How To Analyze Keyword Buying
How does keyword buying analysis help me?
Which keywords should I invest in? How much should I bid for a keyword? How much do I make on keywords? At which times of the day should I maximize my search engine exposure?
You can answer these and other questions by analyzing your keyword buying with Urchin. This article provides a walkthrough of each step, from collecting the data to analyzing the reports.
What are the steps to analyze keyword buying?
- Define a Conversion Goal
- Purchase Your Keywords
- For each purchased keyword from a pay-per-click search engine (such as Google or Overture), you will need to set up a referral link to your site and embed UTM variables. This article describes the best way to use the UTM variables for keyword buying analysis, below.
- Track Campaign Data
- You will need to install the UTM, enable cookie logging, and embed UTM variables in your referral links.
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Import Keyword Spending Data(only necessary for ROI reporting). See Import Cost Data from Google.
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Import E-commerce Data (only necessary for e-commerce ROI analysis reports) See the Ecommerce section.
- Optimize Your Keyword Buys
- Information on how to use the keyword reports to optimize your keyword buying is provided in this article, below.
Which UTM variables should I use for keyword analysis?
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For paid search engine links, such as Google AdWords, use utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. If you are using broad matching, and you wish to see metrics for the broad matched keyword (rather than letting UTM detect the specific keyword), you may wish to use utm_term. The following link is an example of how you would use the UTM variables in a Google AdWords link. It indicates that the referral came from a paid Google search term and that the medium was cost-per-click. It also indicates that the visitor clicked on your adidas promotion link. The UTM automatically detects the keywords used to find your site.
http://www.mycompany.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=adidas
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Use the Google Analytics URL builder tool to create your links. Using this tool ensures that your links contain the correct syntax.
What about un-sponsored links? (aka unpaid, free, or organic listings in search engines)
- You only embed variables in sponsored links - links for which you paid on a search engine, or links over which you otherwise have control, such as links in an email that you send to customers. You don't have to worry about un-sponsored links because Urchin Campaign Tracking automatically determines which search engine the referral came from and which keywords the visitor used.
Be consistent with UTM variables.
- It is important that you use consistent names and spellings for all of your campaign variable values. For example, choose a code or name that indicates "cost-per-click" and use it consistently. To Urchin Campaign Tracking, utm_medium=cpc and utm_medium=cost_per_click are different mediums.
A master tracking code feature is available that significantly reduces the possibility of consistency errors. Read How To Use Master Tracking Codes.
Optimize your keyword buys.
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Which keywords should I buy? You should buy keywords that return the highest number of transactions and/or goals, or yield the highest revenue. Look at the Marketing Optimization: Search Engine Marketing reports. How much do I make on a keyword? In the Marketing Optimization: Search Engine Marketing: CPC Program Analysis report, look at RPC (Revenue Per Click) and ROI. In the Marketing Optimization: Search Engine Marketing: Overall Keyword Conversion and CPC vs Organic Conversion reports, look at the $/Visits (per visit value) metric. At which times of the day should I maximize a keyword's exposure? Look at the Marketing Optimization: Search Engine Marketing: Day Parts Breakdown report. Drill down on the keyword you are analyzing. The report will display the number of goals or transactions and a conversion rate by hour of the day. The timezone is controlled by your administrator using the Time Offset field on the Reporting tab of Configuration-->Urchin Profiles-->Profiles-->Edit. By default, this is set to "Local Time".