In our roles as market analysts or administrators/ marketers of paid search, we occasionally lack the resources necessary to complete our work.
Even specific things like timing Google Ads can be much more complex than needed. This is because you cannot directly enter your budget or conversion objectives into the platform.
If you are in charge of managing sponsored advertising for customers across many platforms, it could even be challenging and time-consuming to track the performance of the whole PPC budget.
Additionally, most third-party tools and do-it-yourself pacing sheets developed to address this issue are not helpful to you. They are either too simple to offer insights or too cluttered to understand quickly.
Because of this, Porter Metrics PPC dashboard has sought to address this issue by combining data from numerous ad platforms, including Google Ads and Facebook Ads, into a single view.
And the exact steps for setting up a PPC dashboard for clients will be covered in this article, along with information on how to add markup for your PPC services, utilize annotations and goals to convey a message with your data, and more.
Step-by-Step: How to Build a PPC Dashboard
The procedure of setting up a PPC dashboard using our prebuilt template will be covered step-by-step in this section.
We have dashboard layouts for specific platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads, in addition to a single dashboard for several ad platforms.
Also, and as delightful news for you, Porter Metrics provides a host of pre-built marketing dashboards that you may utilize to cover every facet of your agency’s services.
● Choose a PPC Template
The following step involves selecting whether to start from scratch or use a template to create a custom dashboard. We’ll start with our PPC template for this illustration.
The dashboard template you want to use can be selected from the list of all of our dashboard templates, which can be found here. Following that, click “Create Dashboard” and you will be prompted to give the dashboard a name.
Once you’ve picked the dashboard you are interested in, follow the prompts to download the dashboard. Once done, you should be seeing something like the image below.
Bear in mind that the edit button will only come on after you’ve been able to create a copy of the dashboard. It won’t come on if you don’t create a copy of the dashboard.
Once you see that, it’s time to create a copy of that template so here’s how to get it done. On the top right corner of your screen, you will see three dots, click on it and select make a copy.
Once a copy of your dashboard is ready, you can then click on “edit” as shown in the image below. By selecting “Edit Dashboard,” you can change the dashboard widgets even if you’re using our PPC design.
● Add Your Data Sources
Below are the steps you’ll need to follow to add your data sources. First you’ll click on resources and select manage added data sources
After that you’ll then click on add a Data source.
Once you click to add a data source, it takes you to an interface like the one displayed below where you can add your PPC data sources.
● Choose Your PPC Integrations
The next step is connecting your client’s PPC integrations once you’ve developed a campaign for them. The necessary data will subsequently be immediately retrieved via integration from the platform.
We presently provide 30+ connectors in addition to the advertising integrations listed below.
Once you are able to pick your PPC integrations or connectors and have been able to authorize them like in the image below, then you are ready to select your data sources and to populate your dashboard with your data
● Customize Widgets in the Dashboard
By selecting “Edit Dashboard,” you can change the dashboard widgets even if you’re using our PPC design.
● Add Annotations & Goals
After creating and customizing the dashboard, let’s review some more sophisticated capabilities, including annotating your PPC charts and setting goals. Goals allow you to identify account targets, such as a target CPA.
In contrast, annotations will enable you to appear to suggest when essential changes to the account, such as new campaign launches or budget modifications, have been made.
Select “Edit” by clicking on the three dots “…” in the widget’s top right-hand corner to add annotations.
● Add a PPC Markup for Your Services
You might only need to show clients the cost of ads after the markup for your services if you bill clients as a percentage of total spending to prevent confusion and inquiries.
You can easily add a markup to your dashboard by going to Settings -> Advanced and entering the percentage for each platform that you are controlling.
● Whitelabel the PPC Dashboard
White labelling a dashboard with your agency’s identity is the last step before sharing it with clients. This entails registering it in your name, adding your logo, and adding your colour scheme.
● Share the Dashboard with Clients
The dashboard can be shared with clients in several ways, too. The customer can first be added as a user, after which you can give them access rights to certain areas.
Additionally, you have the option on the dashboard to send it via email, generate a shareable link, or download a PDF.
PPC Metrics to Track Performance
A dedicated PPC dashboard makes it much easier to remain on top of your client’s data, given the quantity of information and insights concealed in each advertising platform.
You may choose which cross-platform marketing tactics are most effective for the client by being able to access and analyze data from several ad platforms.
Now, let’s take a closer look at some important metrics and how they connect to the success of your PPC campaign as a whole.
● Impressions
Impressions or impression shares are the total number of times your advertisements have been seen in search results or on the display network.
Impressions can become a crucial indicator to gauge performance if your objective is to raise brand recognition.
Impressions give you information about your ad’s reach; it does not consider the ad’s relevance or click-through rate.
This statistic is helpful for brand awareness initiatives since it improves brand recognition and product recall.
● Clicks
When a new ad campaign first launches, tracking clicks is especially crucial since you frequently want to let ads run for certain clicks before deciding whether the campaign is worthwhile continuing or suspending.
And given that they are the foundation of PPC, clicks are one of the most crucial performance measures. The quantity of individuals that click on your company’s adverts is what is meant by “clicks.”
They are often the most straightforward and widely used indicator to distinguish between performing and non-performing commercials.
● CPC (Cost Per Click)
The sum of money an advertiser spends for each click on their ad is known as the “cost per click” (CPC) (s). By dividing the entire cost of your campaign by the number of clicks it received, you can quickly determine the CPC of an advertisement.
The CPC should ideally be as low as possible, and PPC specialists always work to decrease it. CPC might give you a heads-up that a campaign has to be paused or improved if it’s abnormally high.
Even though you typically want to let a PPC campaign run until it reaches a particular amount of clicks to monitor its performance.
However, remember that a high CPC might not necessarily cause alarm because a higher lead quality could still result in a lucrative ROAS.
● Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The number of views you receive at the top of the funnel can be determined by tracking impressions, but you should also be aware of how well your ads are moving viewers from the awareness stage to the contemplation stage.
Monitoring CTR provides precisely that by showing you how well your ad copy and creativity convert views into clicks and conversions.
They are often the most straightforward and widely used indicator to distinguish between performing and non-performing commercials.
● Reach and Frequency
Although they offer essential information about when it might be appropriate to pause an ad, reach and frequency are two additional PPC metrics frequently disregarded by advertisers.
Reach tracks the number of actual persons who have viewed the advertisement, regardless of how many times they have seen it, in contrast to impressions, which count every ad view.
In contrast, frequency refers to the number of times each user has viewed an advertisement and is determined by dividing impressions by reach.
Since a high frequency indicates that the same individual is viewing the ad without converting, monitoring your frequency is beneficial.
In the end, a high frequency suggests that it could be time to alter your targeting, creativity, or ad copy.
● Conversions
Along with monitoring conversions at the account-wide level, ad set and individual ad-level monitoring should also be done.
You can analyze conversions by account, campaign, and the top keywords that led to them, for instance, if you use Google Ads.
● Conversion Rate
Another crucial comparison KPI that reveals the efficiency of your advertisements in inspiring the necessary action is conversion rate.
At the ad set level, which gives an indicator of the quality of the targeting, and at the level of the personal ad, which offers helpful information about the calibre of the ad copy and creativity, the conversion rate can additionally be broken down more precisely.
● Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Check out these amazing ROAS Dashboards
Finally, return on ad spend would be the most crucial PPC indicator to monitor if we were to choose just one.
ROAS, which enables you to compare the profitability of each ad campaign, is defined as the amount of income gained from each dollar invested in paid advertisements.
Your advertising strategies will be more effective the more return they receive.
To further grasp it, let’s say your online store makes $10,000 after spending $2,000 on advertising; in this case, your return on ad spend is 500%.
Check out this well-detailed article on “what is ROAS and how to improve it”.
Cross-channel Reporting & Data Blending
While being able to advertise is critical, it’s equally important to remember the value of creating/combining reports from various channels because the reports document the results of the marketing activity.
It is not always easy to combine or aggregate reporting data from several channels despite how important it may be.
Cross-channel reporting is designed to make it simple to compare two or more channels — which may often span various ad accounts — to track and boost each one’s effectiveness with the others.
The goal is to provide a detailed breakdown of all relevant metrics for each channel and campaign, including clicks, impressions, cost, and conversions.
And since we all know what data blending is, how does this relate to cross-channel reporting?
With data blending, we can locate top performers and trends by merging cross-channel data into a single format.
You may need to log in to many programs to examine the performance of your accounts on various social networks and spend hours preparing an extensive report to track the results of your social media marketing efforts.
But thanks to Porter Metrics, social media reporting is no longer time-consuming.
Now that a single dashboard is in place and tracking key indicators, you can quickly evaluate your social media success. We even offer a free cross-channel reporting tool.
You can now use the expertise of our social media specialists, who have created a template displaying the most crucial KPIs for evaluating the success of your social media marketing initiatives across numerous platforms.
Best of all, it’s free! It’s easy to set up and use as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports. Learn how to create cross-channel report on Google data studio
Conclusion
PPC dashboards let agencies give clients real-time access to their data on their timetables while reducing the time spent on reporting when managing ads across numerous platforms.
With that, Porter Metrics offers online marketers the very best pre-built templates. You can check out our pre-built template if you’re ready to get started with a PPC dashboard and begin tracking and reporting on your data in no time.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a PPC campaign report?
A PPC campaign report is a report that shows the effectiveness of your PPC campaign. This is accomplished by looking at several important metrics that might demonstrate the success of your PPC campaign.
2. What makes a good PPC marketing Report?
A smart PPC report connects the dots between indicators like cost per conversion and campaign performance to provide your clients with a narrative about their marketing data. Additionally, it must make explicit progress toward its clients’ short- and long-term business objectives.
3. How do you analyze PPC?
The best strategy to examine your PPC campaigns is to consistently report the data most important to each campaign’s unique objectives.
These capabilities include keeping your spending in check, choosing the most successful marketing avenues, and knowing who your target market is.
4. What is a tracking template in Google Ads?
To determine the source of a specific ad click, you can add further information to the URL using a tracking template.
For instance, you can provide URL parameters informing you of the user’s device type, the campaign and ad group the user clicked on, and the phrase that caused the ad to appear.
5. What is the difference between Google Analytics and Google Ads conversion tracking?
Based on the date/time of the click that resulted in the conversion, Google Ads counts conversions. Analytics makes use of the conversion’s actual date and time.
Various times represent different tracking numbers. The conversion tracking data from Google Ads are typically updated in 3 hours, but those from Analytics are often updated in 9 hours.
