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How to Track MSN Paid Search in Google Analytics

By Eric Leuenberger 4 Comments

In my last article I introduced you to Google’s URL Builder and showed you how to track Yahoo paid search data from within Google Analytics. You should go back and read that article to understand what we are trying to do in this one (there is no need to repeat the entire thing here again.)

In this article I’ll show you how to do that same thing with MSN.

Quick Refresher

When fed the right data, Google Analytics can extract query string variables and then insert that into your analytics to provide better reporting capabilities—in this case relating specifically to paid search. Better reporting capabilities help you make more informed decisions about what marketing channels are working best for you.

Without this data, your MSN paid search traffic is grouped in Google Analytics with organic traffic, and that is not good. In short, not differentiating paid search from organic traffic does you absolutely no good what-so-ever.

Google’s URL Builder let’s you build a unique url that consists of data relating to your marketing efforts. You can then use this url, copy and pasting it into your MSN paid search ads as a destination url, to track varying amounts of information you could not get before. Here’s the example we used in that article:

  • Landing page: www.ecommerceamplifier.com/
  • Variables: Source = ‘MSN’ (or could be ‘Yahoo’), medium = ‘CPC’, term = ‘Ecommerce Coaching’, campaign = ‘Coaching Program’ and content = ‘Ecommerce Coaching National Ad’.
  • Custom Tracking URL: //www.ecommerceamplifier.com/?utm_source=MSN&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=ecommerce%2Bcoaching&utm_content=National%2BEcommerce%20Coaching%20Ad&utm_campaign=Ecommerce%2BAmplifier

Tracking MSN PPC With Google Analytics

Unlike both Google and Yahoo which require you to “flip a switch” to turn on (or off) url tagging, MSN requires you to do nothing—it’s automatically sent with each visitor.

Here’s what MSN sends:

  • Query String {QueryString} – This is the raw search query that the user typed into the search box but it’s as close as you’re gonna get to automating the process of bringing your adCenter keywords into your Google Analytics reports.
  • Match Type {MatchType} – Represents basic information that will tell you if the triggered keyword was broad, phrase or exact matched (can help you narrow the exact keyword down.)
  • OrderItemID {OrderItemID} – Represents the keyword that triggered the display of your ad.
  • AdID {AdID} – Represents the numeric id that MSN assigns to your ad variations.

The items listed in brackets ‘{ }’ above represent the variable data that MSN sends your way with each visitor. It is this information that we will plug back into our URL to track performance.

The two parameters that represent keywords are {OrderItemID} and {QueryString}. Depending on your preference, you may use either in the location of utm_term in your Google Analytics built url. The difference is that the first one {OrderItemID} represents the actual keyword you bid on and the second {QueryString} represents the actual raw search terms the visitor entered to get to your site.

Now, if opting for {QueryString} as your parameter of choice, understand that the search terms might not exactly match the keyword(s) you are bidding on—thus, in this case, you may want to consider adding the {MatchType} to the url string as well. This can help distinguish in Google Analytics if the search string is actually the keyword itself (i.e. exact match) or a variation of it (in the case or broad match). I do not use this method myself but wanted to point out what you need to consider if you are going one way or the other. We’re looking for data that provides valuable information remember.

I prefer to know the exact keywords that triggered the ad and use the {OrderItemID} as my ‘Campaign Term’.

The screenshot below shows what MSN (as of this writing) has listed for what each variable represents:

MSN AdCenter URL Tagging Help
MSN AdCenter URL Tagging Help

Now, when we use these in conjunction with Google’s URL Builder we get something that looks like this screenshot below:

Screenshot: Google URL Builder Setup for MSN Tracking
Screenshot: Google URL Builder Setup for MSN Tracking

This is the best way to get data at the keyword level, ad level and campaign level (although you’ll have to compare the AD ID with that in MSN Adcenter to determine which ad actually triggered the visit.)

Now, another method you might want to consider (although not one I’ve personally used yet) is to replace the ‘Campaign Name’ data with something like {QueryString} to gather even more information on your visitors actual search habits who use MSN.

When would this be a viable option? Well, if you only have one campaign setup within MSN Adcenter then you may not really feel you need that information again in analytics (after all, if you have only one campaign setup then all traffic must originate from that.) In this case it might be beneficial to determine the search habits of your visitors in relation to the actual keyword that triggered the ad to find out more opportunities you might be missing.

Either way, you now have access to tracking paid search traffic from MSN within Google Analytics and because of it, have opened up new doors that will help you make more informed decisions about your marketing efforts.

Filed Under: Search Marketing, Website Analytics Tagged With: track adcenter in google analytics, tracking msn cpc with Google

How to Track Yahoo Paid Search in Google Analytics

By Eric Leuenberger 8 Comments

If you want to really take your business to the next level you must have an analytics system in place that provides you with data which can help you make informed decisions. By informed decisions I don’t mean “oh, my visitors use ‘xxx’ browser” or “the screen resolution of most visitors is ‘xxx'”. Sure, these elements might be useful to a very small degree if, and only if, you are looking at ensuring your site is designed to meet the right audience.

But, if you did your homework, your site should already be designed to fit any visitor that arrives, no matter the platform, browser type, screen resolution, or what ever it is you come up with relating to design.

Now there are many flavors of analytics that may work for your needs. In this article I am going to focus on Google Analytics. It’s free, it’s powerful, and it flat out can get the job done.

So, we’re talking Google Analytics setup to provide us with valuable decision making data. To get this type of information, just installing Google Analytics alone is not going to be enough. You need to take advantage of the full tracking capabilities to provide you with data from all your advertising channels. This will help you understand where to invest your time and resources to optimize a given channel—ideally that which provides a positive ROI.

I’ve written about Google Analytics in a number of past articles and discussed the ecommerce tracking, goal / funnel tracking, etc… so I won’t go into that in this article (although in future articles I will revisit these areas as much has changed in GA since the writing of those.)

In this article I am going to talk about tracking paid search traffic channels, specifically from Yahoo (Search Marketing).

As anyone running paid search campaigns might have already gathered, it’s fairly easy to track Adwords traffic in Google Analytics when you link the two and flip the proper auto-tagging switches, but it’s not so easy to track paid search traffic from Yahoo (or MSN for that matter but that topic is for my next article.)

Yes, Yahoo offers its own ppc tracking tools—including its own form of analytics. However, anyone that wants to find out from within Google Analytics how their paid search traffic from Yahoo is performing, has to do a little work.

In fact, currently—for those of you not already separating this out within your analytics—your paid search traffic from Yahoo (and again, MSN) comes over mixed with the organic traffic and is listed as such within Analytics. This isn’t good.

Google Analytics Screenshot of Yahoo / MSN Traffic
Google Analytics Screenshot of Yahoo / MSN Traffic

This is a problem. How can you make informed decisions about which channel of traffic provides the biggest bang for your buck when it’s mixed with organic. You can’t—at least not real easily.

So to track paid search traffic from MSN and Yahoo we need to separate them using the link itself and the variables we can pass to native Google Analytics. In short we need to develop a proper URL structure that we can use from within our MSN and Yahoo paid search ads themselves. These links must contain information which passes data to Google Analytics about the origin of that traffic.

The official term is called URL Tagging. Sounds complicated yes, and it could be, if it weren’t for this handy little tool that Google provides.

It’s called the URL Builder.

The URL Builder gives us the power to fill in a few fields click a button, and return a pre-built URL that we can use within our ppc campaigns. These would represent what are known as the Destination URL’s for a given keyword (you do break your destination URL’s down to the keyword level right? Doing so gives you more control and if you’re not, you should be.)

Let’s dive in and show you how you can gather keyword level data from Yahoo paid search, but one last thing you may be wondering before we do.

If you are wondering whether you need to provide a unique URL for each keyword the answer is no. Yahoo by default passes variable information to you with each visitor. All you need to know is what they pass and what to grab to insert into your analytics. That’s what I’m going to show you here.

Google’s URL Builder

Here’s is a crash course in Google’s URL Builder:

Google URL Builder
Google URL Builder Screenshot

The URL Builder let’s you enter your landing page (website URL) and associated variables including source (search engine), medium (cpc vs. email, organic, etc…), term (your keyword), content (ad version), and name (your campaign). After completing the form, the URL Builder provides you with a full tracking URL that you can copy/paste into your Yahoo or MSN ads. Here’s an example:

  • Landing page: www.ecommerceamplifier.com/
  • Variables: Source = ‘Yahoo’ (or could be ‘MSN’), medium = ‘CPC’, term = ‘Ecommerce Coaching’, campaign = ‘Coaching Program’ and content = ‘Ecommerce Coaching National Ad’.
  • Custom Tracking URL: //www.ecommerceamplifier.com/?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=ecommerce%2Bcoaching&utm_content=National%2BEcommerce%20Coaching%20Ad&utm_campaign=Ecommerce%2BAmplifier

Tracking Yahoo PPC With Google Analytics

First thing we need to do to get Yahoo to send us the data we are after is to turn on auto-tagging from within your Yahoo Search Marketing account or you’ll get nothing but the keyword coming over (and that doesn’t help a whole lot on its own.)

Yahoo Search Marketing Tracking URL Section
Yahoo Search Marketing Tracking URL Section

To do this you’ll need to login to your YSM (Yahoo Search Marketing) account and go to:

Administration > Tracking URLs

Once that is complete Yahoo will begin to pass a lot more data than just the keyword over in the query string and we’ll be able to retrieve that data from within Google Analytics.

The parameters identifiers that Yahoo uses to pass various paid search data in the query string are:

  • {OVKEY} representing the keyword
  • {OVADID} representing the ad itself
  • {OVCAMPGID} representing the campaign itself

Inserting these parameters into the utm_term, utm_content, and utm_campaign sections of your URL, you’ll be able to successfully pull the keyword you bid on, the ad it came from, and the campaign that held the ad into Google Analytics.

So going back to the above example (bullet points) the url for Yahoo would look like this after we inserted the parameters:

//www.ecommerceamplifier.com/?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={OVKEY}&utm_content={OVADID}&utm_campaign={OVCAMPGID}

Yahoo Parameters in Google URL Builder
Yahoo Parameters in Google URL Builder

Notice in place of the term, content, and campaign level data we entered earlier there are now Yahoo specific parameters that fill the string with dynamic data.

That’s all you need to do to begin to track the information on Yahoo paid search in Google Analytics. In the next article I’ll show you how to do the same thing using MSN Adcenter and after that one show you how to drill down on this data from within Google Analytics to find out what it’s all telling you.

Don’t be afraid to use this same strategy to track all kinds of marketing activity. Using this technique you can track email campaigns, banner advertising, or just about anything else you can imagine.

Filed Under: Search Marketing, Website Analytics Tagged With: track yahoo ppc with google analytics, tracking yahoo cpc in google analytics, yahoo paid search google analytics

Using Google Site Search to Improve Your Adwords Campaigns

By Eric Leuenberger Leave a Comment

I touched upon site search quite a while back in a previous post of mine titled How to Read Your Visitors Minds with 100% Accuracy. In that post I went into detail on how you can use site search to understand what your customers want.

I found this video from the folks over at Google and think it’s a nice extension to that post. The video takes the concept I presented earlier a step further and applies that to improving your pay per click advertising conversion.

Now, I’m not saying that this method is the best way to go to improve your ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend). It’s a nice way of researching and gathering more information about what keywords you might want to consider (or combinations thereof) but don’t use it as the end all be all.

For example, in the video we see that one of the top search queries recorded was “shirt”. I would never buy a word like this alone as it is too broad—even if you do sell shirts. I would consider (if you are not already doing it) however, bidding on something like “blue short sleeved oxford shirt” (as an example).

I believe that using site search as a research tool for your business is extremely smart. It opens the doors to your customers mindset. I saying this, I also think it can come in handy for determining how you might want to consider expanding your current paid search campaigns. Just be careful you do your homework after you gather the data to ensure the words you choose provide the best opportunity at achieving a positive ROI.

Filed Under: Search Marketing, Website Analytics Tagged With: google site search, site search, using google site search to improve ppc

Cool Tool to Find Your Google Analytics ID

By Eric Leuenberger Leave a Comment

Ok, I realize it’s not that difficult to find your Google Analytics ID number, but a handful of questions have come in to me over time that I felt warranted me posting a link to this interesting tool which tells you what your Google Analytics ID is.

I know, some maybe saying well, that’s pretty easy, and why would you want to find it out anyhow? Well, I’m sure there are any number of answers for this most of which I cannot answer myself. But, for those who need a tool like this, it’s here.

It’s not for everybody, but it might be helpful for some.

Here’s the link //yoast.com/easily-google-analytics-account-id/

Filed Under: Website Analytics Tagged With: extract google analytics id, find google analytics id

Google Introduces Custom Reporting

By Eric Leuenberger Leave a Comment

While managing campaigns here the other day I was happy to see the addition of two new features within Google Analytics.

  • Custom Reporting BETA
  • Advanced Segmentation BETA

Each option enables the end user to have more flexibility in developing and then saving reports vital to the success of their business. You can develop reports by simply dragging and dropping metrics and dimensions into what I’ll call a “palette”.

Both items are in BETA stage at this point but I immediately jumped in and developed a few reports to see what exactly can be done with these, and was happy to find that you can generate some nice reports that typically you would have to dig for under normal conditions.

A few screenshots of the interface are below for reference.

The first image below shows the location of the new custom reporting link.
Google Analytics Custom Reporting

The next image shows the link result of a custom report that was generated and saved for easy access later.
Google Analytics Custom Reporting

The new advanced segmentation feature (link location shown below) enables you to segment your data by various visitor types, traffic types, and more. This flexibility can further help you narrow down those visitors or traffic channels which contribute most to the success of your business.
Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation

A complete breakdown of the current segmentation options available are shown in the screenshot below.
Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation

There is no doubt that the addition of this form of custom reporting to Google Analytics will further enable users to get at the data they need to make informed decisions about their business.

Filed Under: Website Analytics Tagged With: google advanced segmentation, google analytics, google custom reporting

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