However, relevancy does not end with our search results. We also work to show the most relevant ads for every search query. This model works for users and advertisers alike: The more relevant the ads are, the more likely users are to click on your ads now and again in the future.

We measure relevancy for search and ads differently.

• For search results, relevance and ranking are automatically determined by over 100 factors, including Google's patented PageRank algorithm.
• For AdWords ads, the most important factor in relevance and ranking is the ad's quality, also called the Quality Score. This measurement is the strongest representation of how useful a user has found an ad to be and is central to the AdWords cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model.

To analyse your account performance quickly, use the following resources:

• Keyword Analysis page: Check the Keyword Analysis page to get a detailed view about your keyword's performance - including how Quality Score impacts your keyword and ad performance and how you can improve it. You'll also find your first page bid estimate, which tells you the cost-per-click (CPC) bid likely needed for your keyword to trigger ads on the first page of search results. To launch the Keyword Analysis page, point your cursor over the magnifying glass icon beside any keyword in your account; then click one of the 'Details and recommendations' links.


• Keyword Status: View the 'Status' column on the 'Keywords' tab of your Ad Group Details page. Your keyword status indicates whether or not your keyword is triggering ads to appear on search results pages. As mentioned, each of your keywords (except any negative keywords) is identified by a keyword state. Here's the full breakdown:


• Active: Active keywords are eligible to trigger ads. You may see the following two notes beneath the 'Active' status:
  • Bid is below first page bid estimate of ____: This will appear if your keyword's cost-per-click (CPC) bid doesn't meet the amount likely to place your ad on the first page of Google web search.
  • Ads show rarely due to low Quality Score: This will appear if your keyword's Quality Score is very low and preventing your ad from accruing much traffic. In this case, we recommend following these optimisation tips to improve your Quality Score.
  
  
• Disapproved: These keywords don't comply with our Editorial Guidelines or Content Policy and won't trigger ads until you correct the problem.


• Paused/Deleted: These are keywords you've paused or deleted. They won't enter the ad auction and therefore won't trigger your ads.

To learn how to enable a keyword that isn't running, visit the Keyword Status troubleshooting topic.


• CTR Column: View the 'CTR' column on your Campaign Summary page to see how well a campaign is performing. The higher the click-through rate (CTR), the better the campaign is probably doing.

For more in-depth performance tracking, we suggest that you set up conversion tracking or Google Analytics.

Visit your email account and open the email verification notice from AdWords. Click on the link in the email to verify your email address and access your account. Then continue with the activation instructions.

Click on the link in the message or click on the My Account tab and then Billing Preferences in your AdWords account to enter your billing information. If you are using a credit card or debit card, make sure to enter the billing address that matches the credit card.

Your ads will appear on Google after you have entered valid credit card or debit card information. In the case of direct debit, a debit authorisation may have to be received and processed before your ads will start running. If you choose to pay via prepay, your ads may appear once funds have been received via credit card or bank transfer or after your bank transfer setup is complete.

For more information on the payment options available for your billing location and currency, visit the Billing lesson.

If you are not sure why a payment is declined, use the following checklist to figure out possible reasons:

1. Have you entered valid payment details (such as credit card number or expiry date)?
2. Do you have sufficient funds in your account or have you reached your daily, weekly or monthly spend limit?
3. Have you entered the correct billing address?

To see whether your daily budget is being met, visit your Campaign Summary page, set the date range above the table to yesterday and compare the Current Budget column with the Cost column. If you exceeded your daily budget yesterday, your ads may stop running before today's daily budget is reached.

We might exceed your daily budget when we determine that your ad can benefit from more exposure on particularly heavy traffic days. However, our system makes sure that in a given billing period, you are never charged more than the number of days in that month multiplied by your daily budget. Visit the Billing lesson for more information.

To view the recommended daily budget for a campaign or to edit the existing daily budget, go to the Edit Campaign Settings page and click Recommended Budget. This recommendation will be high enough to capture all the clicks the system estimates your ads will receive with full exposure.

Remember that this number is only a recommendation and you should set your daily budget at a level with which you are comfortable. If you do not wish to raise your daily budget, you can try refining your keywords by using the techniques found in the Optimisation lessons.

To learn more about negative keywords, please refer to the Keyword Matching lesson.

For ads to be shown·on partner sites, the ads must:

• Be reviewed and approved
• Be in a campaign that is opted in to the Google Network
• Meet partner requirements, which vary

Click on View reason(s) under the affected ad to see the specific disapproval reasons. Then make the appropriate changes. Editing your ad will automatically re-submit it for review. Visit our Editorial Guidelines to learn more.

To view all your disapproved ads, you can click View all ads in the alert box. You can also go directly to the Tools > Disapproved Ads page to make corrections to your ads.

To enable an adult ad to show, use specific keywords that are relevant to your targeted audience. You can also try searching for one of your keywords in combination with a more sexually explicit phrase, such as 'xxx'.

Please note, some of the sites in the Google Network may restrict advertising or keywords based on their own policies regarding content and editorial standards.

To launch the Keyword Analysis page and learn more about your keyword status, point your cursor over the magnifying glass icon beside any keyword in your account. A help bubble appears, which gives you a snapshot of your keyword's Quality Score and whether or not your keyword is triggering ads. Then, click one of the 'Details and recommendations' links to access the Keyword Analysis page.

The AdWords Report Centre can generate fully customisable reports on specific topics such as campaigns, keywords and ad text. These reports allow users to identify important trends over weeks, months or years. Most reports can also be viewed as graphs, which offer a clear view of spikes and dips in traffic, CTR or other key elements of an account. Because each report can be customised with configurable columns and performance filters, they provide the information required to help you identify your strengths and build on them and to sniff out areas of low performance and optimise them accordingly.

You can view your reports online or you can download them to your computer and view them with a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel. You can also have reports generated and emailed to you regularly.

• Keyword Performance: Displays details on selected keywords and organises statistics by keyword.
• Ad Performance: Presents relevant statistics for ad variations, such as text ads, image ads, video ads and local business ads.
• URL Performance: Displays statistics and measures the performance of Destination URLs.
• Ad Group Performance: Organises statistics for each of your ad groups.
• Campaign Performance: Organises statistics for each of your campaigns.
• Account Performance: Generates statistics for your entire account or for a portion of your account.
• Search Query Performance: Shows performance data for the search queries that triggered your ads which appeared after receiving clicks.
• Placement Performance: Shows statistics for ads that appeared on specific domains or URLs in the Google content network.
• Reach and Frequency Performance: Find out how many people saw your ads and how many times they saw them over a certain period of time.

Creating your report is as simple as following our four step form and then clicking 'Create Report' when you have finished. Here is how to do this:

1. Report Type: To begin creating your report, select your Report Type from radio buttons beside each report name. Your options on the remainder of the page will adjust according to the type of report that you have chosen.
2. Settings: In this section, you establish your report View and Date Range and which ad groups and campaigns are to be included.
• View: Choose 'Summary' for a high-level overview of all your selected stats or choose from among 'Hourly (by date or regardless of date)', 'Daily', 'Weekly', 'Day of week', 'Monthly', 'Quarterly' or 'Yearly' metrics for your account.
• Date Range: Use the pull-down menu and select a time period (i.e. 'Last seven days', 'Last 30 days', 'This month', etc.) for your report. For specific dates for summary, Daily or Weekly views, click the date fields underneath the pull-down menu. Calendars on which you can click will be displayed to allow you to select beginning and end dates for the reports. (Note: Hourly report data is available from 1 February 2006 onwards).
• Campaigns and Ad Groups: To include all campaigns, choose the first radio button. For individual campaigns or ad groups, choose the manual selection option and click the campaigns and/or ad groups that you want to include in your report. Choose as many or as few as you want to include.
3. Advanced Settings: In this optional section, you can customise columns and filters so that your report includes only the data that you want to see.
• Columns: Click the 'Add or Remove Columns' link to reveal checkboxes for each of the available column categories for your report type. You will find a wide range of choices, including Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Avg CPC, Cost, Avg Position, Campaign, Daily Budget, Campaign Status, Ad Group, Ad Group Status, Headline, Display URL and many others. As you add or remove columns, the visual column display is updated based on your selections.
• Filters: Click the link to 'Filter Your Results' for filter options based on your report type. Filters allow you to refine up to four data types. Use the pull-down to select and customise the relevant data types for your report. Depending on your report type, your filter options may include Ad Distribution, Status, Match Type, Site/ Keyword, Avg Position, Clicks, Cost, Avg CPC, CTR and Impressions, among others.
4. Templates, Scheduling and Email: In this section, you will name your report, save it as a template if you want to use your settings again and provide an email and format for receiving your report.
• Name Your Report: Enter a title for your report. Choose a name that will be easy to recognise when you see it on a list of other reports that you have created.
• Templates: Tick the box to 'Save this as a report template' if you want to run similar reports later.
• Scheduling: If you want to run this report on a regular basis, tick the box to schedule automatic reports and choose from the pull-down schedule menu (for delivery daily, every Monday or on the first of every month).
• Email: To receive an email when your report is ready, tick the box and then list the email address or addresses you want notified (for multiple addresses, separate each email with a comma). If you want your report to be attached to the email, tick the next box and select your preferred report format from the pull-down menu (.csv, .csv for Excel, .tsv, .xml, .html).

You have almost finished! Now, just click the 'Create Report' button and you will see a screen confirming that your report has been submitted.

At the top of the page, you will see Google's estimate of how long your report will take to generate. (Most reports take a few minutes or less.) A text box is displayed next, directing you to the Download Centre, where you can review your report when it is completed. To the right, you will see details of the report that you have just run.

An important note: You do not have to wait at this page for your report to finish running. You can continue to browse through your account, sign off for a while or even shut down your computer and return later. The report will continue to run and should be ready when you return. And if you requested an email notification and/or attached report, the report notice and attachment will be sent as soon as the report is completed.

You can view your report online in three formats: as data only, as graphs created from your data or as both data and graphs in one report.

If you prefer to download the report to your computer, you can do so in the same five formats available for emailing your report: .csv (for Excel), .csv, .tsv, .xml. and .html. .csv (comma-separated values) and .tsv (tab-separated values) files are encoded in UTF-8. These formats are recommended for users who prefer to process or review report data in text-only format. .csv (for Excel) files are encoded in UTF-16LE and are compatible with most U.S. and international versions of Microsoft Excel. Select .xml (for 'Extensible Mark-up Language') to place your statistics in a database or on a website. Select .html (for 'Hypertext Markup Language') if you want to be able to view your report as a web page. You may also open your report as a Google Spreadsheet for easy viewing and collaboration purposes.

If you click the View graphs only link, you will see two graphs aligned vertically. Each graph can show you one of six relevant metrics: Average CPC, Impressions, Average Position, CTR, Clicks and Cost. Click on any tab to view the graph for that metric. This feature is useful for comparing two different metrics over a certain period of time.

The View data and graphs link will combine the data and the graphs in one report.

In the Report Centre, you will find links to your most recently created reports, under the header Saved Templates as well as your scheduled reports and any on-demand reports that you saved as templates.

The Last 15 Reports section presents the last 15 reports that you have created, along with the date range they covered, the dates they were requested and their status (usually Completed). To view a report in this section, click the report name.

An important note: Once you create more than 15 reports, the system will automatically delete your oldest report whenever a new one arrives. If you have scheduled a daily report, for instance, the oldest report will be deleted each day to make room for the new one. You can also delete reports that you no longer want to be saved on this list by clicking on the Delete link on the far right of the report name line.

In the Saved Templates section, you can see all scheduled and on-demand reports saved as templates when you created them. The table provides the date range for each, the time when each scheduled report will run next and whether you are receiving the report by email. You can run either an on-demand report or a scheduled report by clicking the link marked Create Report .

You can also edit any of these saved templates by clicking the Edit this template link. This will open the template in the Edit Template page, which is similar to the Create Report page that you used to create the original report upon which you based the template. Here, you can revise your saved template by reassigning report values for Report Type, Date Range, View and Campaigns and Ad Groups. And you can further customise your new report by resetting the columns and filters within the Advanced Options section.

Once you have edited your template, you can choose to rename the template, schedule reports for automatic delivery, assign an email address or various email addresses for notification and select a format for report delivery. Then, simply click Save Template to finish creating a new report from your saved template.

To permanently delete a report template at any time, click the Delete link.

Tick the box next to the statement Whenever the report runs, send email to: when creating the report and then type into the text box the email address or addresses to which you want the notification to be sent when the report is finished. For multiple email recipients, separate each email address with a comma. If you schedule the report to run regularly, you will be notified each time the report runs.

By ticking the box for with report attached as: you also can choose to have your report sent as an email attachment. Select your preferred report format from the pull-down menu: csv (for excel), .csv, .tsv, .xml and .html

Please note that files will be emailed in a zip or compressed format. Compressed reports must be less than 2 megabytes in order for the report to be sent via email. If the file is larger than 2 megabytes, you will receive an email notification asking you to retrieve your report from the Report Centre.

Advertising is only effective if it generates measurable results for your business. Your Google AdWords account is an investment of time and money that you use to drive customers to your website. In this lesson, the resulting conversions are called your return on investment, or AdWords ROI.

ROI can also be called Return on Ad Spend, or ROAS. Your ROI can be calculated as revenue from sales, minus advertising costs, all divided by the cost of advertising. For example, if your advertising costs for the past week were £500 and you've sold £1,000 worth of inventory as a result, you have a 100% ROI for the week ((£1000-£500) divided by £500). To express ROI as a percentage, you multiply the result of this formula by 100.

Determining your AdWords ROI can be a very straightforward process if your business is after web-based sales. You will already have the advertising costs for a specific time period for your AdWords account in your Campaign Summary statistics. You can also create reports via the Report Centre. The net profit for your business can then be calculated based on your company's profits from sales made via your AdWords advertising, minus the cost of your advertising. Dividing your net profit by the advertising costs will give you your AdWords ROI for that period in time.

In other cases, your ROI may require a different formula. For example, if you are interested in calculating the ROI for a page view or lead, you will have to estimate the values of each of these actions. For example, a Yellow Pages ad for your business may cost US$1,000 per year and result in 100 leads. Ten of those leads become customers, and each customer provides an average profit of £120. The value of each lead is therefore £12 (100 leads/£1200 profit), and your ROI for the Yellow Pages ad is 20% ((£1200 profit minus £1000 spent)/ £1000 advertising cost) x 100.

A simple alternative to estimating values for your leads and page views is to use a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) measurement. This method will allow you to focus primarily on how your advertising costs compare to the number of acquisitions those costs deliver. Using the Yellow Pages example again, your ads may cost £1,000, resulting in 10 sales: therefore, your CPA for those ads is £100. Your CPA should not exceed your profit derived from each acquisition. In the case of the Yellow Pages ad, the CPA is 20% less than the revenue the acquisitions provide.

Assume that you have a £100 daily advertising budget. The keyword 'photography' generates 110 clicks, resulting in £120 in sales, but it also costs you £60 a day. This results in an ROI of 100% for that keyword. The keyword 'photography classes' uses only £25 of the daily advertising budget, but generates 40 clicks. These clicks result in £90 in sales, with an effective ROI of 260%. This advertiser would be better served allocating more of their budget to the 'photography classes' keyword because of its higher ROI, despite the potential for fewer clicks for this keyword.

Another important term to understand when tracking conversions is 'transaction'. While a conversion represents somebody coming to your site through AdWords and making a purchase, the transaction represents the purchase or desired visitor action itself.

To set up conversion tracking for your account, click the Conversion Tracking link on the Campaign Management tab at the top of your account.

Your choice of language will affect which Google Site Stats link is displayed on your conversion page. It will also give your users information about conversion tracking in a language appropriate for the majority of your site's visitors.

[Purchase Conversion Default: Sample code snippet only - DO NOT USE]

If you cannot see the Site Stats link, verify that the conversion code has been added to your webpage with no additional line breaks (compare your page to the conversion code available within your account). Some HTML editing programs will insert line breaks into the conversion code for the lines that are long enough to have wrapped to a second line in your account. The conversion tracking code should not have any line breaks inside the '<' and '>', unless there is a ';' at the end of the line.

You can also run through the process yourself by searching on Google, clicking on one of your ads and completing a conversion on your site. However, this method costs you an ad click, so we recommend that you wait for a conversion to occur.

• Analyse conversion statistics
• Determine the return on investment, or ROI, of your campaigns
• Improve campaign performance using your conversion data

The Conversion Rate is the percentage of clicks that become conversions. Cost/Conversion is the cost you have accrued over the time period which you are viewing, divided by the number of conversions you received as a result of those clicks. This data will give you a quick overview of how well your clicks are converting, and the average cost of those conversions.

Your Ad Group summaries will include conversion rate and cost-per-conversion data. Again, conversion rate is a basic percentage, highlighting the percentage of clicks you received that resulted in a conversion. Your cost-per-conversion number represents the total cost of clicks for that campaign or Ad Group, divided by the number of conversions. This number will help you to quickly evaluate your ROI for the Ad Group as a whole.

A Custom Report enables you to evaluate keywords based on performance for each transaction type. Even seemingly relevant keywords may not provide the ROI you expect, so careful evaluation of the actual conversion and transaction data is essential for optimising your campaigns.

After selecting the relevant conversion tracking fields for your report, you can start evaluating your account's performance. Conversion rate and cost-per-conversion are important statistics to monitor, but each individual conversion can lead to multiple transactions as users shop for various products on your site or return later to make additional purchases. Consequently, your transaction and cost-per-transaction statistics can prove even more valuable, since acquiring regular customers is more valuable than any single conversion. Tracking your transaction statistics can provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of your advertising, as well as the effectiveness of your site and the value of your product offerings.

• Are the keywords targeted and relevant enough to produce the desired results?
  If a keyword is too general, you run the risk of getting clicks to your site that are not really relevant, and have a lower conversion rate. By narrowing the appeal of your keywords (using tennis racket instead of just tennis), you will get more relevant clicks and customers coming to your website.
• If the keywords are well-targeted, then is your site hindering your conversion rate?
  Taking a prospect directly to the most relevant page on your site can boost your conversion rate. Improving the usability of your site in general by making it easier for prospects to find and purchase your products or services can make a huge difference in your conversion rates.

To select advanced conversion tracking options and obtain your modified code, set up conversion tracking and click Advanced option to the right of each conversion type. You can set up conversion tracking by clicking the Conversion Tracking link, located beneath the Campaign Management tab in your account.

• The Purchase/Sale label helps online commerce sites track purchases and sales.
• The Leads label tracks how many users reached a point in your website at which they have contacted your company, such as completing a 'request more information' form on your website.
• The Sign-ups label can track how many users elected to subscribe to a newsletter or to download a white paper.
• The Page views label enables you to track when a visitor navigates to a specific page that you think is valuable.
• The Other label enables you to define your own conversion type.

The transaction types are just labels; you are not restricted to tracking only these types of transactions. Transaction labels can be assigned to any conversion page you would like to track.

• Define values for your conversions.
• Implement and verify your conversion tracking code.

You can track dynamic transaction values by inserting a dynamic variable in the Value field when setting up conversion tracking.

Conversion tracking works with most of the popular webpage development languages available. For example, ASP users probably have a dynamic variable such as <%=totalValue%>, while sites built with PHP resemble <?echo $totalValue?>.