Is Google Analytics really free?

Google Analytics provides a great level of detailed analysis and data for businesses and websites looking for a free analytics solution. But is Google Analytics really free? Here is where Google Analytics may cost you real dollars and how to fix it (without switching from using Google Analytics).

Google Analytics is free but it does cost you when used to evaluate your Adwords campaign. It hides the most important piece of data when evaluating your campaign – the search query – and instead shows you the keyword you purchased. This seemingly minor distinction can make the costs of your Adwords campaign soar if you do not take steps to fix it.

First let’s define the difference between the keyword and query:

• The Keyword is the term used to target your advertisement.
• The Query is the term the user actually types into the search box.

Both Keyword and Query are usually different on each click transaction given the complicated nature of how Google, Yahoo and others’ algorithms match their ads. These sophisticated algorithms take your keywords and match it to queries it deems relevant to users. This is done to promote a good user experience but it also helps maximize their revenue by attempting to increase the amount of clicks each advertisement generates.

This approach works well for all parties so long as your goal is to generate relevant visits to your website. However, if you have a specific conversion goal in mind (like generating leads or sales) on your website, then the bluring of the difference between Keyword and Query by the algorithm will hurt your ability to effectively target your ads because of the default Broad match type which takes many liberties in targeting ads.

Looking at queries can help you pinpoint target the queries that are generating your conversions and get rid of those that do not. Generally, marketers use Website Analytics to look at the query log files to determine which queries drive traffic to your website and then adjust their keywords to save money from being spent on queries that are not driving conversions. However, Google Analytics does not let you see the query in its basic functionality. Using the 80/20 rule, you might find that 80% of your spend is on queries that do not work – - wouldn’t it be nice to spend that 80% on the queries that work?

Here is how you can start saving money today by looking at query analysis without switching from Google Analytics:

• Use the Google Adwords Query Report.
  • Pros: This report will show you the queries that generate impressions and clicks for your campaigns.
  • Cons: It tends to aggregate queries with low volume into an “other” category and unless you also use Google Conversion Tracker, it will not show you conversions.
• To take it a step deeper, you can customize your implementation of Google Analytics to track queries.
  • Pros: You can track both keywords and query side by side down to the conversion.
  • Cons: The implementation is relatively advanced so you may want to hire someone with specific experience doing this.

Contact us if you need help configuring Google Analytics to save money from your Adwords campaign.