Monitoring a Campaign

Monitoring a campaign is an extremely important task to do in order to see how the campaign is running. The first step to do when checking a campaign is to set the timeframe. By setting the timeframe this will allow you to look at trends and see patterns in your campaign. Also, this helps you to report on specific days of the week so the data you analyze is consistent. In order to change the timeframe, however, you have to go into adwords and click on the date range drop down menu in the upper right hand corner. By setting a certain timeframe it can help you track your progress for your client or yourself, which is helpful to see how your campaign is performing overall.

When viewing your campaign you can see how many people clicked on your ads or the  number of impressions, which means how many people saw it. One major component to keep an eye out for when checking the performance of a campaign is the click through rate. The click through rate helps to keep track of people who do not stay on the webpage compared to those who do. By taking a closer look at the percentage of click through rates it will help determine what ads, keywords, or campaigns are working in your favor and which ones are not. This will ultimately help you in the long run to see how you can improve on your campaign.

Traffic in Blogger

Blogger is an excellent example of utilizing Web Analytics, because it tracks the number of clicks to the site. In order to check the traffic of your Blogger you have to go to the Stats link and it will open up to the week tab. However, if you are curious about your blog and would prefer to see a longer view of the traffic trends then all you have to do is click the all time tab on the top right. A great way to increase the amount of traffic to your blog is by adding quality content that is worth reading and making an effort to promote your blog, such as using social media.

An important concept to look at when working with Analytics is to see what is "trending". This basically means to look at how things perform over time. In Blogger you can examine a lot of information that is similar to using Google Analytics but it is just on a smaller scale. If you have not already set up a Blogger account I highly recommend making one in order to track traffic and see how well your site does. My Blogger Stats are listed below indicating that last month I had 130 pageviews, however, in the past couple of days it has not been that high which is something I need to work on.

Website Data

This week I have officially started to work with Google Analytics and it has been interesting to see what can be done with this tool. I have been examining data from the National Tiger Sanctuary and in Google Analytics I can view how many users there are, number of pageviews, as well as new and returning visitors on a website. The Google Analytics tool also shows the the top demographics of people who view the website: including the language, country, and city of those individuals.

As presented above, this graph demonstrates the pageviews over the last week. As you can see this National Tiger Sanctuary's website pageviews has been declining which is not very good. By using Google Analytics it can help an organization figure out what it has to do in order to have more pageviews as well as it can have a positive impact on the overall success of a company. 

Creating An Ad

Creating an ad can be fun and easy if the proper steps are taken. To start off, the first thing that needs to be done is choose a name for the ad group. The next step will consist of you putting in some information such as, the final URL, headline 1, headline 2, and description of what your ad will end up being. Lastly, you have to choose keywords that you think someone might type into Google when they are searching for something. This is an important step because depending on your keywords it may determine how many clicks you end up getting on your ad.

When monitoring performance you have to look at what worked and what did not work. Therefore, it is important to examine each keyword because each keyword will perform differently. When a keyword is below the first page bid, it does not mean it will not display, it just relates to the maximum bid you placed in adwords. The higher the bid the better your ads will be placed, so if you want the best chance for your ads to be clicked on I would recommend bidding high for your ads. 

Creating An Adwords Campaign

In order to get started with creating an Adwords campaign you first have to sign into Adwords by using the link presented: https://www.google.com/adwords/. After getting to the website you can click on the Campaigns tab and start to have some fun. Creating an ad may seem hard at first but the best way to do it is to just try it out. Fill out the the sections presented such as, Campaign Name, Languages, Budget, etc. One extremely important section to be aware of is the budget section. Make sure to set the budget to a low amount, especially when first trying out Google Adwords.

Google Adwords is a site that is doable for anyone to learn how to create campaigns or ads. The awesome thing about Adwords is that it allows you to track effectiveness, which is also known as tracking return on investment (ROI). This concept helps businesses stay competitive and helps the company make money. However, Google wants to make some money as well, so if you do not set an end date for your campaign Google will keep charging you and you may end up with a big fee, which would not be fun. All in all, Google Adwords tries to make it easy and simple to create a campaign that someone is passionate about and help send traffic to their website.

Creating A Google Analytics Account

Google Analytics is a great way to view your website's performance. The way to go about creating an account is pretty easy if you have a google account already set up. Once you are signed into your Gmail/Google account you will be able to access Google Analytics by going to the link presented below and signing in or clicking "create an account" and pressing the Google Analytics button: https://www.google.com/analytics/ . After creating an account try playing around with the material by putting in your organization's URL address to see how it is performing. Once you get the Tracking ID number you can link it to your blog to track how many people visit your website and to get even more traffic try sharing your blog on Facebook.

If you followed these simple steps to creating a Google Analytics account, then you would be able to see something like this, which shows your website's performance.

The above picture displays how many people visit your website and ultimately helps track revenue. Google Analytics is an excellent way to help any business keep track of customer behavior and see its overall website performance. 

AdWords Introduction

AdWords is a great tool used to create ads on Google and help a company gain traffic on its website. This tool is designed to track return on investment and see not only how many people click on the website but also purchase a product. Depending on certain keywords used, an ad can appear on the first page of the Google search or it may end up on the sixth page. That is why it is critical to use keywords that many people are willing to search to get your ad placed on the first page, which allows for a greater possibility to have the ad clicked on and hopefully result in a purchase.

The more money a company is willing to spend on its ads can potentially have a greater outcome due to the placement of the advertisements seen on Google. More people are likely to click on an ad placed on the first page rather than scrolling through the other pages on Google. Online advertising is easier to track compared to traditional advertising because of the AdWords tool created by Google. Therefore, many may say that online advertising is more effective because one is able to track the performance better. All in all, Google AdWords is a useful tool to have when trying to reach potential customers online and promoting a product and/or service. 

Web Analytics Introduction

Web Analytics is an important tool to have when entering the business world. This tool helps to collect, analysis and report web data that can further assist the understanding of web usage and how to optimize it. Web Analytics does not necessarily have to be boring, rather it can be fun to learn, especially when trying to track return on investment.

Now a days when looking for a career there are a lot of options to choose from. Some of which include: Social Media Marketing, Digital and Online Marketing, and Business Intelligence. By understanding and learning how analytics works this can have a major impact on ones career and how much they end up making. The more skills one has on their resume, the more qualified they are for higher up positions at companies seeking to gain knowledge of information on the company's return on investment.

A great tool to start getting familiar with is Google Analytics because it is increasing in power and in some cases exceeding the performance of other Web Analytics sites. If one has some free time and is willing to spend a little extra cash to gain more knowledge of what web analytics entails then they should try and get "Google Analytics Qualified". This certification is a great credibility source with potential employers and colleagues, which can help in ones overall career.