As mentioned in an earlier post, reporting in AdWords is getting faster and easier! We have added more advanced reporting options to the Campaigns tab to make it easier for you to analyse your account's performance. Reports that were previously only accessible through the Report Center are now available on the same pages you use to manage your campaigns. Easier access to reports helps you find key performance drivers more quickly. And because you're viewing reports on the Campaigns tab, you can now take immediate action on any insights you discover. However, you may need a little guidance to pull the same reports and access certain functions you know from the Report Center directly within the Campaigns tab. Here are a couple of tips:

1) Downloading a report in the Campaigns tab

You can download reports directly in your account online or receive them via email. First, use the navigation tree, date range selector and filters to get the information you would like in your report showing in the Campaigns tab. For example, if you would like to pull a keyword report for the last 7 days for a campaign, you would select that campaign in the tree on the left, click on the Keywords tab, and set the date range to "Last 7 Days".

Step 1: Select the campaign


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Step 2: Click on the Keywords tab


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Step 3: Set the date range to "Last 7 Days"


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From there, you can click on the "Download Report" icon to access this report. You can choose the file format, segments (such as daily stats, day of the week, or conversion data), and also save the report as a template or email the report directly to yourself or other members of your team. The last step is to click the "Create" button to download your report.


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2) Account Reports

Account performance reports show you summary statistics for your entire account and can help you get a quick overview of your overall AdWords performance. You can view your account-wide data in various ways within the Campaigns tab.

• With “All online campaigns” selected on the left side of the page, look at the “Total” rows at the bottom of your tables.


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• Go to the “Dimensions” tab to organise your account data by the parameter of your choice. To enable the "Dimensions" tab, use the customisation menu that appears next to your existing tabs. Check “Dimensions”.


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Once the "Dimensions" tab is activated, you’ll be able to view detailed account-level data right in the UI. You can use the "View" option to further segment the data.


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You can also download a report directly from this view, but clicking on the "Download Report" option.


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For additional insight into using the reports in the Campaigns tab, please refer to this comprehensive guide.

Posted by Kate Conroy, AdWords Product Specialist

Late last year we introduced you to the AdWords New Ad Formats Initiative. Many advertisers now use one or more of our three new formats: Sitelinks, Phone Extensions and Location Extensions. We've had lots of positive feedback about these formats, but one improvement we've heard you wanted was reporting on the performance of your ad extensions. We're pleased to announce a new 'Ad Extensions' tab in your account that does just that. If you have set up any type of ad extension (location, phone or sitelinks) within your campaign you will now be able to access detailed reporting in the Ad Extensions Tab. This tab will automatically appear in your account if you have ad extensions enabled.

If you use sitelinks, you'll be able to see statistics like clicks, impressions and CTR for each group for each group of sitelinks (but not individual sitelinks just yet). If you use location extensions, you'll be able to see performance statistics for each address or store that you are promoting. If you use phone extensions, you'll be able to see the number of times someone clicked to open your phone number in their iPhone or smartphone so they could call your business.

So if you use extensions already, or are thinking about trying them soon, look out for the 'Ad Extensions' tab in your account over the next few days.



Posted by Kate Conroy, AdWords Product Specialist

We recently announced a new set of AdWords reports in Google Analytics to give you more insight into what happens after users click on your clients' ads. These reports can help you answer questions like:

- Which match types drive more conversions?
- What are the highest converting times of day and week for a particular ad group?
- Do people clicking on particular ads tend to leave the funnel at certain points?

The new reports allow you to see how many clicks you got from each AdWords Campaign, Ad Group, Keyword and Query. You can then see how many pages that group visited and the average time spent on site. If you use the funnel reports in Google Analytics, you can even see the specific step where visitors tend to drop off when trying to make a purchase.

We’re rolling these new AdWords reports out gradually over the next several weeks, so you may not see them right away. You’ll know when the new reports have been added to your account when you see the 'AdWords' section in your 'Traffic Sources' reports in Google Analytics.

For more information, and to view a video on the new reports, visit the Inside AdWords Blog

Posted by Kate Conroy, AdWords Product Specialist

In order to help you make even more informed decisions about your AdWords keywords, ad groups and campaigns, we're excited to release a new set of reports in your AdWords account: AdWords Search Funnels (beta). Currently, conversions in AdWords are attributed to the last ad clicked before the conversion takes place, masking the fact that many customers perform multiple searches before finally converting. AdWords Search Funnels help you see the full picture by giving you insight into the ads your customers interact with during their shopping process.

What is AdWords Search Funnels?

AdWords Search Funnels are a set of reports describing the ad click and impression behavior on Google.com that leads up to a conversion. In addition to a Top Conversions report, Search Funnels consist of 7 reports including Assisted Conversions, First and Last Click Analysis, Time Lag, and Path Length. For an overview of these new reports, check out this video:

Why is this useful?

"Search Funnel enables us to create a better experience for our customers by helping us understand how they search for our products," said Beth Hirschhorn, Chief Marketing Officer from MetLife, the largest life insurance company based in the United States. "It is an important tool to help de-code consumer shopping habits and thought processes, which we can relate back to our online as well as offline advertising."

By showing which ads your customers and clicked before ultimately converting, Search Funnels gives a more complete picture of the value of your keywords, ad groups and campaigns. Let's look at an example.

An online vacation service called Flyaway Vacations is running AdWords campaigns for vacation packages in Hawaii. Their ads link to a site where visitors can book any or all parts of a package that includes flights, a hotel, car rental, and surf lessons. Suppose on March 10 someone searched for "hawaii vacation" and saw and then clicked on an ad for Flyaway's Hawaii package. A click was registered in their AdWords account. Then, two days later, the same person searched for "flights to hawaii" and saw another ad for Flyaway, but didn't click. An impression was registered in Flyaway's AdWords account. Finally, three days later, the same person searched one more time, this time for "flyaway hawaii." This time they clicked the ad, visited the site, and purchased the Hawaii vacation package.

Instead of showing only a purchase conversion for the "flyaway hawaii" keyword, Search Funnels will show an assist click for the keyword "hawaii vacation" and an assist impression for the keyword "flights to hawaii". Testing the value of assist clicks and impressions is important for evaluating and understanding the true value of all of your keywords.

Search Funnels not only help you understand the keywords seen by converters, they also show you those that weren't seen. For example, in the Flyaway campaign, it's possible that another keyword, such as "hawaii surf lessons," didn't contribute any assist clicks or impressions, or last click conversions, indicating that this may be a keyword that's providing little conversion value. Assist information is an additional data point you can use when making strategic budgeting decisions, from the campaign level down to the keyword level.

Search Funnels also show the "Path Length," or average number of clicks and impressions prior to conversion, which can help you understand and target repeat visitors. Additionally they show "Time Lag," or the amount of time it takes a customer to convert after seeing or clicking on your ads for the first time, which can help you determine lead time for seasonal campaigns. These breakdowns can help you understand your customers' behavior and create strategies around that information.

Over the next few weeks, the Search Funnels beta will be rolled out gradually to all accounts in the 'Conversions' section under the 'Reporting' tab. To activate them, you must either have AdWords Conversion Tracking running or import goals or transactions into AdWords from Google Analytics. Keep in mind that Search Funnels are only available in your AdWords account (not in Google Analytics), and will only show data for keywords that show up in at least one conversion path. Search Funnel data is currently limited to search ads showing on Google.com, for ad impressions and clicks within 30 days of the conversion.

Posted by Matthew Davison, Account Strategist

This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog

Have you ever looked at aggregated data in Google Analytics and wished there was a way to analyze individual audience segments? Google Analytics now makes this possible with advanced and custom segments.

Different types of visitors - whether new, returning, organic, or paid - behave differently to each other and have vastly different expectations. Advanced and custom segments can be a key tool to understand what your visitors want, and how to cater to them. Website owners tell us that they want data about audience segments that visit their site to improve their user experience and conversions.

You can take advantage of this new feature immediately with predefined segments (e.g. new visitors, paid search visitors, iPhone users). You can also tailor segments and create your own custom advanced segments. You can also share custom advanced segments with other users across accounts.

I've included below examples of advanced segments that I've found most helpful.

* Bounced visits

* Visits that dropped out of the funnel

* Brand keyword visits

* Brand keyword (organic) visits

* Brand keyword (paid) visits

* Non-brand keyword visits

* Non-brand (organic) visits

* Non-brand (paid) visits

* Visits from Country X

* First-time buy visits

* Return visit buys

Head over to the Solutions for Southeast Asia blog for even more.

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Customer Solutions Engineer

We know the holiday season is a busy time for our agencies and this often means an increased number of updates to your client's campaigns. For those of you that utilise the AdWords API to make changes to your accounts, you'll be happy to hear that we're once again providing more API units this holiday season.

Starting now and extending through January 15th 2010, all developers will receive a bonus of 20% more API units at no additional cost. Developers will be billed at a rate of 1250 units/$0.25, up from 1000 units/$0.25. You can view your API usage in your MCC account, by clicking the AdWords API Center link under the My Account tab.

As always, we encourage you to use the API as efficiently as possible. Take a look at these efficiency best practices as well as 10 general API best practices to learn about ways to get more out of your API units. Finally, we encourage developers to take advantage of the efficiencies and cost savings associated with API v2009.

Posted by Jane Beaven, Third Party Training Manager APAC
This is a partial cross post from the AdWords API Blog