AdWords Adviser

Archive for December, 2009

Everyone knows that an ad at the top of the results page will attract more click-through’s than one further down. But ask yourself this question, is the top AdWords ad position always the one that brings in most sales?

Just think about it, you don’t want to pay premium bid prices to keep your ad at the top of the results page when you could have the same or even more sales at a lower page position, obtainable for less cost.

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying, how can you find the best position on the results page for your ads that will also convert well?

There is only one solution to this problem and that is to try your ads in different positions and monitor the results.

Track Your Ads With Google Analytics

Imagine what it would be like if you could look over the shoulder of every visitor to your web site at the exact moment they click on your ad. And once they arrive at your web site, you could observe them as they navigate their way through your site.

Obviously, you can’t actually be there every time someone clicks on your ad, but Google can.

Install Google Analytics on your web site, link it to your AdWords account, and you’ve got a very powerful free tool that can tell you a lot about your web site and how people navigate it.

Configure goals for your new Google Analytics account and you’re ready to find out what positions on the results page your ads convert best.

Monitoring Your AdWords Ad Position

Now keep in mind, to perform any worth while analysis on your ads position your going to need at least a month of data from your web site. For best results, unless your website is very busy, you may even need two or even three months of data.
As time passes by, you’ll also want to vary the bid price of your keywords such that your ad averages every position on the results page for about an equal amount of time.

Once you have sufficient data, log into your Google Analytics account and find the “Keyword Positions” menu option (figure 1). You’ll find it by expanding the “AdWords” option in the “Traffic Sources” section.

The Keywords Position screen is divided into two parts. On the left is your AdWords keywords.

Click on a keyword you’ve been testing and the right hand screen will show the position breakdown (figure 2).

You’ll notice for this keyword there is a good number of visitors for the top ad positions and the side ads to position 5.

Any results from side position 6 onwards should therefore be ignored.

Now let your thoughts focus on the number of conversions each ad position has obtained.

Select “Goals” from the “Position Breakdown” drop menu (figure 3) to see how many sales each ad position obtained.

For this example, you’ll see the ad converted poorly in the top three positions when compared to the first side position. But best results of all were obtained when the ad was at side position 5.

Let your thoughts focus on these findings.

If you were bidding on this keyword to ensure your ad was shown at the top of the results page then these findings clearly show that you’ve been wasting money. You now know, for best performance, you have to choose between placing your ad at side position 1 or 5.

If you’re like me, you’d aim your ad at side position 1. The results for side position 5 are based on a much smaller sample of click-through’s and could therefore be misleading.

However, if you’re not sure, you could always perform the test again, this time positioning your ad at side position 1 for a few weeks and then side position 5!

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