One of the biggest challenges facing Google AdWords advertisers today is data analysis. Sure, AdWords marketers can determine their ad and keyword quality scores, click-through rates and cost per click bid prices, but what happens to the searcher when they land on the web site, after the click has occurred?
Most AdWords marketers also have a Google Analytics account at their disposal, but a very high percentage of marketers today do not have their Google Analytics account synced with their Google AdWords account. When your AdWords and Analytics accounts are not synced, you could be:
1. Missing out on valuable AdWords data.
2. Seeing a lot of (not set) keywords.
3. Experiencing a very high distortion between your visits and your clicks.
4. Not taking advantage of the “Clicks” tab within the AdWords section of reports with the Traffic Sources section.
5. Mixed or garbled information in your Campaigns, Keywords, or Ad Content reports.
Today, we are going to show you how to sync your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together, so that you can join the party and collect valuable AdWords data within your Google Analytics account.
Step 1: Take charge and become an administrator!
In order for you to sync AdWords and Analytics, the email address that you use to log-in to your AdWords account must also be an administrator of the Google Analytics account. If it is not already an administrator, please get a hold of the person that is the Administrator of your Google Analytics account, and ask them to make you an Administrator. You really shouldn’t do anything else before this happens.
Step 2: Log-In to AdWords and sync your accounts!
After you’ve become a Google Analytics Administrator, it’s time to sync your accounts together.
First, click on the Reporting tab and click on the Google Analytics link, found on the top navigation menu of your AdWords Account:
Once you do that, you should see a screen that looks like the one below, which gives you two options. You can choose to create a new Google Analytics account (no!), or, you can select the second option to link your existing Google Analytics account to your Google AdWords account (yes!). Click on Continue to move on to the next step.
After clicking on Continue, you will reach the final step in the AdWords to Analytics syncing process. Your Google Analytics account’s name should appear in the drop-down menu in the middle of the screen-shot below (if you’re not an Administrator, it won’t appear). Leave “Destination URL Auto-Tagging” checked on, and click on Link my account towards the bottom of the screen.
Congratulations! You’ve just synced your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together. That was fairly easy, was it not?
Step 3: Enjoy The Results!
Now that your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts are synced, you can enjoy Campaign, Ad Group, and Keyword data from your AdWords marketing efforts found within the Traffic Sources section of reports. After a couple of days, you’ll also be able to see data populating within the Clicks tab within your AdWords Campaigns report. ROI, Revenue Per Click, and Margin are three new metrics that will appear across the top score-card to give some additional meaning and performance evaluation for your AdWords Campaigns.
You’ll also be able to take advantage of the Keyword Positions report, which will show you keyword click and performance metrics based on the position of each one of your ads, as they appear in a search result. Also, if you participate in Google TV Ads, you’ll be able to see impression data for your TV Ads, including cost and CPM metrics.
So what are you waiting for? Log-in to your Google AdWords account and sync it to your Google Analytics account today!