Martech hub

Paid Search Dashboards: Is There a Better Solution?

Paid Search Dashboards: Is There a Better Solution?

Are you trying to create a paid search dashboard for your team or clients?

Paid search reports can be a great way to understand your budget and create smarter marketing strategies. But, sometimes, these dashboards require you to manage usernames and passwords for people who need access.

Plus, they assume that the people who need to see the data will actually see the data.

That's why, in today's post, we'll get clear on what a paid search dashboard should look like and what KPIs you should add.

Then we'll show you an easier way to share this information so the people who need it will be able to use it!

Let's get started...

Section linkWhat Is a Paid Search Dashboard in Marketing?

A paid search dashboard is a web-based application that helps you understand your marketing performance in terms of keywords, impressions, clickthrough rates and other metrics.

It can also be used to create smarter strategies for content development and audience targeting based on data.

These dashboards also help you share data with other stakeholders in the company, so they know how well your campaigns are performing and what changes need to be made.

In short, paid search dashboards give you quick glimpse into the following question: are my paid ad campaigns working or not?

With that information close at hand, you can fix broken ad campaigns or double down on the ones that are working. Either way, you'll be one step closer to building a more profitable gameplan for your PPC efforts.

Before we talk about how to share paid search dashboards with your team or clients, let's look at what KPIs are usually included in these reports.

Section linkAdding KPIs to Your Paid Search Dashboard

adding kpis to your paid search dashboard

Your paid search dashboard will usually have at least the following KPIs:

  • Impressions
  • Clickthrough rates
  • Conversions
  • Total Ad Spend
  • Cost per Click
  • Revenue

You may also want to include other metrics that are important for your marketing team or clients such as average position, domain authority of competitors' URLs, or keyword rank.

The most important thing is that you have a clear understanding of what KPIs are the best for your business and add them to the dashboard accordingly.

Let's look at each of the most important KPIs listed above, as these are usually the standard metrics add to paid search dashboards:

Section link1) Impressions:

This metric is the total number of times your marketing message was served to searchers.

For example, if you ran a campaign for 100 days and had an average budget of $20 per day, then you would have spent about (100*$20) or $2000 in impressions during that time period. Plus, with paid search, you can exclude keywords that are not performing well.

*Note: While impressions is a great metric, it doesn't tell the whole story about how many of those searchers clicked on your ad.

Section link2) Clicks:

This metric is the highest indicator of engagement for paid search campaigns. It tells you how many people clicked on your ad after seeing it in a SERP, and can be used to determine which keywords are generating the most clicks from searchers.

The number one rule with this metric: don't get discouraged if clickthrough rates seem low.

The clickthrough rate is usually a result of your campaign settings and the quality of your ads. In other words, if you want higher CTRs then you'll need better ads or more frequent ad messages in SERPs (or both).

Remember, the clickthrough rate is not always an accurate measure of how well your campaign is performing because it doesn't take into account impressions or cost per click - both are equally important metrics. This means that you should add all KPIs to your dashboard and don't put too much weight on clickthrough rates.

Section link3) Conversions:

This metric is the number of transactions generated by your marketing message, as well as what this campaign costs you.

For example, if a paid search ad resulted in $100 worth of revenue or one conversion for every 100 impressions then we can assume that ROI is about (100/1000) = 0.001%. In other words, you would have spent about $2000 on impressions and generated only one conversion - that's not a good ROI.

In this case, it may make sense to decrease your budget or increase your average position if the goal of the campaign is generating revenue (which, by the way, should also be considered as an important metric).

You should also take into account the cost per click, since it determines how much you spend on each keyword.

Section link4) Total Ad Spend:

This is the total amount of money you've spent on your campaign. If we multiply this metric with clicks, then it tells us how many impressions our paid search ads generated - or in other words, what was your ROI for that particular time period (clickthrough rate x cost per click).

You can use this information to determine which keywords are generating the most impressions, but that still doesn't tell you how many clicks they had.

The reason why CTR x CPC is important isn't just to determine which marketing messages have been successful; it also tells you what your ROI was for a campaign and allows you to make adjustments accordingly (e.g., increase budget or lower average position).

Finally, it's important to note that even if keywords have a high CTR and are generating impressions each time they're shown in SERPs, you may want to decrease your CPC.

For example, this would be the case if other competitors with more authority or higher domain rank show up for those same words. This is because when someone clicks on your ad, they'll land on a page with little or no content and will be turned off by your poor landing page experience.

Section link5) Cost per Click:

This metric is the amount of your total ad spend that you spent per click.

Let's say a keyword has an average CPC of $0.75 and generated 150 impressions, then we can calculate ROI as (150/1000) = 0.015%. This means that for every 1000 clicks on this particular keyword, about 150 people clicked on the ad and generated $75 in revenue.

That sounds a lot better than our previous example, doesn't it?

Section link6) Revenue:

This is the total amount of money you've generated as a result of paid search ads.

To be more precise, this should be calculated from transactions or leads that can't be attributed to other marketing channels - so keep in mind that it doesn't account for direct sales and extra revenue streams like eCommerce sites.

Now that we've seen which KPIs will likely be a part of your paid search dashboard, let's answer another pressing question: how do you share this information with your key stakeholders?

Section linkHow to Share Paid Search Dashboards (the Easy Way)

There are a few ways you can share dashboards with team members in your company:

  • Create an account on the paid search dashboard and add them as a collaborator;
  • Have other people create their own accounts for access to the dashboard;
  • Export PDFs of your dashboard and manually email them to the right people (as needed);
  • Send reports automatically directly to your recipients' inbox (no login management required)

It's no secret that the last one is my favorite method, and it's why I've always been cautious of metrics reports in the form of a dashboard.

My biggest problem here is that dashboards can add unnecessary friction in the report-sharing process.

That's because if you want to share these online dashboards, you need to manage 3rd-party logins/passwords or manually save, print, and organize PDFs to send.

And while these are small problems, they lead to a much bigger one: dashboards assume people will actually log in to view the information.

If marketers know ANYTHING about consumer behavior, it's fair to say this just isn't a practical solution.

Which is exactly why I built Metrics Watch:

metrics watch homepage

Metrics Watch is a report building tool that makes sharing your paid search KPIs easy.

You can build professional marketing reports in a matter of minutes with the codeless drag and drop builder.

Plus, you'll pull all your PPC metrics from your favorite channels, like:

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • Google, Facebook, & Instagram Ads
  • And much more...

And when it comes time to share this data, you won't need to manage anything! Instead, simply select who needs to see the information (and when).

Then the reports will show up in your recipients' inbox automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

This gives your team or clients the information they need in a format they already know (and use!).

Want to try it out for yourself? Click below to start your 100% risk-free Metrics Watch account today (no credit card required):

Start Your 100% Risk-Free Metrics Watch Trial Today!

We hope you enjoyed this post on paid search dashboards. If you did, you'll definitely want to check out the following resources:

These articles will have even more information on how you can improve your paid search marketing strategy.

Start sending automated reports today

Start your free trial, no credit card required!