Why Track AdWords?

Google AdWords truly is a fascinating platform to learn and a great way to generate leads and convert customers on your website.  Google AdWords, unlike many online advertising platforms is easy to begin with but has a definite depth of knowledge required to become a quality user.  This differentiates AdWords from Facebook or LinkedIn, which make creating a few ads extremely easy but discourage scale by having systems that provide very little room for improvement and are arduous to use with high volumes of spend.  Although I don’t consider myself an AdWords genius by any stretch, I’m going through the official certification courses now and have had the privilege of learning from those with decades of experience and managing sizable budgets on my own accord.

Here is the first of many introductions to some more advanced strategies to drive success in Google AdWords:

Use {UTM} Codes in the URL to Track AdWords Performance

You don’t have to be a professional web designer to use some basic coding that will make your campaign tracking immensely easier.  If you click through on any professionally created Ad on Google AdWords and look at the URL, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.  To show an example, I just clicked on an ad for Progressive Auto Insurance:

[box] http://www.progressive.com/insurance/search/quote-compare-save.aspx?code=8004367760&se=Google&cmp=NC&adgr=(NC-GEN)+-+HT+-+Generic+Insurance&kwd=insurance&srcfrc=true&&mt=e&[/box]

While this may look like a lot of arbitrary letters, &’s, and =’s, I assure you there’s a method to the perceived madness.  Each section, separated by an “&” gives some information about who just clicked through to their ad.  The first few listings are static and thus can say whatever Progressive wants to use to track visitors.  If you’re new to manipulating URL’s in general, remember that anything you put after a “?” doesn’t affect the page destination.  Later in the code, you see Google’s proprietary dynamic UTM codes that will dynamically insert information about the visitor and query.

These include:

Static URL codes for AdWords

*These can be whatever you want*
Medium=*Google
Account=*[YOUR ACCOUNT]
AdGroup=*[YOUR AD GROUP]

Dynamic URL codes for AdWords

Keyword={Keyword}
MatchType={MatchType}
Distribution={IfSearch:Search}{ifContent:Content}
AdID={Creative}
Placement={Placement}

So the finished product, using dynamic and static codes, should look like:

[YOURWEBSITE.COM/YOUR LANDINGPAGE]?Medium=Google&Account=XYZ_Incorporated&AdGroup=NewProducts
&Keyword={Keyword}&MatchType={MatchType}&Distribution={IfSearch:Search}{IfContent:Content}&AdID={Creative}&Placement={Placement}

Make sure you have Google Analytics on the site you’re monitoring, too, as it will be one of the best places to view all your newfound Paid Ad tracking data.  If you have more questions, this is a great article from my friends at Performable that explains, in more detail, UTM codes and tracking.  If you follow all the steps above, get ready to see tremendous changes in your ability to track your AdWords Campaign and Ad Performance.