What’s in a Report – Continued.
Earlier this week we discussed what you should expect from reports that you receive from your online marketing partner. We wanted to provide you with a few more updates and urge you to work closely with your agency to get the exact type of report that meets your needs.
Cost Per Click (CPC) – It can be important for some advertisers to receive this information, but for other advertisers just knowing the total cost and number of conversions is all that is needed. Before requesting this metric, I would suggest that you think about your overall goals that you are interested in – because many profitable campaigns have CPA goals that step outside the boundaries of what some may consider an acceptable CPC.
Example: You have a target cost/click of no more than $4.00 and a target CPA of less than $80.
· Keyword A – Costs $3.50 for each click
· Keyword B – Costs $6.75 for each click
· The conversion rate for keyword A is 3%
· The conversion rate for keyword B is 9%
· The CPA for Keyword A is $116, while the CPA for Keyword B is $75.
Tell me again why you would not want to bid on Keyword B? Setting CPC goals without taking the full picture into account can produce undesirable results, so tread lightly if you want to view this metric.
Click Thru-Rate (CTR) on various keywords – Some advertisers find this information useful, but this information must be taken in stride. For example, a CTR of .02% in some cases could be considered good, while a CTR of 2.1% in other cases could be in need of improvement. Although, CTR can be used to help find areas of improvement in ad copy or keyword relevance.
Average Position of Keywords – Average position is a great metric for many advertisers and can be a metric that must be reported in other cases. For example, if you have ads that must appear below the manufacturers ad within pay per click search results – you will want to make sure this metric is included within the reports you receive by your search team.
Bounce Rate – Bounce Rate is is a metric that your search team can provide information on – if your website is configured with the correct tracking codes. Bounce rate is often not shared with advertisers, because very few advertisers are willing to make changes to lower the bounce rate on pages, as this metric can help pin-point landing pages that may need to be updated.
Placements that are working – If your agency is targeting the content network you should receive updates if certain placements are working out extremely well. At times it may be advantageous for you as an advertiser to go directly to these sites and negotiate advertising with them directly. Your search team will lose some revenue by making this suggestion – so be sure to reward them with referrals or an extended contract. This is certainly a partner that you will want to work with for some time to come.
Transparency
Some agencies give you 100% access to your search account, while others have limitations to the amount of access you have to your paid search account. Whether you have access or not to your account – your search provider should happily and quickly provide you with a download of any information you request.
Example requests could include
List of all keywords within your account – Beware this list could be in the thousands!
Ad Text – This is a great way to find out which slogans are working for offline advertising initiatives.
Performance of your account by time of day – This report can be very useful if you have a need to know when additional staff would be needed at your business. Maybe you will find that half of your staff can come in early to help staff for an influx of calls from the East Coast.
Performance of your account by Geo Location – This is another great metric to view if you have the ability to provide support in particular geographic areas that many of your potential clients are located within.
Anything you want – A good agency should speak with you about your overall goals and objectives and provide suggestions or solutions to help you meet your needs.
