Google AdWords Reporting Just Got a LOT More Useful
Not that the data you were able to get through the AdWords interface wasn’t helpful in the first place, but the New-ish Search Funnels feature available through Conversions under the Reporting tab is like AdWords reporting on Crack.
One of the greatest features on the Search Funnels reporting is Top Paths, which gives you the ability to see the Campaign, Ad group or Keyword paths that visitors took from first to last click or impression to conversion.
Top Path Analysis From Google AdWords
What does this mean for PPC gurus around the world?
The ability to assign value to keywords that “assisted” in the final conversion, also known as attribution. From personal experience I can say that the Search Funnels tool has opened my eyes to keywords that I at once thought were less valuable because I never saw a direct conversion and keywords that I may have been assigning a little too much value based on my own assumptions.
While I’m still a little wary of the first and last impressions variables, there may be some valuable data here as well. But how much value can be given to an ad impression that may or may not have been seen? Hard to say, but for PPC Junkies the impressions data may hold some weight.
Another interesting set of data available through AdWords Search Funnels is Time Lag. With Time Lag you can how much time lapsed from first impression, first click or last click until the conversion actually took place. This information is available in days or hours, so you can get pretty granular. I’m going to admit this actually surprised me – and also taught me to not take the insights of others too seriously. My client has always talked about the long buying cycle for their product (upwards of 3 weeks to almost a month and a half). What I found through Time Lag was the average conversion took less than a week and most happened in less than a day.
Along with Time Lag you can also find the Path Length, which will tell you how many clicks it took to get to a conversion. Again, most happened on the first…very surprising.
Very valuable information.
The bottom line.
AdWords Search Funnels may be the most exciting tool Google has released in a very long time. And PPC advertisers are getting exactly what they need to make better keyword decisions about whether the last click is the only click worthy of consideration when setting budgets, CPC bids and keyword usage.
