How Well Do You REALLY Know Your Campaigns? The Dimensions Tab May Offer a New Angle.
When it comes to optimizing PPC (pay-per-click) ads, the more data you have, the more informed decisions you can make to help improve your campaign performance. Google AdWords gives you a ton of data on the people who are interacting with your ads, but sometimes you have to dig for the data you really need.
I’ll find you, data!
To help you take your campaigns to the next level, below are my top three favorite reports to pull in the Dimensions tab and how to apply the data to your campaign strategy:
1) Know When to Hold ‘Em and When to Fold ‘Em
Are your campaigns running out of budget by 3 p.m.? What hours of the day consistently convert the best? Pulling a quick “Hour of Day” report with impression share columns can answer these questions and more. To pull this report, navigate to the Dimensions tab and change the view to “Time” and “Hour of Day.” This will show you how your campaigns or ad groups performed on any metric you choose in your columns. Under the “Competitive Metrics” section, you will find the “Search Lost IS (budget)” and “Display Lost IS (budget)” columns, which can be very helpful to show the estimated percent of times that your ad was eligible to show on the Search or Display Network but didn’t because your budget was too low.
Having this data available in the same view as what hours of the day spend the most money and drive the most conversions can help you determine whether or not ad scheduling would benefit your campaign. For example, if you are a pizza delivery restaurant and have your ads on 24 hours a day, you might discover that the majority of your budget is depleted by the time your highest performing 6-10 p.m. hours come around. If this is the case, you would want to adjust your Ad Scheduling to ensure your highest performing hours are fully funded.
2) Labels, Labels, Labels!
Quite possibly one of the exciting purchases of my high school years was when my family bought a label maker to help organize our school supplies. Within an hour of fast-paced and giddy labeling, we needed a refill. Luckily, no refill is needed in the digital world, so you can label your heart out AND learn more about your campaigns at the same time.
Perhaps the best use of AdWords labels is to test new keywords, ad copy or conversion actions against one another. The Dimensions tab is by far the easiest way to pull data by label as you can compare labeled elements across ad groups and campaigns.
Pro Tip: Make your labels as specific as possible and always include a date, if applicable. This will make it 10 times easier when looking back at labels you created a while ago and will also help collaboration among others who have access to the account.
3) Down to the Zip Code
Now, you may be thinking that all the location data you need is in the Settings tab, not the Dimensions tab! NOPE — there’s a key difference. While the Settings tab shows you data on the specific locations you are targeting in your campaigns, the Dimensions tab shows data down to the most specific location Google knows about the user, whether they are specified in your targeting or not. For example, if you target all 50 states in your campaign, you can see performance for each state in the Settings tab. In the Dimensions tab, on the other hand, you would be able to see performance by each state as well as performance by region, metro area, city and even zip code.
Analyzing performance data by geography can help you determine which areas of your targeting perform the best and which are spending a lot of money and not converting. From these determinations, you can set bid adjustments and/or location exclusions in the Settings tab to focus your budget in the areas most likely to convert.
Conclusion
In the PPC world, the more data you have, the better. The AdWords Dimensions tab has the data you need to take your campaign optimization to the next level.
What are your favorite reports to pull from the Dimensions tab? How has the data helped you improve your campaigns? Comment below or tweet me @jcrawford326!
