Search Engine Click-Through Reports

Search Engine Click-Through Reports

Search engines that offer paid placement or paid inclusion programs provide click-through reports (as shown in Figure 14.4) to their advertisers free of charge. You can log in anytime and check the number of impressions , clicks, click-through rates, and click fees for each keyword in your campaign. (Not all Submit URL inclusion programs offer detailed reporting by keyword.)

Figure 14.4. Sample click-through report from Overture.

Click-through reports don't reveal your ad profitability. However, if you don't yet have an ROI tracking system to monitor sales data by search engine, product, and campaign components , then a click-through report is equivalent to illuminating the dark alley of marketing with a match. It's better than pure darkness , but without a lantern you'll hit a few wall edges and potholes along the way.

You can use click-through reports to immediately spot problems with your campaign: keywords that were rejected during the submission process or deleted due to poor click-through performance.

Important

If you don't use the automatic budget renewal feature on PFP engines, once your account is depleted of funds, your ad listings are dropped. Setting a fixed maximum budget is a good idea to prevent surprise spending spikes; just periodically ensure there are sufficient funds in your account to keep it active.

In addition to performance issues, use click-through reports to keep an eye on your budget. Monitor your fees the first few days of a new campaign to gauge your monthly expenses and see how the actual costs compare to what you, or your media representative, estimated. Routinely check reports on long- term campaigns as well. One of my e-zine subscribers shared that he wasted $4,000 on one PFP program over a weekend because he wasn't monitoring it. Ouch. Without an ROI bid management system in place (see Chapter 19, "Bid Management Tools"), it's critical to constantly monitor your advertising expenses. Traffic or bids frequently spike without warning.