How to optimize 5 main KPIs
You can assess the success of your Google ad campaigns and overall strategy with key performance indicators (KPIs). These are metrics that showcase audience engagement and the profitability of your strategy
Let’s review how to check your performance in Google Ads and determine where there is room for improvement by comparing your data to industry benchmarks. Then, test the strategies below to improve where needed.
Quality score
What is it?
Quality Score is a score (from 1 to 10) that Google determines for your performance across 3 key metrics:
- Ad relevance
- Landing page experience
- Expected clickthrough rate
For each of the above metrics, Google will give you a status of either below average, average, or above average.
Enhancing the quality score can improve the user experience of your ad, leading to a better return on ad spend (ROAS) and lower cost per click (CPC). In other words, you’ll be more likely to earn a higher profit with the same amount of ad spend.
How to improve?
To improve quality score, you must improve some combination of ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected clickthrough rate.
- Improve ad relevance
Target a new segment or add more robust Google targeting criteria to your ad campaign. Klaviyo allows you to build granular segments based on specific behavior, such as past purchases, interests, and customer lifetime value. Critically examine your data and evaluate how you can make your targeting either more specific, less specific, or more relevant to your campaign objective. - Enhance landing page experience
Ensure that your ad copy and visuals align with the webpage that you direct people to; they should be on-brand so that the experience feels natural going from advertisement to website. You should also follow through on key offers and include the correct URL that is optimized for viewing (e.g., fast site speed; well-designed layout; clear purpose and CTA; legible text color and font; a user interface that works on both desktop and mobile, etc.). Learn more about landing page optimization.
Additional factors affecting quality score include geographic location, additional assets, the day and time your ad appears, etc. Test out those elements to find what works best for audience engagement.
Impressions
What is it?
Impressions measure the number of times your ad is viewed.
How to improve?
To boost the amount of impressions, you may need to adjust the following elements of your ad strategy:
- Increase ad spend: The more you spend on an ad, the higher it will rank. If you have a crucial ad campaign with low impressions, you may increase the bid associated with it to elevate where it ranks among other similar ads. You can also increase your daily allotted budget within Google Ads to ensure that your ad is shown as much as possible.
- Update your keywords: use quality keywords so that you surface your ads to the right audience, those most likely to search for or interact with content related to your ad.
Clickthrough rate (CTR)
What is it?
Clickthrough rate measures how often your ads are clicked. This is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of times your ad is seen (clicks / impressions × 100 = CTR).
How to improve?
To improve CTR, you can:
- Optimize your keywords: target keywords that are relevant to your ad copy, and specify negative keywords that you do not want to target (i.e. to prevent your ad from appearing when some searches a certain word or phrase).
- Narrow your audience: if you are seeing high impressions but low clicks, then perhaps you are targeting too wide of an audience; narrow your focus to only target those who are most likely to be interested in your content.
- Improve your assets: assets make up an ad and are what people click. For any linked text, add a clear and actionable call-to-action (CTA). You can also add additional assets, such as your phone number, directions to a store, specific site links, etc. This may drive even more traffic to these spots by adding additional places to click and making your ad stand out more.
- Optimize ad placement: take note of what kinds of ads work best for your brand and where they live within the Google ecosystem (e.g., Google search, specific websites, Youtube, etc.).Learn more about placement targeting.
Conversion rate
What is it?
Conversion rate measures how often someone converts (i.e., completes your ad’s objective or CTA, such as purchasing from your store). This is calculated by dividing the number of conversions that your ad receives by the number of times people clicked your ad (conversions / clicks × 100 = conversion rate).
How to improve?
To improve your conversion rate, you can:
- Analyze search terms: Google’s search terms report shows you which words users are searching before seeing your ad. Use this tool to decide if you need additional keywords to trigger your ads and whether they should be more broad or specific.
- Improve your assets: you should review what links someone is clicking on in your ad, and expand upon the assets you share to send customers to the pages where they’re most likely to convert. For instance, you can add direct links to your catalog pages to shop from or link prices to your best selling or sale items.
- Enhance landing page experience: make sure that your landing pages drive conversions, mimic the CTA of your ad, and are on-brand.
Frequency
What is it?
Frequency tells you how many times a single person viewed your ad within a set time frame (i.e., how frequently someone sees your ad content).
How to improve?
In certain scenarios, you may feel as though it is beneficial for someone to view your ads more than once, and in others, you may want to avoid this. To adjust the frequency at which someone sees your content, you can adjust your targeting in Klaviyo by changing the segments you show your ads to. You can alsoadjust the targeting settings within your Google Ads account.