« Google Hell: Is That Google Poo On Your Shoe? | Main | Keyword Research: Use Data -- and Your Head »
PPC Management - Analyzing the Results
May 25, 2007
Analysis is a many faceted thing. Depending on how you choose to look at what you’re analyzing it gives off different impressions. The closest thing that I can think of for an analogy is a trying to buy a diamond. Depending on how you look at a diamond it can give off a totally different reflection. In fact, by not examining all aspects of a diamond you could be led completely astray in determining if it is valuable to you or not.
In my mind I’m immediately reminded of the process that I went through in purchasing the engagement ring for my wife. That turned out to be an education that took a lot of work, but in the end I ended up with just what I was looking for. I remember the whole thing started with me learning about the “4 C’s” of diamond shopping. All of you men who have ever bought a diamond for a lady can now recite them with me: Cut, Color, Clarity, & Carat. Although they are all important, I ultimately had to decide how my wants in each category matched up with my intended result and ultimately, budget.
In much the same way with PPC campaign management what I need to use to analyze my campaign depends on what I’m looking for, what’s important to me, and last but definitely not least, how much I am able/willing to spend. In the spirit of the 4 C’s let’s look at each of them.
1) Cut is the equivalent of how is my campaign designed? For CTR? For Impressions? For click quantities? These can all be measured fairly easily and should be monitored on at least a weekly basis. Contrasting current data with historical data should give you a good set of ‘pulse checker’ indices that can give you a heads up to any potential trouble. If the cut is proper, your stone/campaign will have the best foundation for stability and the ability to reach it’s greatest value potential.
2) Color relates to the question; What is my campaign designed to do? Drive traffic? Drive sign-ups? Drive purchases? This is a level deeper than ‘Cut’ and thus entails actual tracking of specific actions that are desired of the customer. Tools like Google Analytics can be extremely helpful in determining if specific desired actions are happening, and help provide us clues as to why or why not our desired actions are happening. Knowing the Color of the campaign will allow us to keep focused on what is important and what is not. In other words if we know the stone/campaign is blue, then we can make sure that those things that enhance its beauty are placed around it.
3) Clarity causes me to ask the question, Is it easy to see results? Do my measurement parameters match my customers buying cycle? Of all the of the 4 C’s in PPC Management this is perhaps the most overlooked key to proper analysis of the results. Every PPC manager & client should be acutely aware of this fundamental issue. It is easy to miss perhaps because it is so glaringly simple. But knowing this can allow for tracking cookies to be set for the appropriate period of time and allow for analytical calculations to take this into account. Not knowing this can lead to comparing conversions that should belong to last month, in the current month. I can’t overstate the importance of this, if the results aren’t clear, everything you do to optimize your campaign is like swinging at a Piñata with a blindfold on.
4) Carat is the equivalent of; Is my campaign performing as well as it could be? How big is my bang for my buck? I find sometimes that bigger is not always better. Sure, the more money we have to spend the more people we can reach etc., but the key aspect to remember is ‘qualified’. If just driving traffic with no regard to having qualified visitors is your goal, that would be akin to having a 7 carat diamond that is so cloudy and flawed that it is virtually worthless, but everyone WILL notice it. If we are truly honest, we would all say that we want to have the biggest Carat, but after we see what it costs and what our budget is we usually try to get best bang for our buck.
As with many things in life evaluating a diamond or a PPC campaign is not as easy just one or two of the 4 C’s. Inevitably we strive to get the best overall value that we can by incorporating all of the 4 C’s together and balancing them against our budget. In the end though diamonds are not a PPC campaign. For diamonds 3 out of the 4 C’s are determined by nature. For PPC the 4 C’s are all products of what is put into the campaign. Determining the balance of input into each category should match your goals and desires for the campaign. If that is followed, you will ultimately be poised for the greatest success in your campaigns.
All posts by Brent Sharp
posted by Brent Sharp at May 25, 2007 01:11 PM
Intrapromote: [ Case studies | SEO services | Bios ]
Trackback Pings
To TrackBack this entry, use the following URL:
http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/mt-tb.cgi/402