Understanding Google AdWords Analytics Reports

“Get the Facts, Be Sure and then Decide.” Ezra Taft Benson

Picture the scene: It’s 10am on a Monday and you’re sitting in a meeting room surrounded by tired-looking colleagues, all hoping the speaker will hurry up already because it’s time for some coffee. Someone proposes a solution based on the latest data and you can feel the collective sense of relief that finally, a decision can be made. Coffee time?

Not so fast!

Generally, the client makes a claim based on web analytics data and wants to jump right into action and use it to make a business decision. But here’s the catch, often the data isn’t telling them the story they think it is and they’re actually jumping into a decision that may cost them dearly. That’s why I take my role of challenging them very seriously, so we can end the meeting confident that we are on the right path.

A similar situation might arise when you work with your Google AdWords and Google Analytics data separately. Individually each of them might not give the insights on how your campaigns are working, or how is site is working, or which keywords are leading to engagement and which are leading to conversions and many more. AdWords is great at telling you how much money your ads cost and how many conversions you’re getting but what happens between the click and the conversion remains a mystery unless you add Google Analytics to the equation. It can tell you what people do on your site, so if they’re not converting, it can help you find out why. And when you can fix conversion rate issues, your AdWords performance will get better.

Find the infographic on the step-by-step procedure to create AdWords Analytics Reports here.

This blog will give all the information that is required for you to know about Google AdWords Analytics reports. To get a more clearer picture about these reports, this blog is divided into the following sections:

I. Why and how should you link your AdWords and Analytics account?
II. About Google Analytics data in AdWords reports
III. Analyzing Google AdWords Analytics data
IV. Acting on Google AdWords Analytics Reports data

I. Why and how should you link your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts?

A. Why should you link your accounts?

Linking your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts is an important practice to ensure the two measurement tools can work together to help you get the most from your advertising. The bottom line is that linking Analytics and AdWords gives you powerful information that can tell you where you should be spending more or less based on real ROI data. When you link accounts, the data can flow both ways – from Google Analytics to AdWords (for example, engagement metrics or remarketing lists), and from AdWords to Google Analytics (for example your AdWords cost data).

In particular, you can take advantage of powerful features such as:

• The ability to dig into campaign/keyword performance by real revenue and cost in Google Analytics.
• Importing goals and e-commerce transactions from Google Analytics into AdWords.
• Importing Google Analytics metrics like bounce rate, time-on-site, and % new visits into AdWords.
• Using Remarketing with Google Analytics to more effectively reach your customers.
• Seeing AdWords data in rich reports such as Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels.

B. Before you begin

To link AdWords and Google Analytics, or to unlink or edit your link, you’ll need to use a Google Account with the following permissions to Google Analytics and AdWords:

1. For the Google Analytics property, you’ll need “Edit” permissions.
   • To check your permissions, in Google Analytics, click on Admin at the top of the page, select the property you want to link, and click on User Management. If you don’t see “User Management” in the property column, ask your account administrator if you have “Edit” permissions.
2. For the AdWords account, you’ll need administrative access.
   • To check your account access, click on the gear menu and select Account settings. In the menu on the left, select Account access.

Also, you will have to do the following:

1. Enable auto-tagging in your AdWords accounts.

2. Link your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts. Make sure you import site metrics for the view you want to see in your AdWords account.

C. Linking your Google AdWords and Google Analytics account:

Sign in to your AdWords account.

1.Click on the gear menu, then select Linked accounts.

2. Under “Google Analytics”, click on View details. You’ll see a list of the Google Analytics properties to which you have access. (If you don’t see an Analytics property here, make sure that you have “Edit” permission to that property.)

3. Click on Set up link next to the property that you want to link to AdWords. Choose a property for the business that you advertise with AdWords. (You’ll be able to link more than one.)

4. Now you’ll see one of the two screens described below:

• If the property you chose only has one view, then you’ll see the name of that view. Select Import site metrics to be able to see Google Analytics data in AdWords reports.
• If the property has multiple views, then you’ll see a list of the views from this property that you can link. There are two settings:
  • Link: Link as many views as you’d like. This will make AdWords click and cost data available in Analytics, and Analytics goals and transactions available for import into AdWords.
  • Import site metrics: (Recommended) select one view from which to import site engagement metrics. While this is optional, we recommend choosing one view that will be used to show website engagement metrics in the Google Analytics reporting columns of your account.

If your AdWords account is used by an AdWords manager account (MCC) that has linked to this property, then you’ll also see a column showing which views are linked to that manager account.

5. Click on Save.

You can repeat this process for any additional properties that you want to link. Despite the accounts being linked, there are a few more steps to accomplish before you see the Analytics data in your AdWords reports.

• Go to your AdWords page and select Account Settings by clicking the gear icon.
• Select Linked Accounts.
• Choose up to ten Google Analytics views you want to import data from by clicking Add to the right of the view name.
• Go to the Campaigns page of your AdWords and click on the Columns button.
• Select Modify Columns from the drop-down menu and locate Google Analytics on the left of side of the column customization menu.
• Click Add for each column you’d like to be able to see and click Apply.

Now that your accounts are linked, you can import Analytics goals and transactions into AdWords Conversion Tracking and add Google Analytics data such as bounce rate, pages per session and average session duration to AdWords reports.

D. Import Analytics goals and transactions into AdWords Conversion Tracking

First of all, we hope you are already tracking meaningful goals in Google Analytics! These could be donations, event registrations, file downloads, email sign-ups or form completions—whatever it is you are trying to get users to do on your website.

Get the full Length Blog here - “Google Adwords Analytics Reports”

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