After spending the last month trying to learn/understand Adwords, I finally have complied a month's worth of data. Would anyone mind critiquing these numbers and offering advice on any improvements I should make? Thank you very much! Clicks - 955 Impressions - 130,419 CTR - 0.73% Avg. CPC - 0.86 Cost - 825.1 Avg. position - 4.7 Avg. CPM - 6.33 Impr. share - 13.60% Exact match impr. share - 60.82% Lost impr. share (budget) - 7.78% Lost impr. share (rank) - 78.62% Edit: Using Automatic bidding
The ctr and the number of impressions is obviously for display network, if you've got search bundled in with display, then every figure is more or less meaningless as they are so very different. Whether or not 0.86 is a good avg cost depends on the niche, and the profitability of each click - the only figure that really matters is ROI - return on investment.
Judging from your ad position your quality score is not very high(or your bids are relatively low). Improving it will help you reduce your costs in the long run, if you achieve a higher click through rate.. Also you will notice that one of your campaigns is limited by budget. As Magda said these figures do not really mean much anyway. Obviously, separating your Display and Search campaigns and dealing with each of them separately will allow you to achieve better results. There is a bigger question though. And it's this: what are you planning to achieve with your campaign? You can obviously improve your campaign results but ultimately what happens on YOUR website is what makes the difference.
I'm guessing (hoping) the numbers above are campaign level numbers. If so, they carry VERY little useful information. you need to be looking at these types of numbers at ad group and most importantly, keyword levels. Make sure each ad group is laser focused, that the ad is super relevant to the keywords in the ad group(keywords in ad title, text, maybe even display URL), that the landing page is relevant to the keyword phrases from the ad group. Pay attention to your keyword quality scores. This will give you strong hints about keywords in your ad group that are not relevant to the ad and/or landing page. Also, move non-performing keywords with high impressions and low click-thrus out of the ad group with other performing keywords into their own ad group. Create ads and landing pages more relevant to the new ad group for those non-performing keywords. If you're not doing it, for ad groups with higher impression counts, always keep 2 ads running - a champion (your best performing ad for that group to date) and a challenger. Google will rotate the ads in and out. Once you have enough impressions to get an accurate CTR for the challenger, it it's CTR is higher than that of the champion then make the challenger the new champion and write a new challenger.
Thank you for taking the time and replying with useful information! The numbers above represent search only. I pulled these numbers from Campaigns - "Dimensions Tab". And each campaign has separate ad groups dedicated to a specific keyword(s). @ianthekisser regarding my quality score, I'm hovering around 7/10 and a few 9/10. Question: Some of my lower quality score keywords "4/10" are getting hits, is it worth it to keep lower quality score keywords active if they are getting hits?
"Also, move non-performing keywords with high impressions and low click-thrus out of the ad group with other performing keywords into their own ad group. Create ads and landing pages more relevant to the new ad group for those non-performing keywords." Great advice, thank you!
Keywords may have a low QS when your ad they trigger have a low CTR. So, you may want to ask a different question. Which is: How can I improve the QS for the keywords? If your landing page is right and your keyword seems relevant to the ad, the deciding factor will be the CTR. Which means your ads have to become more attractive to users. Each time a user clicks an ad it's like a vote towards the QS of the keyword that triggered the ad. So often, assuming the search volume is high enough, whether or not it is worth keeping a keyword depends on whether or not you can make it work. Improving your landing pages will prevent you from losing QS: it will not improve your QS though. So, this means a "bad" landing page => lower QS . "good" landing page => you QS is not affected. Bottom line: If I were you I would't go for more than three ad groups at this stage. In fact I would do a maximum of two. In each of those ad groups I would only create ads that I could fit those keywords into the headline and text. Makes sure you get the ROI you are looking for from these keywords. Once you have consistent conversions with those few keywords expand to others. Then, go on to build your other campaigns. Otherwise you may just keep going round and round in circles.
One more thing: you may want to begin with keywords with high search volumes so that you can test them faster. Moving keywords to different ad groups, obviously means also creating new, more specific ads. Possibly, your keywords are not as specific and relevant to your ads as you may think - take another look at your keywords to make sure they really are the best you can do.
So often, assuming the search volume is high enough, whether or not it is worth keeping a keyword depends on whether or not you can make it work. @ianthekisser very appreciative of the time and advice you have given me!