Performance Graphs In The New Google AdWords Interface - What Is Their Value?

I know, you've been using the new Google AdWords Interface for some time now. But, can you remember how full of excitement you were when you logged in for the first time? Remember getting your first look at all the new features?

Can you still remember what the first new feature you noticed was?

You're probably now picturing the performance graph that appears near the top of the screen, just below the second line of page tabs. And you probably thought at the time that this graph looks interesting...



You then shot off to see what other features you could find and have never given it a second glance since. But by ignoring the performance graph, you're overlooking a valuable tool that can help you with managing changes to your account.

Here is a simple example of how you might make good use of the performance graph in implementing your AdWords advertising strategy.

Try This With Your AdWords Advertising Campaign.

Just suppose you wanted to see what effect raising the position of your ads on the search engine results pages had on the performance of your account. Could a higher ad position bring in more sales?

If you're like everyone else, when making changes, you'll want to closely monitor them. And it's now that the performance graph comes into it's own.

Show the stats view for all your campaigns by clicking on the "Campaigns" tab, then look just below the page tab and you'll see a "+" symbol.

Click on the symbol to reveal a drop down window with a list of different metrics that you can show on your performance graph. To monitor the changes to your account for this example, select to display the "Avg. Pos." and "Conv." metrics.

Every time that you log into AdWords, the first thing you are going to see is the effects of your recent changes on your advertising campaign.

Start to gradually raise all the bids for your keywords a little each day. Over time you'll see the blue line in your graph start to drop as your ads begin to appear nearer the top of the search results page.

If raising your ads prominence is having a positive effect on your sales, then the green line showing your conversions will start to rise showing that you're making more sales.

What Else Can The Performance Graph Show Me?

Okay, you're probably thinking, you've got more sales but can you actually afford them? There is no point in increasing your sales numbers if the cost of doing so is more than you can afford to pay.

Very quickly, you can change the metric on the performance graph to view your campaign's performance from a totally new point of view.

Change the "Conv." metric to "Cost-per-Conv." and the green line on your performance graph will now show how your average costs have changed since you started to raise the position of your ads on the results page.

If as the blue line falls the green line is rising, you know that each of your sales are costing you more.

Targeting Change

It is quite obvious that if your costs per sale are rising, you could return all your bids back to the values they were when you started this experiment. The ad positions for each of your keywords will then fall back to where they were previously, but logically, so would your conversions drop to the volumes they were previously also.

Let me ask you, wouldn't you rather keep those extra sales and just reduce your costs-per-conversion?

Well with a little bit more research, you can.

If you now click on the "AdGroup" tab, you can set up another performance graph to show the relationship of ad position against cost-per-conversion.

By selecting each of your ad groups in turn, you can now see in an instance what the effect of raising the position of your ads on the results page has been to the performance of that ad group.
Should any ad group performance graph show an increase in your cost-per-conversion, then you are going to need to take a closer look at that group and either delete surplus keywords or adjust bids.

In this way, you can take selective action that will reduce your advertising costs without doing too much damage to your conversion volumes