A very common problem we encounter when we have a first contact with our clients is that most are already using more or less advanced web analytics programs, but they don't know how to get the most out of the information they offer.
All the statistical programs offer basic information such as the number of visits, impressions per visitor, origin of the visit, type of search engine used, etc… but depending on the type of website we are managing, we should pay more attention to some data than others.
Professionally, I think that a free tool like Google Analytics is more than enough for most web projects, and if it is configured in an advanced way it can offer us really valuable information. The advantage of Analytics is that it is a free application and that if we use it together with Google AdWords it allows us to extract really interesting joint information.
E-Commerce sites
In the e-commerce sites the most important metrics that we must analyze are: Profits, income, conversion rates, average order and the average cost of conversions.
This is the most complicated configuration to obtain reliable data, but if we configure AdWords and Analytics properly, most of the information we will have in real time. For example, it is possible to indicate the price or benefit obtained by an individual product so that when we consult the data on our website we see which campaigns have a higher return on investment (ROI).
An especially important piece of information that Analytics offers us is knowing which data sources are generating our income. For example, we can know the daily profitability of the banner on the website of an affiliate, know the profitability of an e-mailing campaign, know that a keyword in SEO (organic positioning) generates X income and the most profitable words of our search engine advertising campaign (SEM).
Generation of Leads / Requests or Records
This second type of website, which bases its business on the generation of Leads (Registers or Requests for Information) are surely the ones that can get the most out of an AdWords campaign and Web analytics.
In the Leads Generation sites, the most important metrics to analyze are: volume of leads generated, click-to-lead conversion rate, revenue generated by each lead, cost per lead, and profit from each visit.
Most of the information we need is provided by AdWords itself once we have properly configured conversion tracking, but just like on eCommerce sites, there is additional campaign information (e-mailings, banners, purchased links) on other websites, etc…) that we can only obtain with Analytics.
It is even possible to know the quality and profitability that free search engine results (SEO) generate compared to the results of paid search engine (SEM) campaigns.
A very common mistake of many campaigns in AdWords is to look only at the cost per click CPC instead of the cost per Lead or number of Conversions. What else gives us to pay 1 Euro per click if we get customers at 5 Euros and our product is sold at a price of 50 Euros? Isn't it more profitable than a CPC campaign at 0.50 Euros, but which hardly generates Leads or generates them at an exorbitant price? The Conversion ratio and the final cost per Lead are the most important data in this type of campaign.
Advertising based sites
The model of sites that base their business on advertising is simpler: they must obtain the maximum number of page views per user and be able to sell their advertising space at the best possible price to maximize their income. Given this model, the objective we must follow is a campaign with a low CPC.
The metrics we should examine on an Advertising-based site are: profit, revenue, average page views per user, average cost per visit, and average profit per visit.
In these types of sites, the Google content network can help to obtain low-cost clicks since it generally offers a lower CPC, but without stopping to review the number of pages viewed by each user and campaign, information that we will obtain from Analytics.
