’s still some work you need to do first to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

From knowing what information to add to your client’s (or your company’s) website to understanding the nuances of Google Ads’ abilities, here are some best practices for optimizing your campaigns.

Best Practices for Google Ads

The Website

Know that Google Ads has specific requirements for websites advertising on its platform. Some are fundamental, such as offering unique products or services, the website owner being over 18, working directly with the owner of a site (or the owner’s company), and not displaying any copyrighted material. A website must also be at least six months old and have a certain amount of traffic already going to it.

Lesser-known Google Ads requirements involve having technical pages — such as an About page, a Contact page, and a Privacy page — included somewhere on the website. These pages need to be well-defined and hold appropriate information, including a refund and return policy (even if it just states that you do not give refunds or do returns) and information regarding using and selling customer information.

Conversion Tracking

By adding UA or GA4 tracking code to the pages of a website, you’ll be able to track all conversions from Google Ads, no matter the specified landing page.

Whether you add a UA code or GA4 code to a website depends on the platform you’re using. Google has step-by-step instructions on how to find the right tracking code for a site in the Google Ads account page.

Ad Tools and Assets

Google Ads offers a number of tools and assets that can increase the performance of your campaigns.

Keywords

Group keywords into ad groups by topic, feature, or item to help Google build comprehensive and relevant Responsive Search Ads. This type of ad automatically pulls relevant descriptions, headlines, and creative assets based on what you supplied and the search query that’s prompting the ad.

Landing Pages

Landing pages must make sense alongside the keywords to be served and drive conversions. Whether it is a website’s home page, an About Us page, a specific product, or a specific service, make sure they are correct for their ad group.

Ad Extensions

Utilize the tools available to you, including sitelinks, callouts, calls, prices, and promotions, that will provide the searcher with options and relevant information that can lead to a higher conversion rate.

Performance Metrics

Weigh performance and metrics against your industry’s benchmarks when starting new campaigns. These industry benchmarks will help you make adjustments to your campaigns by experimenting with everything from descriptions to ad extensions. You may also find that you’ve surpassed industry benchmarks with your campaigns.

For example, one of 270M’s real estate clients maintained a cost per conversion that was 64% lower than the industry benchmark throughout a campaign. The conversion was for a tenant application being filled out for an upscale new development in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

Another example is a wholesale vendor client of 270M that maintained a click-through rate that was 75% to 100% higher than the industry benchmark for a hyper-targeted campaign for specialized produce wholesalers.

270M is proud to be a Google Partner. We earned that distinction by proving that we consistently had at least a 70% optimization score for all of our clients’ accounts and managed at least $10,000 in ad spend over the course of three months. Additionally, 50% or more of our account strategists demonstrated proficiency in Google Ads by earning Google Ads certifications.

By following these best practices, you can optimize your Google Ads campaigns and achieve better results for your clients.

How to Utilize Google Analytics for Your Business

Morgan Moresco on August 24, 2022

By: Danielle Gazda

Google Analytics is a free website traffic tracking tool. It takes user information gathered from each page of your website and compiles it into reports that help you analyze it. You can discover demographic details, bounce rates for each page, and much more. Most importantly, this information allows you to make better-informed decisions about products and user experience.

You can also connect your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts to combine user engagement ad campaign data with website data.

Get Started with Google Analytics

Here’s what you need to know:

Tracking Code

After you’ve created your account, Google Analytics will provide you with a piece of G4 tracking code that you’ll need to embed on each page type of your website. This is what enables Google Analytics to gather user data from your website.

The Hierarchy

Here are some primary terms to know after you’ve set up your Google Analytics account.

Account- Having an account is mandatory. You’ll provide some general information that relays what type of company you have.
Property- For each account, you can determine “Property,” which can either be a website or an app. If your company utilizes multiple websites or a website and an app, they will have to be set as separate properties. They will each receive their own unique G4 codes. You can combine data later in Reports.
View- Under each property, you’ll need to set up your “Views.” These determine what data Google Analytics looks at and pulls to process into reports. Limiting a View too much will result in missing information. Always keep a view of “Raw Data,” which contains no limiting factors, and another view that excludes internal company traffic and bots.

Once this hierarchy has been established and code embedded, you can run Real-Time reports to see the metrics coming in. However, you won’t be able to generate accurate reports until after a few days later — it takes some time to gather enough data to make meaningful reports.

Also Read: What is Social Commerce? What are Shoppable Posts on Social Media? How Can my Brand Implement These Strategies?

Dimensions and Metrics

Now we get into how to read the data you’re seeing in reports. Most of it is broken down into Dimensions and Metrics. These are the different user variables Google Analytics learns about and reports on.

Dimensions- Dimensions are categories of demographic information. This can include the browser and device being used, landing and exit pages, as well as specific user information, like location and customer type.
Metrics- Metrics are the quantifiable data that is collected. This includes information about sessions, session duration, page views, conversions, bounce rates, and numbers of new and returning users.

You also can make custom dimensions and metrics if there is specific data you want to see that are not standard options Google Analytics offers.

Reports

There are five different categories of reports: Real-Time, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions. Each report has an overview and then provides various breakdowns of the information.

Real-Time Reports provide you with insight into what’s happening on your website at that exact moment. This report won’t be used often. It’s good for checking performance when you implement new filters to ensure everything is running properly.
Audience Reports allow you to go deeper into the difference between new and returning users. It digs into demographic, geographic, and behavioral information. These can help inform your ad campaigns as you learn what your audiences are interested in.
Acquisition Reports break down traffic by the source. A source is what brought your user to your website. It includes organic, direct, referral, email, social, paid search, display, affiliate, and (Other).
Behavior Reports provide you with information about how users interact with your website. Some basics are Landing Pages, Exiting Pages, Page Speeds, Search Terms, as well as sessions and events.
Conversions Reports share user behavior as it relates to e-commerce business goals. First, you’ll have to establish goals in Google Analytics. These goals can include newsletter subscriptions, adding products to cart, completing an order, or making an account. If your website is for e-commerce, this will be important to set up.

Previous Post: Five Ways TikTok Can Help Grow Your Business

Conclusion

Google Analytics is a great tool for any business with a website, whether it’s a company site, e-commerce site, blog, or any combination of these. If you have goals for how users will interact with your website, Google Analytics provides detailed reports about users and their behavior to help you optimize your website and ad campaigns.

Would you prefer to have a team manage Google Analytics setup and reports for you? 270M can handle all of your digital marketing needs. Contact us on our website, or email us at info@thisis270m.com.