3 Google Ads Metrics You Should Start Using

Ever experienced talking to an advertiser who keeps mentioning metrics they use that you’ve never heard of? Metrics that, according to them, actually matter?

And you went home that day enlightened and very much excited to try those newly discovered metrics to your own campaigns just to realize the next morning that they just add up to the bunch of columns you already have in your dashboard?

Nope. This isn’t my story.

And despite learning about these new metrics, you still find yourself going back to the old metrics you used to refer to. You still keep your dashboard that way, all messed up with columns despite the confusion and the headache you’re getting just by looking at them because it makes you look smart.

Definitely not me!

This article will focus on the 3 Google Ads metrics you should start using.

But before we jump into that, let’s define first what are these PPC metrics I am talking about.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

These PPC metrics, mostly referred to as KPIs, play a major role in determining the success of your campaigns. KPIs tell you which strategy is working out for you and which strategy flunked.

There are over a hundred KPIs in Google Ads alone. And if you’re using other platforms like Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, brace yourself for more.

So, which are the most important KPI’s?

It would be safe to say, “It depends.”

In the PPC world, there’s no such thing as one strategy works for all. The success of your campaigns will vary based on your goal, your target market, your target location, and the way you continuously tweak your campaigns.

And if you search for tips online, you’ll find a lot of articles discussing this in different numbers: top 20, top 10, top 7, top 5, etc…

Let me clarify that those articles aren’t wrong. The metrics they are pointing out are indeed important and would help us optimize our campaigns for better performance.

But sometimes, looking at too many metrics makes us forget the most important ones–the ones that actually matter to our clients.

The ones that are closer to their goals.

A Client’s End Goal

This brings us to the question, what is your client’s goal for advertising online?

Brand awareness? Could be.

Subscription? Another yes.

New leads? Yeah. Good one.

But if you’re going to put yourself in your client’s shoes, what would you really want to get out of online marketing endeavors?

What will be your end goal?

It’s sales, right? The actual purchase of the product or services you are offering. It’s what the client wants to achieve.

It doesn’t matter if all the stats of your PPC metrics are good but if you aren’t getting any sales, all your efforts in maintaining your PPC stats are futile.

That’s why it is important to always look first at those metrics that are closer to sales.

3 Most Important PPC Metrics

Again, I’m not saying that the other KPIs are less important. They are equally as important as the ones I’m going to mention below.

The only difference is that the KPIs below are the ones that are closer to your client goals.

And here they are:

• Conversions
• Cost per acquisition, cost per conversion, cost per inquiry
• Return On Ad Spend(ROAS)

Conversions

It doesn’t matter which part of the marketing funnel you are in, whether you’re doing brand awareness or targeting hot leads, you will want to elicit a specific action from your audience.

Conversions give you an idea of how many people completed your desired action and this is where you’d want to focus first.

Whenever you’re reviewing campaign performance, always check how many conversions you got. If it’s converting well, that’s the time you can look into other KPIs to see which part you can still improve.

If you’re not getting any conversions, it gives you the idea that something’s not working out well for you. That’s the time you check the other KPIs too.

Most advertisers focus on improving Clicks, Impressions, Average Position, CTR, and expects their conversions to just go up.

It shouldn’t be that way.

You need to look at your Conversions first and try to improve it before you focus on improving other KPIs.

Now, there’s a lot of discussion about it because we know how each KPI affects each other. But the point here is to focus on improving your Conversions first before the others.

The higher the Conversions, the better.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Okay, so you’re getting conversions. The next question is: how much are you paying for each conversion?

If you drove 30 conversions for a client this month but their CPA is way higher than what their product or service actually costs, then that’s a BIG problem.

First, you focus on getting Conversions.

Second, make sure you are reaching the client’s desired CPA. Why? Because they need to make money out of it. They need to profit as well. That’s why CPA is one of the metrics you should always look into.

The lower the CPA, the better.

Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

ROAS is another critical factor for your client. It shows your clients whether their advertising efforts are worth the money they’ve spent.

ROAS formula is revenue/cost. This helps clients determine if their advertising efforts are worth the cost it is incurring.

The higher the ROAS, the better.

Bottom Line

Analyzing data is one of the major things we do as online advertisers. Others even call us Data Scientists.

But since there are too many areas to look into, metrics to study, how can we make sure that our efforts are still aligned with our client’s goals?

Other metrics like Clicks, CTR, Impressions, Cost per Click, and Quality Score are always connected with the 3 crucial metrics. However, these metrics have tendencies to distract us away from the most important ones. This article focused on streamlining the metrics that we may have been overlooking for a while now.

If you can maintain good performance for these three metrics, your clients will be happy.

And remember, a happy client means a happy life.