Saturday, October 3, 2009

Tracking paid (PPC) keywords in Google Analytics

We all know that Google Analytics displays keywords of your Adwords campaign, but however it does not display the exact keyword used by your visitors for your broad match term. For example, if your broad match keyword was 'SEO', and the term used by a visitor was 'SEO company' or 'SEO consultants', google analytics will only display 'SEO'.

In order to track the exact keyword used by the visitor for a broad match term, all you need to do is set up the following filters in your website's anlaytics account.

Filter One
Add new filter for profile
Filter Name: Overide bid term
Select "Custom Filter" & Click on "Advanced"
Field A -> Extract A: Select Referral and put the following values in the next coloumn (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
Field B -> Extract B: Select Campaign Medium and in the text field put: cpc|ppc
Output To -> Constructor: Select Custom Field 1 and type $A3 in the next column
Field A Required - Yes
Field B Required - Yes
Override Output Field - Yes
Case Sensitive - No
Select the website profile on which you would like this filter to be applied and click on "Save Changes".

Filter Two
Filter Name: Overide bid term 2
Select "Custom Filter" & Click on "Advanced"
Field A -> Extract A : Select - Custom Field 1 : and in the next column insert (.*)
Field B -> Extract B : Select - Campaign Term : and insert (.*)
Output To -> Constructor : Campaign Term : $B1.($A1)
Field A Required - Yes
Field B Required - Yes
Override Output Field - Yes
Case Sensitive - No
Again, select the same website profile and click on "Save Changes".

You will now be able to check the exact terms used by your visitors for your broad match keywords. This set up will help you in indentifying negative keywords and improve your campaigns performance.