Using Google Analytics will enable you to get more data, such as the bounce rate and whether they’re completing any goals.
Merging the ways you collect your data allows you to see the information that you otherwise would have missed.
So that you can have the complete picture, we’ve created this guide to help you understand how it all works.
How To View Google Ads Data In Google Analytics
When you link your Google Ads to your Analytics account, you’ll be able to see how your ad is performing.
Go to Google Analytics, and click on Acquisition.
Below the Acquisition menu, you should see Google Ads below the Acquisition menu, where you’ll see a selection of available options.
Viewing the menu, you’ll find these options to understand how the users clicking your ad are behaving:
Campaigns
Treemaps
Sitelinks
Bid Adjustments
Keywords
Search Queries
Hour of Day
Final URLs
Display Targeting
Video Campaigns
Shopping Campaigns
As you can see, there are various options available here, so let’s delve into some more details on what you can do with your linked accounts.
How To Link Google Ads To Google Analytics
Before viewing your Google Ads data, you’ll need to link your Ads account to your Analytics account.
Luckily for us, that’s not that difficult to do. There are two ways that you can link your accounts.
Linking Through Acquisition
On your Google Analytics account, head over to Acquisition.
From the dropdown menu, you’ll find an option saying Google Ads.
I’ve mentioned how there’s a dropdown menu, and if you haven’t linked your account yet, you can do so here.
Linking Through Admin
The first step you need to take is to log in to your Analytics account.
Once you’re on your Analytics account, select Admin. Under the Admin menu, you’ll find Property.
Scroll through the Property section, where you will see Google Ads Linking.
Then you need to select the Google Ads account you want to link to your Analytics by clicking the box beside it.
When you select your account, make sure you enable auto-tagging in Google Ads.
Enabling the auto-tagging in Google Ads will help your data report correctly between the two.
Just hit continue, and you’ll be able to find your data in Analytics.
Both of these methods are simple and easy to complete. As you can see, you can link your account with just a few buttons.
What Data Can You View In Analytics?
Using Google Analytics, you can monitor your user’s behavior and see how they’re interacting with your ad.
I’ve already mentioned the options that you can find here, but let’s go into a little more detail about the different things you can analyze using Analytics.
Hits
Using Google Analytics, you can see how many hits your ad is getting.
There are three different types of hit, and each time, they will show you how your ad is working.
A pageview hit is where Google Analytics registers each time a page connected to your site has loaded.
An event hit will tell you when a visitor does something on your site.
Usually, it will check whether they filled in a form, clicked a link, or played a video.
Then, there’s a transaction hit, or an e-commerce hit.
The transaction hit will tell you when a visitor on your site buys something.
If you look at this hit, you’ll find there’s more insight in this than the other sites.
You can see how long your customer spent on the site, and which pages they went to before they bought their item.
Users And Sessions
Using Google Analytics, you can collect more in-depth information on your users and how they spend their session on your site.
It’s a great way to see what your visitors are doing when they go to your site, and Analytics will give each user a specific, yet random ID. That way, each user can be recognized.
Your user data will show you the number of visitors to your site.
As you can see, your Analytics data will show you when they return unless they use a different device.
When a user clears their cache, they will also be registered as a new user.
The session data will show you how much time a user spends on your site.
It will show you when they first visit, and then you can see how long they spend there until they leave.
Using the unique ID each user has, you can see how often they return to your site, and how long they spend on there.
Metrics And Analytics Reports
You can view qualitative and quantitative data forms on your report.
These include dimensions, which are basic attributes of your collected data.
As an example, one dimension is country. Here you can see where the site user comes from.
So you can change this to see where your site is being accessed from more often.
Along with these, your metrics will show you your quantitative measures, and so they will show you a number.
An example of metrics are by showing the sessions, where you can see how many took place on your site.
How Google Analytics Can Help Your Ad Campaign
Using Google Analytics, you can track your Ads campaign to see how you can make it more effective. Here are two strategies that you can use:
Conversion Tracking
Conversions are actions that are valuable to your site. Google Analytics has conversion tracking and through that you can see how effective your ads are.
Even if they’re not successful, you can use conversion tracking to see how you could improve their performance.
If you want to use conversion tracking, you need to make sure you have a tag or code snippet to your site.
The snippet will track them by adding a temporary cookie to their device.
Goal Setting
You can measure the success of your campaign using goal setting.
Choose a goal, either number of conversions, how long they’re on the site, how many pages they view, or how many links or videos they click.
Using goals, you can decide what you need to improve on if you aren’t meeting them.
How To Import Your Goals
On your Google Analytics account, you’ve probably already set up several goals that you measure the progress of your business by.
You can easily check your conversions this way, and you can also import these goals over to your Google Ads account.
All you need to do is head over to your Google Ads account. Click on Tools & Settings, and then click Measurement.
Once you’re at the Measurement, click on Conversions. You should see a + button, where you can select the option to Import data.
Once you’ve imported your data, you can view your site’s activity while you’re on Google Ads.
These days, everything is online. You can’t get your business anywhere without a great online presence. With search engines forever changing, it’s difficult to stay on top of it all! That’s where I’ll come in.
Hello, my name is Jack O’Neil and I have been in the marketing industry for almost 10 years. I focus on online marketing, SEO, advertising, and more.
