Paid Search Analysis: Proven Tactics to Improve Your Campaigns

People invest a massive amount of money into PPC on a yearly basis. This year alone, it is estimated that YouTube and Google Ads spending will hit $200 billion. And this is just a tiny slice of the overall PPC investment.

But as any expert will tell you, knowing where to spend the money on ads is one thing. Getting the results you want is a different matter altogether. If you've ever struggled with this same issue, you're definitely not alone.

This is where paid search analysis can come in to fix the problem. Well, what is it?

It’s the process of going through your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising data to try and understand what works and what doesn't. This is an ongoing activity that, when done well, helps you know exactly how to avoid wasteful spending and improve your ROI.

So, even though most people mistake it for being about collecting metrics, it's really more about turning campaign data into actionable insights that drive real actions.

Does this sound like the kind of topic you'll be interested in? Then settle in for a fun experience because we are about to go into detail and give you all our proven tactics to improve your campaign performance.

Paid search metrics to pay attention to

Here's the honest truth: there is no effective paid search analysis unless you know what metrics really matter. And it’s a tricky process. Some KPIs might look good on paper but have very little real-life impact.

So, to make sure you don’t waste your time on those, let's focus on the key metrics that make sense for most businesses.

Click-through rate (CTR): Are people engaging with your ads?

Click-through rate (CTR) simply means the percentage of people who see your ads and go on to click on them.

It is a simple engagement metric, but it serves a very useful purpose of highlighting your PPC performance:

• A high click-through rate shows your ad has relevance and market appeal for your target audience.
• Besides, when you have a good CTR, it’s a sign that people are resonating with your messaging and that you're got the keyword targeting game locked in (well done!).
• Another valuable thing about CTR is that search engines like Google, Bing, etc., use this metric as a key factor when measuring your quality score. We’ll talk more about this later on, but for now, just note that this greatly affects your ad cost and positioning.

Depending on your niche, a good CTR rate varies. However, anything above 2% is usually considered a good mark. Take it up to 5% and you are basically cruising with the best at the top.

Source: FirstPageSage

Still, you want to be careful not to focus on just this number. For example, if you have high CTRs but poor conversion rates, something is definitely wrong somewhere, speaking of which…

Conversion rate: Are clicks turning into actions?

Conversion rate is one of those key metrics everyone mentions right away when they are talking about pay-per-click monitoring.

Conversion rates show you how many of your clicks (from that click-through rate we mentioned just now) actually resulted in the desired action.

This could be anything from actual purchases and sign-ups for your newsletter to downloads and actual leads who contact your sales team.

Your conversion rate is a strong indicator of your ROI. Plus, it’s usually one of the best (and easiest) ways to know a successful PPC campaign.

Even so, a good conversion rate can also be different based on your niche. Usually, 2-5% is considered the average for most industries. The median is typically slightly higher. According to some sources, it’s around 6.6%. Still, it really depends on the dataset.

Source: Unbounce

If you end up with a low conversion rate, then it could be a sign that:

• You’re focusing on the wrong target audience.
• There’s a problem with your ad relevance.
• Your copy isn’t persuasive enough, meaning that people read your ad, but see no point in clicking.
• Your landing page experience is just not good enough. This happens when the ads make a lot of promises, but the landing pages do not deliver on those.

The last one might not be the most obvious, but it could be a deal breaker.

Imagine if you’ve seen an ad promising an 80% discount on something, but when you clicked and landed on their website, there was no button for you to get the 80% off. Even worse, if there was a lower discount, like 15% off.

It’s one of the easiest ways to make people feel deceived, which is a no-go for any brand.

This is just a very basic example. The true reasons could go much deeper.

Even if the tone of voice you’re using in your ads is different from the tone in your landing page copy, people might be turned off by the inconsistency.

So, it’s a really interesting topic to investigate if you’re serious about your pay-per-click tracking and that spend optimization.

Quality score: How relevant is your ad/keyword/landing page combo?

Quality score is simply how Google rates your ad copy, the keywords you used, the landing page quality, and the number of clicks you are likely to get.

This ranges from 1-10 and can really affect your ad budgets. It even affects where your ads are placed in search engine results and how often they’re shown. So, improving your quality by just a few points can really cut your ad spend and improve your ad placements.

Clearly, quality score is crucial when you are focused on paid search analytics.

But what are the things that actually affect your quality score, and what can you do to improve them? As we’ve mentioned before, these are the expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience.

Source: Semrush

Not sure what these components mean? Well, let’s break it down then:

• Expected CTR. This is the percentage of people Google thinks will click on your ad.
• Ad relevance. This one is more about how your ad matches user search intent. If it’s an exact match to what your target user searches and wants, then the odds are in your favor.
• Landing page experience. It focuses on the quality and relevance of your landing page. Google looks into how well aligned it is with an ad and how usable it is.

So, Google compares these three components of your quality score against your PPC competitors. It then decides your rating based on whether your ad campaigns are doing worse or better than theirs.

That’s why one of the keys to effective PPC analysis is to make sure you're monitoring your quality score at the keyword level regularly.

Cost per click (CPC): Are you overpaying for traffic?

Cost per click (CPC) is an indicator that helps you measure how much you pay each time someone clicks on your ads.

The dream for most people is for their PPC cost to be as low as possible per click. But the cheapest CPC doesn’t always translate into high value.

So, how do you know if you are getting that value at all?

You see, the thing is that typically, very broad matches (keywords) tend to cost less per click, but the audience there is very broad, too. As a result, you might end up getting fewer conversions even if you pay less per click.

On the other hand, if you go for tighter matches, you might get your exact target audience even though your CPC will be higher.

Source: Semrush

That’s why to make your PPC campaign analysis truly effective, you have to look at a bigger picture that not only measures CPC, but also considers conversion rates and the average lifetime value (LTV):

• Say your CPC is $15, but it brings in customers that spend $1,000. Sure, it’s expensive, but it’s also worth it.
• But if the same campaign only brings in customers worth $15, then it doesn’t make much sense.

That’s why it’s smart to track additional metrics to understand whether you're making money or throwing it away, such as:

1. Cost per conversion (CPA) tells you how much you spend to get one sale, lead, or other business goal.
2. Return on ad spend (ROAS) tells you how much revenue you earn for every dollar spent on ads.

Impression share (IS): Are you showing up as often as you should?

Visibility issues are usually one of the biggest contributors to business failures when it comes to PPC campaigns. You could be doing your best, but if no one is seeing your hard work, that means you’re not going to get any clicks and conversions.

Ultimately, your target audience might not even know you exist. That’s why impression shares are a big part of effective PPC competitor analysis.

But what is it?

Impression share measures the number of chances your ads could be shown vs. the actual number of times they were shown.

Source: Ad World Experience

Basically, it's the impressions your ad got divided by the impressions it was actually eligible to get. So, if you had the chance to show up 10 times but only appeared three times, then you got a 30% impression share and missed 70% of the overall opportunities.

How can this happen?

• Well, sometimes the problem is that your ad budget is not enough.
• Other times, though, it boils down to low ad rank due to low max CPC bid or poor quality score.

You can find the reason inside Google Ads when you go to your campaign. Likely, you won’t have these metrics by default, so simply go to Modify columns > Competitive metrics and pick Search Lost IS (budget) and Search Lost IS (rank).

Source: In Flow

If you pay attention to this metric, it can become easier to figure out when something is wrong. You can then look at the impression share trends to spot patterns that can help you identify more valuable traffic opportunities.

You want to focus on high-value keywords and ensure your budget limitations aren’t too restrictive for the keyword you choose. This can help you get a better IS.

For your most important keywords, aiming for an impression share of 80% or higher is a good benchmark. But it can be lower and work well, too. It all depends on your priorities.

Bounce rate: Is your landing page delivering what the ad promised?

We’ve all visited a website at least once and then promptly exited the page without taking any further action. The same thing can happen on your site as well. Bounce rates help you find out just how often this takes place.

In other words, bounce rate tells you the percentage of visitors who land on your page and leave without engaging further. In GA 4, this means they stayed less than 10 seconds, had no conversions, and viewed fewer than two pages.

Just in case you are wondering, there is no fixed average bounce rate that works for all industries. Instead, the number will look different from one niche to another.

Source: Backlinko

If you’re familiar with this indicator already, you may be thinking, “Hang on! This isn’t a PPC metric!” And you'd be right. It’s not a Google Ads metric by default. Still, if you ever do any form of paid search reporting, then you know that bounce rate is a big deal.

A high bounce rate is a sign that you need to take your website and ad copy analysis seriously. So, it could help you identify the issue early enough to fix it.

What could be the reason?

• Often, there's a problem between the way your ad appears (its promise) and landing page delivery.
• Other times, your website performance is an issue. Everyone will want to exit a page that takes too long to load or is hard to navigate.
• Besides, it could also be a sign that your ad is targeted at the wrong audience segments. So, even if your CTR is high, your conversions won’t follow.

Search terms report: What users actually typed in

The search terms report shows you the actual queries your target audience googled that triggered your ads (not just the keywords you bid on). You can find it in your Google Ads.

Source: Ad Espresso

While it isn’t a metric as such, this information can help you discover a ton of useful PPC data:

• See irrelevant queries and add them as negative keywords so they don’t trigger future ads.
• Find high-performing queries you’re not targeting yet and consider adding them as new keywords.
• Understand user intent better so you can refine your ad copy and landing pages.

Let’s see how this works in real life.

Say, you have a dog wear brand and now you target “buy winter clothes for dogs” in your campaign. When you go to your Google Ad’s search terms report, you see the following:

1. “Buy winter clothes for cats”: This query is irrelevant as you only target dog owners, so you can add it as a negative keyword.
2. “Buy waterproof winter coats for small dogs”: This is a very relevant query, so you might add this as a new keyword and even create a tailored landing page (if it makes sense for you). But if you don’t offer anything waterproof, it would be another negative keyword.

Now, you see why it could be really helpful for your paid search monitoring.

Basically, reviewing this report regularly gives you a fuller picture of your performance and helps you spend your budget more efficiently. Besides, it might be full of ideas that you haven’t been considering.

6 PPC analysis strategies to optimize ROI

Paid campaigns can help you put your business in front of a whole new audience who desperately want what you are selling. But you have to do it right, and this is the part where most people struggle.

So, here are our proven tips to take the hassle (or at least most of it) out of this:

1. Audit your keywords to make sure they align with search intent

It’s safe to say that keywords are a must in SEO. That’s why people are constantly trying to figure out how they work, which ones matter, and how to rank for them. But it also extends to paid search ads.

Recall what we said earlier about how important search intent is in PPC analytics? Well, keyword research is where you have to make use of it.

Source: Word Stream

This will help you not to waste ad budget on keywords that just won’t take you anywhere close to your objectives. For example:

• If you’re targeting an informational keyword (like “how to plant tomatoes”) and send people to a salesy landing page, you’ll simply end up with high bounce rates and wasted ad spend.
• Similarly, if you target a clearly transactional keyword (like “buy winter tyres in Oregon”) and you bring people to an informational blog post, you won’t really get the results you expect.

So, long story short:

• When a search query suggests intent “I want to learn more about…”, give information.
• When a keyword clearly says “I’m ready to buy,” give users that opportunity.

Besides, when you audit your keywords, you might find some irrelevant search terms when it comes to your business goals. What do we mean by that? It’s really easy.

If you want to increase the number of leads, focus on transactional keywords and people who are ready to buy. If, on the contrary, you want to increase your brand awareness, target broader, non-branded queries. And needless to say, you have to align it all with your funnel.

One of the less obvious things to track is your branded PPC keyword trends.

Why does it matter?

• Tracking these helps you measure how well your brand awareness efforts are paying off.
• It also shows whether competitors are bidding on your brand name.
• Branded queries also usually have higher CTRs and conversion rates and lower CPC, so they’re the best to get that ready-to-buy traffic.

Plus, these performance trends can also help you understand how to allocate your budget between branded and non-branded campaigns.

Overall, the best approach is to group your queries by different search intents and use them according to your current goals. It’s just important to understand why you need each. And of course, you’ll have to create different ad copy landing page strategies to match each intent type.

2. Work on your quality score

So, we’ve already figured out that quality score is an important metric to track, as it directly influences:

• How much you pay per click.
• Where your ad is placed.
• And how frequently your ads show up.

It’s clearly an important indicator to help you optimize your ROI. And you already know that it’s calculated based on the expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. So, this is clear.

But how do you improve your quality score?

1. First, you have to know what it is. Just go to your Google Ads account and add this metric if you don’t have it in your report.
   Note: Keep in mind that this number is calculated for each keyword. So, you can have very different scores even within one campaign.
   
   Source: Digital Logic
2. Next, make sure that all your keyword groups are tightly connected and very relevant. The broader your keywords are within one campaign, the fewer “points” you’ll get for relevancy.
3. After this, you have to work on your ad copy, making sure that those target keywords are organically used in headlines and descriptions.
4. Now, it’s time to work on your landing page. Here, you have to focus on performance (fast loading speed, good UX) and relevancy (how well it delivers the promise of your ad).
5. And lastly, test different options to find the point where your quality score is the highest. This is one of those defining factors when it comes to the ROI of your campaigns.

As testing is important, let’s talk a bit more about it in the next point.

3. Run A/B testing and optimize your ad copy

No PPC campaign can be successful without copy that is just right.

And often, it isn’t only about the words, but also about the overall idea of your ad. But how do you know if it is right?

This is where it’s time to test your hypotheses to find what actually works. So, yes, testing is another important part of PPC analysis that helps your ad copy hit all the right notes.

Source: Indiegraf

But if you want your PPC campaigns to be especially efficient, you're going to need more than catchy headlines.

The most popular approach is to take a control version (your best performing ad so far) and then test all your new ideas (variants) against it. It’s also important to split your audience for this one, so that half of it sees the control version and the other half a variant.

What can you test in your ad copy? Well, anything:

• The overall idea/angle.
• Headlines and the emotions they trigger (FOMO, curiosity, etc.).
• Descriptions (length, messaging, etc.)
• CTAs and URLs displayed.
• Offers and their influence on clicks and conversions.
• Ad extensions (whether they make any difference at all).

Source: The Creative Momentum

The important thing is to test one hypothesis at a time to know exactly what triggered the difference in numbers. Even if your results don’t change, take note of it. It’s also valuable.

Still, your variants can be quite different.

For example, if you test the overall delivery tone, your copy will vary significantly. But even if you decide to tweak a couple of words, it still works.

Source: Flyte

If you are out of ideas for what your copy should look and sound like, you can always do a bit of paid search competitor analysis. Or, as we like to call it, “inspiration research”.

One more thing. The whole “A/B testing thing” is not a one-off project. At least not if you want to optimize ROI. So, it’s best to turn it into a constant flow of ideas and testing. Because when done right, A/B testing is a really effective move that helps you improve your conversion rates.

4. Be specific with your audience targeting analysis

So, you have the keywords and the best copy, and you even did some competitor analysis. Now you just have to make sure you've got the audience targeted right. Without being shown to the right people, it’ll be nearly impossible to optimize the performance of your search campaigns.

Audience segmentation is a huge topic that you can adjust and readjust all the time.

But before it turns into a rabbit hole, pay attention to the following:

1. Segment your audience based on device, location, demographics, day and time, etc. Start small with a couple of core metrics and then progress if needed.
2. Try to find patterns in all that audience data. If you see clear profiles that perform better than average, it could be your sign to increase spending for that segment.
3. Look at your audience data together with your keywords. Do you see some trends? Does some group respond to a particular query or intent?
4. Reallocate your ad spend. This is a moment where you can actually optimize your ROI. If you see segments that bring low conversions while you spend a lot on them, it might be time to redirect that budget to a better converting audience, time, location, etc.
5. And of course, test all these tweaks.

For this to work well, you have to make sure you know how to use Audience Manager if you’re running Google Ads or a similar alternative if you take your PPC further.

Source: One PPC

While it might sound way too complicated, this is the key to building a strategy that helps you attract the right customers. Otherwise, why are you even running those ads?

5. Get landing pages experience right

Poor landing page experience causes many high bounce rate issues (way too many). So, it’s important to get it right if you want profitable paid search traffic that actually leads to more conversions. For this, you need to constantly monitor:

• How long people stay on your site.
• Bounce rates and their potential reasons.
• Conversion rates and how they change over time.
• How well your landing pages match the current ad copy.

We’ve already explained how important landing page quality and relevance are for your quality score. But they also directly influence your conversions and even your brand perception. It doesn’t really require any explanation. It’s just common sense.

So, these are the major things to pay attention to when it comes to your landing pages:

• Make sure that each offer in your ad also appears in the landing pages so visitors know they are in the right place.
• Try to give more context in your landing pages, expanding the info from your ads.
• Make your CTAs clear and easy to click. No one wants to play a game of hide and seek on your site.
• Do everything to make your page load quickly. If you know anything about how organic search results work, you know that good load speed is a must.
• Focus on quality content and images to both make your business look good and increase your conversions.

Source: Pathmonk

So, if you already have a page but it’s not giving you the results you want, maybe you just need to optimize it.

6. Create a daily ad checklist

You’ll need to regularly monitor paid search campaigns to be sure you are on the right track. While you can find your own way to that, we’d recommend creating an easy daily checklist to track all the basics:

• Check spend vs. budget.
• Keep an eye on CTR and conversions.
• Analyze the Search Terms Report for irrelevant queries.
• Confirm that ads and landing pages are live and error-free.

Then, you can create a deeper analysis checklist and use it on a monthly basis.

Here, you can go more in-depth, checking and adjusting the following:

• Your quality score.
• Bids, trends, and keyword lists.
• Audience segments and targeting.
• And anything else that makes sense for your business.

This will help you catch issues early on, and you will have the data you need to optimize campaigns and ensure you don’t waste your budgets. You can adjust your checklists as you go, expanding or reducing them. There is really no right or wrong, as long as it works for you.

Source: WordStream

Conclusion

Now, you know that paid ads analytics is an extensive topic, but it isn’t as complicated as it might seem at first. After reading this, you understand how to monitor and adjust your ads. So, you’re pretty much destined to drive that PPC success.

And even if you’re still not sure whether you can do it all, just start.

After all, some PPC efforts in the right direction are better than holding off until you can do everything perfectly. Besides, we all know that if there is a perfect moment, it’s right now.