The Top 9 Google Ads Performance Metrics You Need to Know

You’ve got your account setup. Your campaign is launched. And your ads are live. Check! But now what. Is it working?

If you’ve been trying to figure out what’s up and down, and how to make sense of your metrics, then read this. Tracking your performance will tell you whether or not you are moving in the right direction and what you are actually getting out of your advertising. It’s also essential to know where to make any improvements so your campaigns can perform even better, and to get a higher ROI.

Google Ads provides you with valuable data insights and allows you to track performance in real-time. But you don’t need to spend hours checking every single one in your account. I am going to highlight the most important metrics, and break down each of them and their objective. Here is an overview of the 9 metrics;

  1. Impressions

Impressions is the number of times your ads have shown. One impression is one ad view. Even though this actually doesn’t mean that it has been seen by the person. When your ad appears on the search results pages it means it is being triggered by a search term matching one of your keywords.

This is therefore the first thing you need to check to be working when your ads go live. Having a lot of impressions however, is not an end goal. Unless you are running Display and Youtube ads which are with image or video. But Search ads are all about your traffic and conversions. If your ad is showing but without clicks you aren’t winning. So impressions alone don’t tell much. You need to compare with the clicks. 

Calculation: When your ad is showing

  1. Clicks

Clicks is, simply enough, the amount of traffic generated to your website from your campaigns. Relevant ads, and ads that stand out or rank higher are more likely to get clicks. When first launching your campaign, your goal is to get in traffic. And more exact, reaching your desired audience that is most likely to convert. Remember that it is the clicks you pay for. 

How much traffic you can expect to get in, will depend on your budget as this defines the clicks it can reach. Your budget should allow a fair amount of clicks, first of all to be able to convert, but also to have enough data to work on. Otherwise, it really depends on your goals and what is needed to give you profitable ROI!

Calculation: When your ad is clicked on

  1. CTR

The CTR is the clickthrough-rate of your ad, which is calculated by the clicks on your ad compared to how many times it is showing. Your objective is to keep up the CTR. Not only because it means people are choosing your ad over others and bringing you new visitors, but because Google’s algorithm values this. A high CTR increases your ad quality. Google favors ad quality in their ranking which means you can win better positions this way. And eventually it means you can lower your CPC too. All attractive right? 

A high CTR indicates that your ad is relevant. Ads with higher click-through rates are often achieved by being closely related to the search terms, ranking in top positions, and by standing out with extensions and attractive ad copy. You can check CTR by campaigns, ad groups, keywords, or ads, to see which ones generate higher engagement.

Calculation: Impressions/ clicks

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