Google have released a number of new tools in Analytics that should be invaluable to help you optimise your AdWords campaigns- these are still in beta so not yet available to everyone, so check under traffic sources in your Analytics account to see if you can access these reports.
Overview: Traffic Sources
The first one to look at is under the Campaigns section. If you click on a campaign and then on a particular ad group for example you can then select various dimensions to look at to monitor performance. One interesting dimension to choose is match type- you can then look at individual keywords by match type in that ad group, which is therefore vital for allocating more budget to the best performers. This level of insight is crucial for AdWords campaign optimisation.
Google Analytics – AdWords
This report also allows you to choose the metric Landing Page from the same dropdown- again vital for monitoring KPIs in this case by landing page for your AdWords campaigns.
The final report which is very interesting to look at (which had been previously available by using segments) is the Day Parts report. If you select Visits and Transactions (by comparing two metrics in the graph options) for example and then look at the data hourly, you will be able to see where sales on your website peak at various times of the day.
Google Analytics – AdWords Day Parts
This data can then be used in various ways to maximise ROI from your AdWords spend. You may choose to use ad scheduling to only display your adverts at certain times in the day or alternatively you may choose to use the bid adjustment tool (accessed via campaign settings) to increase bids at certain times of day (e.g. 150% bid for a certain time range).
