Many ecommerce merchants use Google Analytics to track their pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Key pay-per-click statistics that can be tracked include revenue per keyword, number of conversions per keyword, average order size per keyword, bounce rates per keyword, and much more. But, those statistics are only for pay-per-click ads in Google.

In fact, for those merchants who also use Yahoo! and Bing pay-per-click ads, Google Analytics, Yahoo! and Bing offer no seamless integration between the three. However, the work-around below should provide Google Analytics, and the merchants that use Google Analytics, with basic performance data from all three search engines.

Integrating Yahoo! PPC Ads into Google Analytics

1. Make sure you have “Tracking URLs” feature turned on in Yahoo!. Go to “Administration” tab “Tracking URLs” to enable it

2. Make mass URL updates in your Yahoo! account to: a. Remove all keyword level URLs; leave only ad-level URLs; b. Append the appropriate keyword parameters. Examples of appending the appropriate keyword parameters are:

   Old Yahoo! URL:

   http://www.example.com/product-category/best-selling-product.html

   New Yahoo! URL:

   http://www.example.com/product-category/best-selling-product.html?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={OVKEY}&utm_content={OVADID}&utm_campaign={OVCAMPGID}

3. Done. Yahoo! will dynamically populate corresponding {OVKEY} parameters with the right values and Google Analytics should recognize and read them.

Note that it’s easy to make all these changes using the account bulk sheet. Click on “Download campaigns” button on the “Campaigns” tab to get it.

Integrating Bing PPC Ads into Google Analytics

1. Update all ads to have {param1} in place of the destination URL.

2. Make a mass update in order to get the right parameters in place. Examples are:

   Old Bing URL:

   http://www.example.com/product-category/best-selling-product.html

   New Bing URL:

   http://www.example.com/product-category/best-selling-product.html?utm_source=MSN&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={keyword}&utm_content={AdID}&utm_campaign={OrderItemID}

3. Done. Bing will now dynamically populate {keyword} parameters with the right values and Google Analytics should recognize and read them.

Note, also, that it’s easy to make all these changes using Bing’s adCenter Desktop tool.

Summary

Google Analytics is a robust and free analytics package. But, its built-in functions to track pay-per-click advertising activity are limited to tracking only pay-per-click ads in Google. With the work-arounds above, merchants who also use Yahoo! and Bing pay-per-click ads can track them in Google Analytics, too, and they can also track the relative pay-per-click performance of all three search engines.

Related Articles

• Ten Pay-per-click Questions An Owner Should Ask
• Pay-per-click Advertising: The Top 100 Keyword Phrases
• Pay-per-click Advertising: Bing Delivering Improved Results, Expert Says

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This article is filed under Marketing & Revenue Growth and has the following keyword tags: Google Analytics, Bing, pay-per-click.

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