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How to use Google Adwords “Compare date ranges” feature to monitor metrics evolution

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SunnyReports allows now to add comparison metrics in your Adwords reports. Back on compare date ranges feature, a great way to make a deep analysis in your daily work as an Adwords campaign manager.

What is “compare periods” feature in Adwords?

Within Adwords, you can easily select the period for which you want data. But it’s interesting to be able to monitor the evolution of these data. To do that, you can compare the selected period to another one. Adwords proposes you three different possibilities.

Previous period

With this option, you can compare the selected period with the immediately previous one.

Examples:

Select the period from April 1, 2014 to April 30, 2014. By comparing to previous period, the secondary period will be from March 2, 2014 to March 31, 2014.
Note it will not compare from the 1st of March but from the 2nd of March. That’s because the reference period is only 30 days long, not 31 days.

Select the period from June 14, 2014 to June 19, 2014. The secondary period will be from June 8, 2014 to June 13, 2014.

If you select “Current month”, you have to take care that Google Adwords can compare two periods which have not the same number of days. Indeed, if you are the August, 11, “Current month” corresponds from the August, 1 to August, 11. But if you compare with “previous period”, it will be compared to Juy, 1 to July, 31.

Same period, Previous year

With this option, the compared period will be the same exact period a year before.

Say you select from May 4, 2014 to June 13, 2014. The compared period will be May 4, 2013 to June 13, 2013.

There is an exception here: february. February is a special month. During leap year, February counts 29 days instead of 28 the other year. Adwords takes care of it.

Select the period from the February 1, 2012 (a leap year) to the February 29, 2012. Choose comparison to “same period, previous year”. You will notice the date selected by Adwords: February 1, 2011 to February 28, 2011. Google’s developers think about everything!

Custom Period

Select the secondary period you want precisely. That’s it.

How to use it ?

Adwords is sometimes complicated with plenty of menus, options, features, … But not with the “compare date ranges” feature. Everything is done in one click.

No matter on which view you are. Just click in the period select field. At the bottom, you will see a “COMPARE” label with a trigger. Push the trigger and the three periods options will appear.

1. Select the one you want and apply.

2. The period select field now show you are comparing two periods, and calculate the dates of the compared one.

3. In the datatable, you have now a “+” sign above each head column titles.

Click on each “+” sign to show the data for the secondary period. For the selected KPIs, you will have:

the metric for the reference period,
the metric for the compared period,
the difference between the two and
finally the % of increase or decrease.

We are really happy and proud to release AWQL.me, the first free tool to visualize the results of your AWQL queries in one click.

What’s the point ?

AWQL – AdWords Query Language – is the powerful query language used by Google Adwords. It’s an SQL-like language which allows to perform queries on most common Adwords API services. You can also use it for Adwords reporting too.

Even if AWQL is inspired by SQL, it doesn’t allow all the SQL tips like join and group. The language is really interesting to be able to search in your Adwords data.

A query example: Read More →

Why Adwords reports is Key for me and my clients

Being a freelance Adwords manager, I have experienced that Customer Reporting is the key point. Optimizing my clients’ campaigns is my job. But what does optimization mean? Does it mean 10% growth every month; fewer clicks and more conversions; lower the CPC (Cost Per Click); increase the CTR?

My clients don’t know my daily job

My clients hire an Adwords manager thinking that doing so, they optimize their budget. But being no expert in Search Engine Marketing, PPC ads and Adwords, they have no idea of the daily activities I perform for them.

I spend most of my time sitting at my desk in front of a couple of monitors displaying data tables with $ and %, adjusting one bet here, adding ten keywords there, splitting Adwords group, etc. Does that sound familiar?

My clients only know on a monthly basis whether or not they are making more revenue with fewer budgets. They are not informed that thanks to my hard work their revenue stays stable while the market is getting more and more competitive or is decreasing.

Thanks to better reporting

Better reporting provides my clients with Read More →

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