Tracking and Return on Investment (ROI)

Track the results of your ads and campaigns and Create a Return on Investment (ROI) report

Tracking and Results : From the moment your AdWords account becomes active, it begins to generate valuable data that will help you optimize and fine-tune your marketing actiities. In order to bill you correctly, Google must carefully monitor the number of clicks that each and every one of your keywords and search phrases generates. Not only that, they also have to report on what your active bid was at the precise moment that each click was generated.

It is important that you familiarize yourself with the reporting data that Google provides. Experience has shown that, although one may generate a vast list of search terms, keywords and phrases, it is invariably a very small subset of these search terms that generate the lion's share of cost and clicks. The click reports will alert you to this, and help you optimize your activities.

ROI Reports : Below is an example of a general Return on Investment (ROI) report similar to one that I've used extensively to manage cost per click sites, and to optimize our advertising dollars spent there. While it can be somewhat time consuming and resource intensive to generate a report such as this from your actual results, it is well worth the effort if you reveal information that saves you money on bids, or dramatically increases sales.

Please glance through the following report format. Each element is described below.

Site: The cost per click site that generated the clicks for this reporting period for this keyword.
Keyword: The keyword or search phrase that generated the click and cost data.
Total Cost: The total dollar cost for all clicks associated with this keyword over the reporting period.
Estimated Impressions: An estimate of how many times the ad listing was actually viewed whether it was clicked on or not -- this data is available from your AdWords reporting.
Clicks: The total number of times the ad listing was clicked during the reporting period.
Average Cost Per Click: The average cost per click during the reporting period.
Clickthrough Percent: The number of clicks divided by the number of estimated impressions for the reporting period.
Sales: The total number of sales generated by this keyword during the reporting period.
Cost Per Sale: The total cost divided by sales for the reporting period.

The key to successful ROI is to manage your campaigns by sales. The optimum campaigns are driving the highest volume of sales for the lowest possible cost per sale. If you're optimizing your listings according to how many sales they make and the cost of those sales, you have mastered the secret of the ROI report.