First things first: what the hell is a KPI? And while we’re at it, what is PPC?
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are used across nearly every industry as a metric of how well (or not well) something is working.
Pay Per Click (PPC) is an internet advertising model which is used to generate clicks for your website.
In PPC campaigns, you can use KPI’s to determine the success of the campaign. Got it? Good. Let’s begin.
1. Click-through rate (CTR) – is a report that shows the frequency with which a given user clicked on an ad after seeing it. CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks received by an ad by the number of times it is displayed. For example, if you had 9 clicks per 1000 impressions, the CTR would be 0.9%. Measuring and improving CTR is so important not only to measure the success of a campaign, but because it affects other KPI’s as well.
2. Clicks – all conversions start with clicks, thus they are a key to the success of a PPC campaign. This performance indicator measures how many users clicked on your ad. Clicks are an indicator for mid-month verification of campaign status by campaign managers.
3. Quality Score – is the most difficult to spot KPI among PPC campaigns. Quality score gives you an overview of the quality of your ads. The score ranges on a scale from 1-10. It is based on three factors.
- Relevance of ads
- Estimated click-through rate
- Landing page experience
A good score is generally between 7-10 and means you will pay less for AdWords Ads. A poor score (less than 6) and brings with it the rising cost of the campaign to reach the desired result. PPC campaign managers are very interested in this quality score because it determines how much they pay per click.
4. Cost per Click (CPC) – PPC advertisers know right from the beginning what the budget is. However, even if they have a set budget and set-up budget in the beginning, this does not necessarily mean that they will pay for the results exactly in that way. The PPC measures how much an advertiser will pay. The CPC is measured by dividing the total cost of the campaign by the number of times the ad was clicked.
5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) – According to trusty Google, the average CPA is the amount paid by advertisers for each newly acquired customer. This cost is calculated by dividing the total cost of conversions by the number of conversions.