Google Search Query Reports are worthless! Take action now!

I have noticed over time that the information contained in Search Query reports are becoming quite limited in the actual details they provide.

I have an attorney client that I have to use broad match on, and the cost of clicks range from $7-$23.

I just ran a search query report dating from Jul 16th-21st. The report states there were 46 clicks. Out of the 46, 30 of them were reported as "other unique queries" That is over %65 of the clicks not reporting what search term triggered the ads. The other 35% that were reported were all appropriate, so according to that report... no adjustments needed to be made.

***That's only if I had relied on that report!

Luckily for my client, I have HitTail installed on his website. HitTail was developed for culling long tail keywords for organic search, but just recently realized how useful it can be for PPC.

HitTail is a javascript snippet you install on each page of your site, and it tracks and reports in real time the referrer of visit to your site. If it comes from any type of search, it includes the exact keyword in the report.

This allowed me to reference the same timeframe of the Google search query report. The HitTail report showed me that there were only 39 referrers of the 46 reported by Google. It also showed me the other 65% of the search terms that Google did not show. Guess What?? They were crap keywords with the majority of them being completely inappropriate!

Isn't it odd that Google wasn't able to report them? Had I not been able to rely on HitTail, I would've never known to add those other terms to my negative keywords list.

The discrepancy in clicks also told me that there were clicks with no referrer and/or some double clicks. Both of those are signs of click fraud.

Speaking of click fraud, I need to mention that HitTail is useful identifying it inREAL TIME!

On July 5th, around 11am, I checked into the same client's account. The Adwords control panel reported that there had already been 6 clicks, with 3 of them being $20+. When I checked HitTail, it had only reported one click, and it was for a much cheaper keyword phrase! This let me know in real time that something phishy was going on.

Sure enough 2 days later I was able to confirm this. Analytics had only tracked one PPC click, and the location was reported as (not set). This campaign was geo-targeted to a specific city in NC, and the weblog reports were showing 2 China based IP's, 1 from NY, and 1 from California.

For phone tracking purposes this site is used only for PPC, therefore it is not indexed in the natural results. This way I know any search engine traffic reported is paid for. The campaign runs in Google and Search network, but is not in the content network. Any traffic generated to this site without a referrer is suspect! Knowing it's happening in real time is a lot easier then trying to sniff it out 2-3 days later when reports are made available.

Another useful feature for those who use phone tracking/call recording, you can use the real time report to see which search queries actually turned into a phone call.

If you are using broad or even phrase match, you owe it to yourself and/or your clients to save some serious CASH!!! Sign up for HitTail ASAP at http://www.hittail.com

The free version is sufficient for the purposes I have described, but they do offer a paid version with more features.

 

Yes the google search query report sucks and is pointless.

I like to use opentracker or statscounter depending on expenses

I will look into this hittail as well

 

there's always a way to find exact keywords without paying a dime...
see:
http://www.apollosem.org/nude-adwords-keyword-data-exposed-with-google-analytics/

 

wow, that is awesome. I appreciate you sharing it.

do you know if it's possible to add a time stamp on it? if you can, the only thing that HT can beat is the real time reporting. I know that's not necessary for every market.

 

open tracker is time stamped and is real time reporting