The two primary tools utilized by PPC manager in managing a PPC campaign are Google AdWords and Google Analytics. Google offers both of these platforms, and the basic purpose of these platforms is to provide the marketer with an insight to the performance of the campaign.
However, these two tools besides facilitating an internet marketing company in better management of the campaign, also pose a challenge in the form of data discrepancy. There is a difference in the stats shown by these two platforms relating to the factors that affect the campaign. The discrepancy can be elaborated with the help of a supposed situation.
Situation:
Suppose that a manager is to implement ad scheduling for a campaign, and for that purpose, he needs to analyze the hourly performance of the ads, so that the bids on the ads could be reduced, paused, or maximized.
Process:
The process of finding data related to hourly performance involves gathering of data from both AdWords and Analytics. The process can be broken down as:
- Firstly, the manager will have to download the conversion data from AdWords. The AdWords data will give information about the cost of conversion and the majority of conversions that take place in a specific hour of the day. However, these conversions do not represent the value of the conversions.
- Secondly, to find out the value of the conversion, and its impact on ROI the data will have to be extracted from Analytics pertaining to the revenue generated by conversions in that specific hour of the day, the data for which was initially collected by AdWords.
Discrepancy:
- The data of both AdWords and Analytics when analyzed pertaining to conversions in the specific hour of the day, it will show discrepancy. The discrepancy can be in following two forms:
- AdWords showing conversions in the specific hour of the day, while Analytics recording no revenue in the same hour.
- Analytics showing generation of revenue in the specific hour, while AdWords has no conversion stats for that hour.
Reason For Discrepancy:
The discrepancy is because of the fact that AdWords and Analytics attribute different functions to the term conversion.
- For AdWords, the first click on an ad is considered as a conversion attribute.
- For Analytics the last click is considered as a conversion attribute.
Explanation- The conversion attribution of both AdWords and Analytics can be explained with an example, of a person clicking on an ad. A person clicks on the ad, views the product or service offerings of the website, then goes to competitors websites, and then comes back again to make the purchase by typing the website address, this scenario as a whole, is seen differently by both the platforms.
- AdWords would consider the conversion attributed when the person clicked on the ad.
- Analytics attributes it as a direct conversion, because the person typed the URL of the website , and made the purchase without any referral.
Possible Recuperating Measures:
The discrepancy could never be filled in any way. The possible recuperating pay per click management measures that can be taken are:
- Decrease the bids in hours when the cost of conversion is high.
- Turn off the ads when there is no conversion and no revenue.
Conclusion:
In short, it is understood the at this point of time the discrepancy between the data of Analytics and AdWords exist, which cannot be filled. Therefore, the best way of managing a PPC campaign would be, not to monitor your campaign from on tool only, rather use both the tools simultaneously to find the exact information.