Analyze paid advertising efficiency

1. Define the metrics that you want to track and set up tracking in Google Analytics.

For example, If you have an online store, transaction and revenue will be your primary metrics. Track primary goals such as submitted leads, if the goal of your website is to generate leads. Track secondary goals such as, newsletter sign-ups or free trial downloads, to get a better understanding of the entire funnel.

2. In Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > All traffic > Source/Medium and tick the Goal completions metric to compare the performance of your main marketing channels.

You can find the absolute number of goals per traffic source in the Goal completions column. If you use ecommerce tracking, click on E-commerce and check the Revenue column to see which traffic sources are most effective in generating revenue. Compare the number of goals or revenue to the cost invested in the channel to determine the cost per conversion and ROI of each of the paid channels. Compare different time periods such as, last 30 days, last 90 days, last 180 days, and last 365 days, to understand how the performance of your channels trends over time. Shift more budget to better performing channels. Optimize the channels with poor performance or reduce spend.

3. Go to Behavior > Site content > Landing pages to analyze the performance of the landing pages used in your paid marketing campaigns.

Click on +Add a segment, New segment, and Traffic sources. Use the Source and Medium filters, enter all your paid traffic channels, and click on Save. Analyze the Goal completions, Goal conversion rate, and Bounce rate columns to identify the best landing pages across all your paid marketing channels. Click on Secondary dimension and choose Source/Medium. Analyze the Goal completions, Goal conversion rate, and Bounce rate columns to identify the best landing pages for each of your paid marketing channels. Use the insights to optimize your campaigns: Shift more paid advertising traffic to better performing landing pages. Optimize the landing pages with high bounce rates across all paid marketing channels. Improve targeting in a marketing channel that generates higher bounce rates than other channels.

4. Go to Acquisition > Google Ads > Campaigns and analyze the specific campaigns, ad groups, and keywords of your Google Ads campaigns.

Analyze the cost and goal completion metrics. Identify the campaigns with the highest cost per conversion and click on the campaign name to view the ad groups. Click on Keywords next to Primary dimension to identify the ad groups with high cost per conversion.

5. Go to Acquisition > All traffic > Source/Medium and click on a paid channel, then click on Secondary dimension and select Campaign to analyze specific campaigns in paid marketing channels such as Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, or Twitter Ads.

Identify the campaigns with the worst performance, such as high cost and low number of conversions, and deactivate them. Identify the campaigns with the best performance, such as high number of conversions and low cost per conversion, and scale them, for example, increase budgets, increase CPC bids, and expand targeting.

6. Go to Conversions > Multi-Channel-Funnels > Top Conversion Paths then click on Source medium path to analyze the role of specific paid marketing channels in the entire customer journey.

Analyze the paid marketing channels at the beginning of the conversion paths. For example, Facebook ads might not drive the transactional traffic at the end of the purchase journey, but may raise the awareness of your product and start your entire journey. Use this information to further inform your marketing strategy decisions. For example, keep on investing in paid marketing channels that don’t generate revenue, but frequently appear at the beginning of the conversion paths.