8 Google Ads Columns You Must Watch: Ultimate Google Ads Metrics, Stats & Custom Columns Setup Guide
Summary
TLDRThe video outlines the key metrics Google Ads users should track in their accounts to monitor campaign performance, identify growth opportunities, and optimize budgets. It focuses on conversions, cost per conversion, conversion rate, return on ad spend, and impression share for both lead generation and ecommerce campaigns. Custom columns are recommended to account for conversion delays. Checking these metrics regularly allows properly configuring and scaling campaigns while maintaining profitability.
Takeaways
- 😀 The key metrics to track in Google Ads are conversions, cost per conversion, and cost to understand campaign performance and profitability.
- 👍 For lead gen campaigns, also track clicks, CTR, impression share to optimize volume.
- 📈 Use conversions by conversion time and CPA by conversion time to account for conversion delays.
- 🚨 For ecommerce, also track revenue, ROAS, and revenue over time to optimize profit.
- 🔎 Compare metrics over time to identify performance changes from optimizations.
- 🌟 Save column setups to easily review key metrics whenever you login.
- ⚙️ Increase budget slowly if limited by budget to maintain CPA and scale conversions.
- 😎 Lower CPA goal to reduce CPCs if needed for profitability with impression share room.
- 📉 Reduce bids to lower CPCs for manual CPC and max. conv. value campaigns.
- 👆 Increase CTR to enable lower CPCs and higher volumes at profitable CPAs.
Q & A
What are the key metrics to track in a lead generation Google Ads account?
-The key metrics for a lead generation account are: number of conversions, cost per conversion, cost (spend), conversion rate, conversions by conversion time, and impression share metrics.
How can you improve conversion rate in Google Ads?
-You can improve conversion rate by making changes to your landing pages, optimizing your ads, tightening targeting, or bidding more aggressively to increase volume while maintaining profitability.
What does it mean if a campaign is 'limited by budget'?
-If a campaign is 'limited by budget', it means Google thinks it could drive more conversions at the same or slightly higher cost per conversion if you increase the daily budget.
Why track conversions by conversion time?
-Tracking conversions by conversion time accounts for latency - the delay between when someone clicks on an ad and when they eventually convert. This gives a more accurate view of recent conversion activity.
What metrics are most important for ecommerce campaigns?
-The most important metrics for ecommerce are: conversions, conversion value, return on ad spend, conversions by conversion time, and return on ad spend by time.
How can you calculate return on ad spend in Google Ads?
-Return on ad spend is calculated by creating a custom column with the formula: Conversion value by conversion time divided by cost.
What does search impression share indicate?
-Search impression share indicates the percentage of impressions your ads have received out of the total available impressions for your targeted keywords.
How do you increase volume while maintaining profitability?
-Gradually increase budget by small increments, or slightly raise the target CPA goal to allow the bidding algorithm to bid more aggressively while aiming to maintain cost per conversion.
Why save column sets in Google Ads?
-Saving your optimized column setups as column sets allows you to easily apply them each time you log in to consistently view the metrics you need.
What metrics indicate opportunities to improve performance?
-Metrics like low impression share, being limited by budget, or beating your target cost per conversion indicate opportunities to potentially improve performance.
Outlines
😊 Key Metrics to Track in Google Ads for Lead Gen
The first paragraph explains the most important metrics to track in Google Ads for lead generation campaigns: number of conversions, cost per conversion, and total cost. It mentions conversion tracking setup and calculating cost per lead goals. Key columns to view are conversions, cost per conversion, and cost.
😉 Managing Budgets and Scaling Campaigns
The second paragraph discusses managing daily budgets in Google Ads and how to scale campaigns gradually when limited by budget. It explains when you may want to increase budget to drive more conversions at a similar cost per conversion. Guidance is provided on increasing budgets up to 20% at a time.
📈 Using Conversion Time Metrics to See Full Data
The third paragraph talks about tracking conversions over time when there is latency between clicks and conversions. It explains conversions by conversion time and cost per conversion by time custom columns to view more timely and complete conversion data.
⚙️ Configuring Key Columns in Google Ads
The fourth paragraph lists all the important columns to set up in Google Ads for tracking lead gen campaign performance: conversions, cost metrics, competitive metrics, bid strategy, etc. It provides details on saving column setups and custom columns.
🛒 Metrics for Ecommerce Campaigns
The fifth paragraph covers the metrics specific to ecommerce campaigns, like conversion value, return on ad spend, and return on ad spend over time to account for reporting latency. It explains how to set up the custom time-based ROAS column.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Google Ads
💡Columns
💡Conversions
💡Cost per conversion
💡Conversion rate
💡Conversion value
💡Return on ad spend
💡Impression share
💡Latency
💡Bid strategy
Highlights
The key metrics to track in Google Ads are conversions, cost per conversion, and cost
Limiting factors like search volume and budget should be monitored to identify opportunities to scale campaigns
Increasing budgets gradually (20% at a time) allows the algorithm to adjust and maintain cost per conversion
Improving conversion rate by 50% allows more spend at a profitable cost per conversion
Conversions by conversion time captures leads with longer delays between click and conversion
Low impression share suggests room to drive more conversions by adjusting bids and budgets
Ecommerce focuses on conversion value, return on ad spend (ROAS) and their latency-adjusted versions
Conversion value by conversion time captures ecommerce conversion value accurately
ROAS by time calculates return on ad spend based on real-time conversion data
These metrics determine whether campaigns succeed, fail, or have capacity to scale
Regularly checking these metrics allows proper optimization
Proper conversion tracking setup is crucial for accurate metrics
Calculating a target cost per conversion is key for profitable campaigns
Increasing bids or budget requires caution to maintain profitability
Adding custom columns provides crucial insight into real campaign performance
Transcripts
which numbers do you need to keep track
of inside your Google ads account this
is a really common question that we get
asked on account reviews on consultation
calls so today what I'm going to do is
share with you exactly which columns you
need to have open in your Google ads
campaigns so that you can see how well
your campaigns performing which
campaigns are driving conversions where
there are opportunities for expansion
and growth and where you need to start
cutting back and tightening up your
spend so that you can drive a better
costbook inversion and a more profitable
account so without further Ado let's
jump into an example Google ads account
so you can see exactly which settings
and which columns you need to configure
to keep a close eye on the performance
of your campaigns and continue to see
success from your Google
ads so the columns that you have set up
in your account will differ slightly
depending on whether you're trying to
drive leads as in conversions in your
account or you're trying to drive
e-commerce sales as in conversion value
or direct purchases through your Google
ads account so to begin with I'm going
to show you a lead generation account
and the columns that you need to
configure there but then second I'm
going to jump over to an e-commerce
account and show you the differences and
the different columns that you need to
have set up and showing each time you
log in so I'm inside a lead generation
account right now and before I go
through all of the different columns and
how to actually set them up so they're
showing each time you log into your
account let me just take a step back and
remind you of what is actually important
when it comes to lead generation so what
do we really care about when it comes
generating leads we obviously care about
leads that we're generating but what are
the components in that well number one
is obviously how many leads did we get
right how many conversions did we drive
from the spend that we output into
Google ads so that's obviously the First
Column that I'd be looking at inside of
Google ads and that is the conversions
column uh it is important to know that
you obviously need to have your
conversions set up and tracking
correctly in order for this column to be
delivering accurate information uh and
we're going to have a separate video on
how to set up your conversion tracking
for lead gener generation but number of
conversions over a certain time frame
that is a crucial metric number two is
how much did it cost me for each of
those conversions so there's another
video that we have on how to calculate
your cost per lead goal I'm going to
have it linked up in the corner right
now but once you've calculated what your
cost per conversion needs to be in order
to be profitable then you need to make
sure that you're keeping an eye on how
much conversions are costing you inside
your account so that's where this second
important column comes in and if I only
had to pick two would would be these two
uh and that is cost per conversion and
cost per conversion again is telling us
what is it costing us to drive the
actions that we're trying to from the
ads that we're spending money on now the
third column that is obviously extremely
important inside of Google ads is cost
what did we outlay in order to drive the
conversions at the cost per conversion
that we have set so this is important
for multiple reasons one is one of the
other columns here which is set up by
default which you're going to see when
you log in and you looking at the
campaign settings is budget budget is
what we're telling Google we want to
spend per day now Google has a tendency
to not spend exactly what we've asked it
to it will either underspend if the
campaign settings are too constrictive
or it will overspend if we give Google
too much room to maneuver and so we need
to be keeping a close eye on what we
actually spent over a specific time
frame so that we know whether or not
we're on track for our budget and
whether or not it makes sense to start
to scale up what we're spending each day
so again high level what are we actually
focusing on when it comes to our
campaigns we we're looking at what it's
costing us how many conversions we're
driving and what it's costing us per
conversion those are the metrics that
are really steering the ship here but
what are some of these other columns
that can inform us on what we should be
doing these campaigns to improve
performance or where there are
opportunities to expand so let's go
through the next few obviously here we
have status this again is a default
column and it's going to going to give
us a few different pieces of information
depending on the situation in the
campaign so for example if there are
disapprovals in the campaign it will
tell us that or if in this case here we
are limited by search volume that
basically means that Google has run out
of Search terms to show our ads for
within the parameters that we've set in
the campaign with the keywords that
we've set up so there aren't more
searches and if we wanted to drive more
volume we're going to have to expand our
targeting and we've also got limited by
budget now limited by budget is a
important notification to be keeping an
eye on because if we've calculated our
cost per conversion and we know what
it's going to be in order to be
profitable what we need to be hitting in
order to be making money and Google
tells us that we're limited by budget
that basically means that for roughly
the same costbook conversion Google
thinks that it can drive more of those
conversions if we're willing to increase
our daily budget so in other words we're
holding this campaign back we're
constricting it because of what we're
limiting the daily spend to and if we
are willing to increase our budget then
Google is able to drive more conversion
for us however if we do decide to go
down this route and if you click on this
if you see it in your account you can
actually see how much more we need to
spend in order to drive more conversions
and what the impact will likely be on
the cost per conversion this is a good
time to take a pause and figure out
where we want to plan to take this
campaign because if we're scaling
something up that's not profitable it's
only going to get less profitable but if
we are gradually increasing what we're
spending in this campaign and then we're
allowing the algorithm to adjust and
maintain a similar cosper conversion
then we can start to drive dramatically
more conversion volume from our campaign
so this is a really useful tool in order
to direct you in doing that and Google
tells us that we're limited by budget
that basically means that for an
incremental increase in the current cost
per conversion Google thinks it can
deliver more conversions from our spend
it just requires us to be willing to
spend more on a daily basis so if I
click on on this you can see that Google
is giving us some idea of if we increase
our daily budget how many more
conversions will drive and this is
actually very useful so even though this
is definitely a guide and by no means
will you necessarily hit these cost per
conversions as you continue to increase
budget it does give us some idea that if
we do want to get more volume and we are
hitting our cost conversion goal right
now there is the potential to drive more
conversions if we're simply willing to
increase our daily spend and if we're
willing to be patient and gradually
increase that spend over time rather
than ramping up too quickly and blowing
our cost per conversion Sky High uh so
if you are going to increase your daily
budget it's definitely important to do
it slowly but surely in increments of no
more than about 20% at a time so that
your cost per conversion is maintained
as you grow your campaign so let's
continue down these list of columns so
Impressions is obviously important we
want to see that our ads are being seen
by people and clicks is obviously
important if a campaign is getting no
clicks especially for a day or a couple
of days we know that something is
potentially wrong that we need to go in
and fix in that campaign the next two
numbers that are really important though
when it comes to determining what we can
do to improve performance are cost per
click and conversion rate so when we
were looking at the cost per conversion
before and when we're thinking about how
we calculated that cost per conversion
right based on your numbers based on the
value of a customer we work out that the
costbook conversion that we need to be
profitable let's say is $50 now if we
look at this cost per conversion here
this is made up of basically two numbers
the cost per click times the conversion
rate so if we want to improve our cost
per conversion we need to figure out how
can we improve those two metrics either
reducing the cost per click or
increasing the conversion rate so
reducing the cost per click with a
manual campaign is as simple as reducing
your bids on the keywords inside your
campaign reducing your cost per click on
a targeted bided campaign or or a
bidding algorithm based campaign such as
Target CPA that basically comes down to
reducing your cost per conversion goal
that basically is going to influence
Google's bidding algorithm to bid lower
per click to bring down that cost per
click in order to try to hit your cost
per conversion goal now the challenge
comes in when it comes to reducing Costo
click when you start to bid so low that
there isn't enough volume to actually
sustain the campaign so let's just say
all of the clicks are getting bought for
$10 or
and you're bidding $6 you might be
willing to pay $6 for a click but there
aren't any clicks going for that price
so you actually do need to bid higher in
order to continue to get volume and to
continue to get impressions and Clicks
in that campaign so if your objective is
to still maintain volume but also to
drive a profitable cost per conversion
the other metric that you then need to
start focusing on improving is your
conversion rate which is in this column
here so it is important to keep a close
eye on your conversion rate it's a good
idea to be comparing a certain time
period compared to a previous time
period so for example last month
compared to 3 months ago if I've made
some changes to my page if I've made
some changes to my campaigns what is my
conversion rate looking like and if you
can improve your conversion rate let's
say from 5% to 7 and 1 12% all of a
sudden you've improved the performance
of your campaign by 50% and that's going
to allow you to hit a profitable
costbook conversion but it's also going
to allow you to spend more and drive
more volume and be able to stay
profitable as you start to scale your
campaign
[Music]
up so next we have a few more columns
that are really useful especially when
it comes to campaigns that are driving
leads that don't take action immediately
so what do I mean by that well let's say
someone is in research mode and they
come across your site they take a look
around and then they go away they
disappear they think about things they
maybe look at some Alternatives or some
competitors then they come back and
convert a few days later what that means
is that the original click that drove
that person to your site and the actual
conversion took place on different days
potentially different weeks and that
basically means there's some going to be
some latency in the reporting of that
conversion in your standard conversions
column so that's where these two columns
conversions by conversion time and CPA
by conversion time which I'm going to
show you how to set up in a second which
is a custom column these can give you a
much clearer idea of where conversions
are actually at in that recent time
period so if I look at this account here
you can actually see that Google is even
telling us that there is some latency in
reporting because of this delay between
when someone originally clicks on an ad
and when they end up converting for this
date range this bid strategy is
projected to receive 26 more conversions
and 7,000 more in conversion value it
takes up to 13 days after impression for
most of your conversion data to be
reported so in other words there's a
couple week delay on a significant
proportion of our conversions so that's
basically why if you're looking at very
recent data uh a week two weeks even up
to a month it's sometimes better if
Google is giving you this notification
in the graph here which I've brought up
by clicking on this Arrow to bring up
your conversions by conversion time
column in fact here what we can see is
in the last 30 days or so the
conversions column is reporting 73
conversions but the conversions by
conversion time column is reporting
significantly more nearly 90 conversions
and the cost per conversion is differing
quite a bit as well so if our cow
conversion goal was $90 based on the
incorrect or incomplete data over that
recent time frame we're actually over
that cosper conversion goal So based on
that it looks like we're unprofitable
but if we take into account the latency
and the delay in the reporting of the
real conversion data that's coming
through we're actually beating our $90
cost per conversion so we can continue
going full steam ahead so how do you
create this CPA by conversion time
column well that is very easy it's
actually a just a custom setup if you
click on columns here and click on
modify columns and go down to custom
columns and here you can just do create
a custom column I've already created it
so I'll just go into it here so all you
need to do is type in cost divided by
conversions by conversion time and I've
named it CPA by conversion time and if I
hit save now and I go out of this and I
hit apply I can now see that CPA by
conversion time column which is going to
report for me upto-date cost per
conversion based on the real-time data
in the account not based on when the
original click necessarily happened so
that's going to be reporting more
conversions over a recent time frame so
the last couple columns which I have up
in my account are these three and these
give us some indication of where we're
at in terms of the volume that's
possible to hit in these individual
campaigns so what do I mean by that well
we have here search impression share
search top impression share and search
absolute top impression share so search
impression share is basically the
percentage of the time that we're
showing for the terms and the keywords
that we've told Google that we want to
hit inside this campaign search top
impression share is the percentage of
the time that we're appearing in the top
four spots uh which is basically at the
top of the Google search results and
search absolute top impression share is
the percentage of the time that we're
appearing in the number one spot for
Searchers that we're targeting in this
campaign this particular campaign if our
cper conversion is 90 which based on the
conversions by conversion time column
we're hitting
and our search impression share is only
20% that basically means that we should
probably be getting a little bit more
aggressive with this campaign to drive
more conversion volume as long as
everything else is on track it's
essentially Google telling us that there
are lots more Impressions and clicks
that are out there to be had for the
current targeting that you have set and
if we have room within our cost per
conversion goal to continue to push a
bit harder and we can sustain maybe a
slight increase in our cost per
conversion in order to get additional
volume of conversions then it can be
worth it for us to either increase our
daily budget which would be what I would
do here because this campaign is limited
by budget and therefore we could be
spending more per day with the current
cost per conversion goal or if we are
not limited by budget but we still have
a low search impression share if we are
beating our cost per conversion goal as
I've said that we are here then I would
be looking to increase the cost per
conversion goal inside our campaign so
in other words I'd be looking to go into
the bid strategy type click on this
going to the settings and basically
looking to increase our Target CPA from
115 to Let's
say5 or 130 not too much so that Google
overshoots and all of a sudden we're
super unprofitable but enough so that
we're giving Google's bidding algorithm
a bit more room to maneuver and a bit
more room to bid a bit more aggressively
so that it can continue to increase the
volume that we're getting from this
campaign because we can see that this
impression share metric is telling us
that there are more Impressions and
clicks out there for the terms that
we're trying to hit and if it's working
if these leads are good quality if we
want more of them we're going to have to
try to push into that in order to
continue to grow this account and grow
this business so to bring up all of
these columns all you need to do is to
go to the columns button here click on
modify columns and check the following
boxes so under performance we obviously
want Impressions clicks cost and average
CPC I typically will have cost First
then Impressions clicks and average TPC
after that next you want to go into the
conversions Tab and check conversions
cost per conversion conversion rate and
then also conversions by conversion time
to see those conversions that are coming
through on the date that the conversion
actually happens next underneath
competitive metrics we're going to want
to check search impression share search
top impression share and search absolute
top impression share and lastly if you
want to double check the bid strategy
that your campaign is using which is
sometimes useful for us when we're
reviewing an account you can click on
attributes and you can go into bid
strategy type to bring that up or you
can go into the campaign settings at the
campaign level and again the last metric
that I mentioned here was under custom
columns and that is CPA by conversion
time which I've created and which I
outlined how to set up before so once
you've got all of these set up in that
order you can hit apply and you can see
these columns are all here and will show
up in your account each time you log in
if you want to make sure that these
always appear you can click save your
column set and you can name this column
setup official tracking so that each
time you come in you can click on that
column set and view all of the key
metrics in your campaigns and in your
[Music]
account so if you're an e-commerce
business you're going to want very much
the same setup with a few small
adjustments so you still going to
obviously want budget status cost
Impressions clicks average CPC
conversions costbook conversion as
before and you're still going to want
conversion rate but now you're going to
want to really keep a close eye on
conversion value obviously conversion
value is purchases and this is what
needs to be configured in the revenue
tracking inside of the Google ads
conversion settings and then you're also
going to want to have conversion value
divided by cost so this is a standard
column that you can pull up and this is
basically your return on ad spend for
every dollar that you're spending on ads
how much revenue are you producing in
your campaigns this is absolutely
crucial especially when you're trying to
drive profitable Revenue when you know
your margins and you know what return
you need in order to be profitable and
then you can make sure that your
campaign is staying on track at that
return as you continue to grow the other
two columns that I would really
recommend an e-commerce business have
set up in their account are these two
here and these again come back to the
latency that I was mentioning before so
you can see in this case for example for
this date range this bid strategy is
projected to receive 32 more conversions
and 19,000 more in conversion value and
it takes up to 9 days after impression
for most of your conversion data to be
reported so again latency is very common
especially with higher value e-commerce
purchases and so for that reason you
definitely want to bring up conversion
value by conversion time and return on
ad spend by time which is a very similar
custom column let me show you how to set
that up right now so if I go again go
into columns click on modify columns and
go into conversions conversion value by
conversion time again that is revenue
that you've driven from Google ads on
the day that the purchase took place
rather than the day that the original
click happened but for the return on ad
spend by time which is basically your
return on ad spend taking into account
that latency you can click on custom
columns and then here you can see if I
click on this little pencil here row as
by time and here you just want to have
conversion value by conversion time
which you can select divided by cost and
when you set up this custom column in
this way it's going to give you
upto-date conversion value of a cost or
return on ad spend metrics so that when
you're looking at what the campaign is
driving you're reacting to the correct
data and you're not re responding to
data that's incomplete or out of date uh
because this is really upto-date return
on ad spend numbers and that's actually
what you should be responding to and
optimizing the campaign around and not
the delayed data that will come through
in a few weeks so there are a lot of
other metrics that you can look at
inside of Google ads there are metrics
around the type of con version you had
there are the networks that you've been
showing on but when it comes down to
results and that is obviously the most
important thing for for me for you for
anyone running Google ads we want to be
focusing on the metrics that are
directly affecting the results we're
getting from the campaigns how many
conversions we're getting how many sales
we're driving and what our cost per
conversion or return on ad spend is so
so long as you can have these metrics up
in your account and you're checking
these regularly if not daily these are
going to be the metrics that are are
going to basically determine whether or
not your campaigns are succeeding or
failing and whether or not you have the
capacity to start to ramp up and scale
your account definitely go into your
account right now go ahead make sure you
have all these metrics set up so you can
review them easily save them as a custom
column set and then you can come in and
check them every time you log into your
account and you can make sure that your
campaigns are on track as you continue
to optimize for results so with that
being said hope you've enjoyed the video
today let me know if you have any
questions in the comments below and
looking forward to seeing you in the
next
[Music]
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