Google has now added some long overdue Conversion Reporting functionality to the AdWords platform. These features have been in beta for several months, but have finally been unleashed to the masses. The new Conversion Reporting provides excellent new data and insight that we are using to help improve our client’s AdWords initiatives and you can use to provide value to your business.
The main Conversion Reporting interface is much improved, it now has a very similar look and feel to Google Analytics. Through the main interface you can view high level data such as total Conversions, average days to Conversion, and average Clicks to Conversion.
The real fun comes through the Top Paths Conversion analysis. This report allows you to view the paths that visitors who converted took through AdWords. The depth of data in this section is excellent, it allows you to view user paths for Clicks and Impressions at the Campaign, Ad Group, and Keyword level. For example, you can see that a user first clicked on a product category ad, then later a branded ad through which they converted. This data is incredibly valuable, and can help you attribute value to Campaigns or Ad Groups which may have seemed like they were under performing, though they were in fact assisting Conversions.
AdWords also has a section dedicated to Assisted Conversions, both for clicks and impressions, which allows you to get a better view of Campaigns and Ad Groups that are assisting your final Conversions, and allows you to assign a monetary value to these Assists.
Overall, the new Search Funnel and Conversion Reporting in AdWords will help provide you with a more holistic view of the Conversion activity on your AdWords account and gives you the data to make more informed decisions regarding account structure changes, allocating budget, and conversion timeline.
Tags: adwords, conversion tracking, paid search
