You can access the report center by clicking the "Reporting" tab found at the top of the AdWords user interface and selecting reports.

Once the next screen loads you will find reports ranging from individual keyword performance to ad performance - even discovering the exact search queries that are being made on Google.com that then show your ad and delivered a visitor to your site.

There are 11 reports in all.

At the very least, we recommend running an Account Performance report for the past few months at a week-by-week basis to spot major trends.

• Placement/Keyword Performance: a favorite. This report will allow you to view performance data for every keyword in your account and discover how often each particular keyword shows your ad, how many clicks a keyword generates, how many conversions a keyword is responsible for and more.


• Search Query Performance: one of our other favorites! This will allow you to see the exact search queries being made on Google.com that then show your ad and generated a visitor to your site by way of your ad being clicked. This is an exceptional report for identifying new keywords to be added and also, new negative keywords.


• Placement Performance: a newer favorite! This will allow you to see specific performance for any website placement you have added to your content network campaigns.

It should be noted that both the Search Query Performance report and the Placement Performance report can be run directly in the AdWords user interface for any date range that you decide to select. For small, quick changes to your account on a frequent basis this is the best way to utilize these reporting features.

However, we prefer to run these two specific reports via the report center for extended date periods and then download the data that is populated into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. This way you have a great deal of data at your disposal all at once, allowing for greater sweeping changes, which can be conducted in AdWords Editor for robust optimizations to your AdWords account.

Whichever way you personally choose to utilize Google AdWords reports, it's imperative to take advantage of them (especially the three highlighted above). By doing so you will be able to out perform your competition; and if you use all 11 of them, there will be no stopping your ads.

Make the most of a few more AdWords strategies by checking out our three AdWords secrets video here.

Questions you should ask yourself:
Are their ads more compelling? Do they have a sale going on or a new product that is a better version of yours? Does their headline standout more? If you want your company to be able to compete online, regular competitive research is essential.

Benefits of regular competitive research:

• You'll be happily surprised when you see your traffic and sales increasing, if you regularly pay attention to these details to set yourself apart.


• You may also be surprised how little most of your competitors update their own ad text---this will give you the advantage.


• Plus, you will immediately notice when new competitors enter your market---something a company should always know.

Also, a great system for keeping up with your competitive research is to keep a spreadsheet with a tab detailing information on each key competitor. Make note of major ad text changes or ad position changes, with dates, of course, and then look back at the reports for your own account and see how the data correlates.

In summary, staying on top of your competitors through research to make your company stand out can only help grow your business online!

According to TechCrunch, big enough to encroach on Yahoo's position of "third largest Web property in the world", trailing none other than Google (#1) & Microsoft (#2).

In the U.S., Facebook already has the second highest number of unique visitors per month - surpassing Yahoo for the first time in January. Compete.com also reports that of all time spent online in January, 11.6% was on Facebook, compared to less than 5% on Yahoo and Google each.

What does this mean to you?

Well, I don't have the answer to that question, but I can tell you what it now means to some of our clients for whom we've recently started advertising on Facebook --> more qualified customer leads + a desirable cost = more $$$ for them.

The following story is about a lead generation client (Client A, for anonymity), but Facebook would certainly be worth testing if you're in an e-commerce space too.

Within 18 days his campaign spent just over $500, generating almost 600 clicks, but these numbers don't tell the whole story yet:

When we dig into our Google Analytics reporting for Client A's Facebook PPC traffic, we can see that his $500 in spend produced 11 highly valuable customer leads:

By highly valuable, I mean that Client A knows his customer lifetime value and has been able to determine that each new customer lead is worth $600 to him.

So for a ~$500 cost, with 11 new customer leads worth $6,600 (11 x $600), we're talking about a superior ROI from Facebook in just 18 days!

It's important to note here that Facebook is only producing 5.5% of the overall leads from our top 5 traffic sources, so it's not going to replace Google AdWords anytime soon. Facebook is however, turning out to be a solid supplemental lead source for Client A.

Facebook advertising is included in our paid search management service, get the full story on what we can do for you.

Now that State Popularity has joined the GARE family, it's a great time to download the latest version of the Report Enhancer. Here are the steps:

1. Get Firefox
2. Get Greasemonkey
3. Get the GARE

In addition to the new metric, I've also been able to improve the way additional metrics are added to tables, including better sorting and handling of advanced segments and compare to past.

So how is State Popularity calculated anyway? I'm glad you asked!

The obvious way out of this is to multiple each ratio by the same number to make them more human friendly. I decided that rather than picking a static number, like 1,000 or 100,000, I would multiply each ratio by a number so that the total of all adjusted ratios would be equal to the number of visits. To do this, I divided each ratio by the sum of all ratios, then multiplied by the total number of visits.

The main benefit to multiplying the ratios by this number is that you can tell whether you are getting a high number of visits even from a smaller state by comparing the State Popularity number to the number of visits.

For example, if the State Popularity is higher than the number of visits for a particular state, then you know that you're getting higher than average visits from that state based on its population. If it's lower, then the number of visits from that state is less significant.

The problem with this method, from a Google Analytics standpoint, is that it's difficult to calculate the sum of all the ratios unless they're visible, that is, at least 50 rows are showing (though usually more because of D.C. and (not set)). To handle this, I had to make my own requests for the data that included all of the rows and pre-calculate the totals. The map overlay also has its own peculiarities that make it difficult to make table additions persistent.

What makes this significant is that it in the past, I could only create new metrics based on metrics in a single table. But now, theoretically, I should be able to calculate metrics based on more than one table.

I'll probably be able to think of some good use of this technique before too long, but if someone else has an idea of what metric they might like to see, let me know! You never know, your new metric may be the next addition to the GARE.

Despite all this, there are now over 1.25 billion Internet users around the globe, so the sky is the limit for online retailers who can do a good job of catering to their target market's needs.

If you're already selling products on the Net, then you are probably well aware that credibility is KING with consumers in the information age. People (whether consciously or unconsciously) are constantly looking for little security checkpoints in a site that tell them "Not to worry...your money is safe being spent here."

How can you be sure that your visitors feel safe buying from your site? That's a multiple answer question, but some of the lowest hanging fruit in terms of establishing your online checkout credibility is using common identifiers that people can recognize, like PayPal, VeriSign, and especially a trustworthy checkout process like Google Checkout.

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1. What is it and how much does it cost...

Google Checkout is exactly what its name implies - according to Google, "a fast, secure checkout process that helps increase sales by bringing you more customers and allowing them to buy from you quickly and easily with a single log-in."

Google Checkout is not completely free to use, but you don't have to pay any fees up front or on a recurring basis and it's totally comparable to most payment processing services. You only pay a small fee per transaction as outlined below:

2. How can it help you...

Google Checkout can help you in 3 main ways:

A. Acquire more visitors.
According to Google's calculations, people who use Google Checkout click 10% more on ads containing the Google Checkout logo.
- Mission A, accomplished.

B. Bring in more sales.
Brace yourself... What does your current conversion ratio look like? How does a 40% gain sound? Google says, "A fast, convenient checkout process helps Google Checkout users convert 40% more than shoppers who have not used Checkout before."
- Awesome.

C. Curb fraud.
Google has set up its checkout program to not only protect the visitor, but you, the seller as well: "Checkout's Payment Guarantee protects 98% of Checkout orders on average - when an order is guaranteed, you get paid even if it results in a chargeback."
- Alright!

3. What Are You Waiting For...

Three Easy Steps (except possibly #2, for which you might need your webmaster's help):

1. Create a Google Checkout Account
2. Pick an integration option to get Checkout on your site
3. Start selling once it's integrated with your site!

Google Checkout...Check it out!

According to Google, Insights for Search is a tool where users "can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames, and properties."

To use this tool, you need to visit www.google.com/insights/search/.

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However, you can also see another reoccurring spike that happens every May, probably indicating that people search for flowers to give to their moms on Mother's Day.

By using Insights for Search, you have found that another seasonal campaign is needed for your product, and will hopefully help you capitalize on traffic that other turkey suppliers are missing out on.

Other helpful uses for Insights for Search include:

• Finding search volume by geographic location


• Finding top search terms relating to your keywords


• Finding rising searches relating to you keywords

Join fellow Google Analytics peers in learning how to use and implement Analytics this spring in Atlanta, Georgia, April 14-15.

Wednesday, April 14th, the Introduction & User Training day is designed for the beginner in Google Analytics and is primarily for non-technical users such as marketers and analysts. It is designed to give a broad and solid introduction to the reporting features of Google Analytics. A large part of the day focuses on the reports available and how to use them. The intent is to present reports, explain what they mean and how they might be used with a site. While covering the reports, the various tools (the calendar, different chart views, tabs, etc.) are explained in context.

Thursday, April 15th, the Advanced Technical Implementation day is primarily for the technical user who installs and configures Google Analytics. Familiarity with JavaScript, HTML, and cookie management is assumed.

Location: Courtyard Atlanta Vinings, 2857 Paces Ferry Road SE, Atlanta, GA 30339

Cost: $499 each day or $898 for both days (a savings of $100 for attending both days!). For attending a session you'll receive a $50 AdWords credit (so you'd receive $100 in AdWords credit for attending both sessions; limit 2 per company).

Agenda: Instruction begins each day at 9am (with registration at 8:45am to get your training materials, the seat of your choice and coffee!) and goes until 5pm with a one hour break at noon for lunch on your own. Both sessions feature multiple question and answer sessions. These seminars are officially sponsored by Google, so you can trust that you are receiving the most accurate and up-to-date information on the best practices for Google Analytics.

See what previous attendees had to say about the in-person seminars:

"After the seminar I feel much more confident about using other features of Google Analytics that I bypassed previously." -- Kathryn Graber

"I learned more than expected or intended. The travel, the money, the time, the fun... it was more than worthwhile!" --David Wentworth

"The seminars were professionally designed adn executed. Two of the best I have attended in years." -- D. Moore

"Seminar was worth 20x investment just in time saved on what I learned." -- Bob Johnson

"If you want to really know what's possible in Google Analytics - and how to implement it - you need this course." -- J. Withers

"Great instructors who were friendly and knowledgeable. Worth traveling from the UK." -- Adele Wiseman

"These guys clearly know what they're talking about. Google Analytics can be very pretty to look at, but extremely overwhelming and confusing. Shawn did a great job of breaking it down, showing us what we should pay attention to and simplifying it as much as possible." -- Gabe Silverman

"Google Analytics is so new to me. Prior to coming to the seminar someone else at my company dealt with GA, so I had only briefly seen and heard about it. I only attended one day (Introduction & User training) and it was great. I have to say I walked away with a gang of knowledge, and before i had the chance to ask a good 90% of my questions they were answered. If I didn't have a very basic and minimal background of computer software I might have been lost. GA has a ton of components and I realized its going to take some playing around with the program to ensure that our company is using it to the best of our capacity. GA is a new territory for me, and I'm excited about implementing it." -- Alicia Swift

Learn more about the topics covered and register for the Atlanta Google Analytics Seminars.

Cancellation Guarantee: You can register now, and even if you have to cancel, we will refund your money in full until 8 days before the event. After that, you can transfer your registration to someone else, if you need to.

Unlike the User Defined variable, the Custom Variables allow you to determine the scope of the visitor engagement. Basically that means in addition to setting just a visitor level segment, you can also set session level segments, which will persist while the visitor is active on the site, and page level segments, which correspond to pageviews and events on the site. This allows you to get much more detailed with the information you're gathering and storing in the custom variable. For example, you could separate different sections of the site by using the page level scope, or you could track if a visitor has completed a particular action during their session with the session level scope.

The Custom Variable function accepts four parameters: Index, Name, Value, and Scope.

• Index - The index refers which custom variable you are currently using. You can only set up to 5 separate custom variables within a single pageview (or event), and this number references which of those 5 you wish to use.


• Name - Sets the name of the variable.


• Value - Sets the value of the custom variable.


• Scope- This is what sets the scope of the visitor segment. 1 (visitor-level), 2 (session-level), or 3 (page-level).

_setCustomVar(index, name, value, scope)

And here's what it looks like when I fill in my member tracking information:

pageTracker._setCustomVar(1, "MemberType", "Paid", 1);
pageTracker._trackPageview();

Notice that the setCustomVar() function comes before the trackPageview(). The information is only sent to Google Analytics during a pageview or an event, so keep that in mind when placing the code on your site.

Now I've set a custom variable on a visitor level that segments visitors into a paid membership category. How do I find this information in my Google Analytics account? Under the Visitors section in the left navigation click on 'custom variables' and you'll see a list of the names of the custom variables you're using on your site. Click on the names to drill down into the values of each of these variables.

For more information on how to set up custom Variables and some additional examples on when you might use them, check out the Google Code article.

Why has this tool been granted such a prominent position in the new interface, alongside such heavy hitting account management tools as Google Analytics, Conversion Tracker and the Report Center? Well, sure it's a reporting tool like the others, but it's unique ability to track changes to your account, coupled with its performance metric graphs and visual timeline overlay make it a key weapon in any AdWords account manager's arsenal. It's placement under the Reporting tab is a testament to its usefulness.

While managing any AdWords account, it is common to make tens or even hundreds of changes to your account in one sitting in an effort to optimize traffic for better return on investment. Periodic tweaking of your account is essential to long-term growth and greater ROI. However, these changes are only beneficial to you if you can account for which ones resulted in performance improvements, and which ones didn't. In fact, it is the accountability of PPC optimization that affords us confidence in the power of split testing to boost profits.

And so, AdWords has given account managers the "My Change History" tool which records all changes made to an account for 2 years prior to a given date, then categorizes those changes for easy access.

You can specify an exact or preset date range, filter changes by campaign and ad group, and narrow the scope of change types (ad creative, budget, cpc bid, etc.) displayed in your report. If you're trying to find the exact date you rotated new ads into a given ad group over the past 3 weeks, these filters will isolate them for you in seconds. This makes it easy for any manager to analyze the performance results of the changes you have made without the fuss of digging through pages of detailed and itemized adjustments hoping to find the needle in the haystack.

What if you notice a significant change in performance, but you're not sure what caused it? Was it a bid increase, or maybe some new keywords you added? The "My Change History" tool can help you find the cause of performance fluctuations even if you don't know what you're looking for.

Let's say you noticed a significant drop off in conversions in your account and you have no idea why your ROI is in the toilet. Just fire up the "My Change History" tool, select a date range that precedes the drop in conversions, select all change types and voila.

Click on the number, and the tool will display only the changes that were made on that date, narrowing down weeks, months, or even years of records. Once you have this information, you'll be able to reverse those changes, and get your conversions headed back in the right direction.

When used methodically, you can optimize your account with precision and confidence, knowing that any changes you make can later be analyzed, isolated, and expanded or reversed based on their success or failure. AdWords' "My Change History" tool is a major asset in managing an account.

Here is a 5 step plan to give your PPC accounts a (much needed) winter makeover:

1. Read Blog Articles For New Keyword Ideas: Read your industry blogs to keep up with the latest buzz words. Reading the latest and greatest articles may help you think of new ways people will be searching for your products. Setting up a Google blog reader to follow blogs from your industry can help make this task much more time efficient.

3. Study The Quality Score of Your Keywords: Check out which keywords in your account need some quality score help. Then separate those keywords out into their own ad groups and write highly specific ad text around them. Note the quality score before the change, then check the quality score in two weeks. Most likely you will see a big improvement.

4. Use SpyFu.com.: Use this tool to see what your competitors are bidding on! It's not 100% accurate, but it's a great way to come up with some new keywords and keep an eye on your competition. Simply type in your competitors' URL to the search function on this site, and a list of your competitors' paid terms is automatically generated.

5. Social Media: Stay in the loop on Facebook and other sites to see what your target market is saying and how they are talking about your products. This may help you come up with new ad text, and even make some changes to your landing page copy. Keeping your keyword, ad text, and landing pages relevant is an ongoing task. Social media sites can help you stay on the pulse of your ever changing and evolving target market.

I challenge you to make January a month of change! Think outside the box, and make some powerful changes within your accounts that will really impact your bottom line. Also, if you have any success using the 5-step plan please share!

There are two different types of budget delivery standard and accelerated.

Standard Delivery: Selecting this option can potentially limit the number of times your ads show throughout the course of the day. This option designates the campaign to spend the daily budget allocated steadily throughout each day.

Accelerated Delivery: Selecting this option guarantees that your ad will show as much as possible throughout the course of each day except in the event that the budget you allocated for that campaign is depleted before day's end.

As an AdWords advertiser you must decide which of the two settings is a better fit for you and your overall account budget.

To switch between Standard Delivery and Accelerated Delivery, follow these steps:

Remember: to maximize coverage in your marketplace, choosing accelerated as your delivery method will position you far better to achieve this.

It is important to remember that there are a few strategies and tips you pretty much always need to implement as you are writing and testing ads. I"ve come up with an "ad recipe" that I keep on my desk to ensure all necessary elements are included in the new ads I write.

I"ll break down each ingredient:

Differentiate From Competitors: This takes a little more work. Study your competitors' ads. What do you do differently? What sets you apart? Whatever it is, make sure it is in your ad copy (and stands out)!

Call To Action: Engage the visitor to take action on your site. Offer them a free report, a free consultation, ask them to call now, buy now, browse more. Whatever call to action makes sense for your industry and is the most powerful.

Like with any recipe, take the time to add each ingredient slowly. Then combine all to ensure your batter (or ad text) is well mixed! If you follow these steps, you will surely have a tasty ad that will keep your potential clients coming back for more.

Want more strategies and inspiration (including example headlines, ad text, etc) for writing your next pay-per-click ads?

Get our free PPC Ad Writing Quick-Reference Guide, simply fill out the form and the guide will be emailed to you instantly so you can start using it right away to write more compelling ad text.

With PPC advertising, the best use of ad copy is not just to attract prospects, but sometimes to filter out searchers who are unlikely to become your customers.

Since you pay for each click to your site, when a click-happy searcher pops into your site just to browse or to do a little price comparison, you're probably wasting some of your precious ad spend.

One way to effectively ward off some of these searchers is by including the price of your product or service in your ad. You obviously can't eliminate clicks from these users entirely - if they want to click through, they're going to. But adding the price makes them less likely on average to want to click.

For searchers who sincerely think they might be interested in your product or service, your price acts as a great filter, keeping out prospects that don't want to pay or can't afford your price point. And if the searcher has zero interest in spending money, your price makes it loud-and-clear that they won't be getting any freebies by clicking your ad.

The effectiveness of this strategy will vary substantially depending on your situation. The most obvious time to include your price in your ad copy is when you have the best price. Not only will you be filtering out some poor quality traffic, but the price will double as a unique selling proposition in your space. If you don't have the best price it gets a bit trickier.

If you're not the price leader but almost every other ad on the page includes price for a very similar or identical product or service, then you might have a good reason to throw it in your ad as well. A search results page littered with prices means that the price is a very important factor for this particular product or service. If you don't include your price, searchers are going to click your ad at a high rate just to check out your price and if it's not the best, then they'll probably bounce. But if your price is in your ad, and you are not the price leader, then you can be confident that most clicks are going to come from prospects that don't use price points as their only buying criteria, making them a high quality visitor.

Including your price in your ad text is definitely not a strategy that will help every advertiser using PPC, but if you're having issues with low conversion rates and high CPAs, it's probably smart to give it a try and test it out.

Get more ad writing strategies to test from our free Ad Writing Quick-Reference Guide.

We've updated our Urchin 6 Demonstration webinar to include examples of Urchin's CPC integration (AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing), tracking and reporting for the next presentation on Tuesday, January 12th at 2:00pm ET.

During this 35-40 minute webinar we'll be reviewing a few of Urchin's signature features along with pricing and upgrade information. The webinar will be conducted online and over the phone for your convenience (this is a live event, no recordings will be available). The presentation will be followed by Q&A, so don't miss out on the chance to bring your Urchin 6 product questions to the experts!

The updates we'll be going over include:

The Cost Per Click (CPC) Data Import Manager allows you to create CPC Sources. It enables automatic extraction of CPC Campaign Data from AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM). The CPC Sources can be linked to existing profiles and this will enable automatic inclusion of the CPC Data into Urchin reports.

Once the data has been imported, Urchin has the following features to manage your CPC campaigns:

• The Keyword Generation Tool allows you to generate and manage keywords and to see their performance information.
  
• Direct links to AdWords allow you to navigate directly from Urchin to the appropriate screen in your AdWords account.
  
• The Urchin Tag Manager inserts a dynamic keyword insertion tag {keyword} in ad destination URLs. This feature simplifies the URL tagging experience and allows you to seamlessly import AdWords cost data into Urchin.
  
• A CPC Structure group of reports has been added under the Advertisement Optimization section.
  

To wrap up the year we've ranked our top 7 PPC blog posts of 2009:

1. The One vs. Many-Per-Click Breakdown --Turn to this article for a breakdown of the One Vs. Many-Per-Click conversion change that happened in Google AdWords this past year. Since conversions are a reflection of your bottom line, understanding this change is crucial!

2. Top 5 Free PPC Tools --There are tons of FREE PPC tools on the web. Some of them are great, some are alright, and some are just OK. Here are ROI we've had experience with almost all of them, and have compiled a list of the top 5 for you to reference.

4. Introduction to Google's Ad Auction, Part 2: AdRank and CPC -- Getting to the top of Google can be tricky (and expensive). This blog article outlines exactly how Google calculates AdRank and the cost you pay per click.

5.How to Use Negative Keywords When Targeting Google's Content Network -- Setting up campaigns to target Google's content network can be confusing enough, add in negative keywords and you've got yourself a double whammy. This article explains best practices when using negative keywords when targeting Google's content network.

6. Have You Used Google's New Wonder Wheel? -- We loved Google's new tool so much we blogged about it! Google's Wonder Wheel can help you expand your keyword list, build out content campaigns, find new negative keywords, and much more!

7.Google's New Interface Will Make Your Advertising Life Easier -- Google released their new interface for AdWords in 2009. Our article outlines the top features and benefits, and also links to our New AdWords user interface webinar where you'll see how the new AdWords User Interface will save you hours of your limited time, help you cut wasted adspend, and discover hew highly relevant keywords and placements to scale your online profits!

We hope you have enjoyed recapping our top posts of 2009.

Best wishes in the new year!