Did you know that you can link your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts and have your ad performance insights displayed alongside your website visitor data, enabling you to better utilize such to improve ad performance?
According to Google, such pairing is becoming increasingly important:
"Gone are the days of the traditional marketing funnel. While the funnel once showed us how a customer would gradually narrow down their product search along the path to purchase, this standard has changed - or more accurately, there is no standard path. Today’s customer journeys might resemble anything from a pyramid to an hourglass — and according to a study conducted by Google and Verto Analytics, no two journeys look the same."
Indeed, according to Google's examination of more than a thousand consumer purchase journeys, each was entirely different, which obviously makes it more difficult to reach customers at the right time in the process, when that right time will be different for each individual.
To help with this, Google has published a new guide which outlines how the pairing of your Google Ads and Google Analytics data can help to address the problem by combining more customer insights.
As per the guide:
"The integration between Google Analytics and Google Ads helps you get a clear view of how your ads are leading to conversions - and then quickly adjust creative and bidding accordingly. You can also use the products together to pinpoint your most valuable customer segments, then engage these customers with customized messaging."
In the guide, Google explains how you can use your Analytics data to shape your ad targeting around post-click engagement, reaching "high value cart abandoners" (visitors who’ve added at least five products to their shopping cart but haven’t completed a purchase) and maximizing ad response based on location, device, browser and page depth insights, among other data points.
It also outlines how you can create audiences in Analytics to share with Google Ads, and Import your Google Analytics Goals into your ads flow, along with improved reporting options based on increased data insights.
There are some interesting considerations here - if you're using, or thinking of using, Google Ads, it's definitely worth checking out the guide and considering your options for improved data tracking. The more data the better, and with so many actions already being tracked, it makes sense to tap into them to optimize your ad performance.
You can download the full "Linking analytics and ads: The solution to today’s marketing challenges" guide here.