How to Track Adwords Video Remarketing in Google Analytics

Hopefully you're trying and testing out Adwords Video Remarketing.  Adwords for video is right in the main campaign area but Adwords Video Remarketing is separated out a bit.  

About Adwords Video Remarketing:  One of the nice differences with Video Remarketing is you can remarket to people who have interacted with your YouTube channel or page and serve them ads.  For full information, see Google's info and start testing:  

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2545661?hl=en

This post is about tracking traffic and engagement from your Adwords Video Remarketing to your site.  Did your Video Remarketing campaigns result in more traffic to your site, more conversions.  

Problem:

After running a number of Video Remarketing campaigns I noticed that I was getting alot of views of the clients videos and even clicks to the site, which is great.  

However, when I went into Google Analytics (GA), I didn't see any stats from these video remarketing campaigns, traffic numbers, or other data.  I contacted Google and they said that, unlike regular Google Adwords where everything is tracked automatically in GA if you have GA and Adwords linked,  at this time the tracking is not really up and running for video remarketing as a source of traffic you can measure in Google Analytics.  

Since its so important to track all your advertising to see if its brings good ROI, there had to be a workaround, and there is.  And in looking around in finding a solution to this workaround I found a couple of other cool things and tips that can benefit your tracking efforts.

Solution:

Use Google's URL Builder: GA has a feature that allows you to track anything on the web you set up and see the data in your GA account.  You use utm tracking parameters to tell GA where the traffic came from.  For example, if you have an ad on a site, you can add info to the link in that add that goes to your page.  So in the ad it goes to perhaps your sites URL:  www.mysite.com when they click on that ad.  If you want to add important information to the ad so you can track it in GA you'd use the utm parameters and add the campaign, ad, and more like this:  www.mysite.com?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=campaign 1&utm_content=new video

It looks confusing but its not.  You use Google's URL builder to set it up, its very easy.  Link here:  https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

Use this to track your Video Remarketing Campaigns:  You can then use the URL builder to add the correct tracking tags to your Video Remarketing list campaigns so you can then see them in GA.  

But I thought Google already automatically tags Adwords, won't this mess up the numbers in GA?  Yes, BUT only if you simply dropped in the tagged URL you created, such as the one you see above.  There is a cool workaround that allows you to tag a URL and not have it mess up Google Adwords auto-tagging.  How?  Use a url shortener.  

Use a URL Shortener to Shorten Tagged URLs:   You're probably familiar with URL shortners like bit.ly or goo.gl.  They take a long, ugly URL and make it real short.  Did you know you can take a long URL that is tagged like the above URL, drop it into goo.gl and shorten it?  The coolest part about this is that the tags you set up still work in the shortened URL!  Super cool!  Even better, now you can track your Adwords Video Remarketing campaigns in GA and not have Adwords Auto Tagging mess up.  

So Let's Recap:

To track Adwords Video Remarketing campaign in GA: 

1. Use Google's URL builder to correctly set up a tracking URL. 
2. Drop that tagged URL into goo.gl URL shortener. 
3. Use that shortened URL as your destination URL in your Adwords Video Remarketing ad. 

Questions?

1.  Great I set this up, Now where do I look for my data in GA? 

Good Question!  In GA go to Traffic Sources>Overview>Search>Campaigns:

Then you'll see your Video Remarketing data there.   

Question 2:  Is there an easier way to create the utm parameters and then shorten them?

Well, its really not that hard going to Google's URL Builder then dropping them into goo.gl to shorten them.  But since you asked- yes!

There's a cool tool from savio.no that not only creates the tagged URL but can shorten it on the fly, download it to Excel, make a QR code from it and more.  Check it out here.

Here's a screenshot of the tool with an example URL:   

Of course, you can use this technique to track anything you'd like, Facebook ads and posts, Tweets, anything else you'd like to track.  See this great article to learn all about utm parameters and all the things you can track:  

How To Use UTM Parameters In Google Analytics 5

So, what do you think, will this help you track your Video Remarketing ads in Google Analytics? 

 Update:  I noticed that in Google Analytics (GA), there were a number of keywords showing up as (not set).  I figured out that it was the URLs from the above Adwords Video Remarketing campaigns.  The only way I know to have it not show up as (not set) is to add a utm term or utm keyword parameter.  

You could put it like this (see bold are in URL below):  http://www.mysite.com?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=mycampaignname_video_remarketing&utm_content=my_ad&utm_term=no_keyword_video_ad

Its not a perfect workaround but at least you won't have many visits showing up as (not set) and clients wondering why this is the case.

Google Adwords Image Ad File Size Now 150kb

​Putting together a new Summer Campaign for a client and have been back and forth with them regarding image and Flash Adwords ads for a Display campaign.  

​It used to be those ads had to be 50kb or less or you couldn't upload them to Adwords.  But now it seems the allowable file size has been tripled.  Its now 150kb for regular image, animated image and Flash ads.

​Here's the link:  ​

https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176108?hl=en#

Mobile/Desktop URLs In Adwords Enhanced Campaigns: How To

​There's been alot of pluses and minuses to Google's new Enhanced Campaigns.  

One of the major problems is what if you have two different URLs one for people on desktop, sending them to your regular site and one for mobile, sending them to a mobile site or mobile optimized page?  

Before you'd just copy your desktop campaign, set it to mobile only and change all the destination URLs to send people to your mobile site.  But now that mobile, tablet and desktop are all in the same campaign how can you send the mobile people to the mobile page and the desktop people to the desktop page?

Yes, you can create new ads and set the device preference to "mobile", which is correct.  But what if you have hundreds of ad groups with thousands of ads.  Copy each ad in each ad group and then setting them to mobile optimized could take forever.  ​Well, there is an answer!

Thankfully, there's Adwords Editor, Google's desktop PPC management tool.  If you haven't started using this, start now.  ​This is what you'll be using to make the changes en masse.  Here's how to do it:

Setting up Ads for Mobile-Optimized Page using Adwords Editor

Basic Steps:

• Duplicate all the ads in your Campaigns/Ad Groups you want to set to mobile.
  
• Set these new ads all to mobile-preferred and edit the Destination URL.

To do this en mass within Adwords Editor:

• Go to the "Ads" tab for your entire account
• Select all ads you want to be mobile preferred ("Edit" > "Select All")
• Click "Edit" > "Replace text in selected Items"
• Put something generic next to 'Find Text' (e.g. "a"). You can put this same letter next to 'Replace Text'. 
• Make sure to uncheck "Match Case" and check "Duplicate Matching Items..."
• This will essentially duplicate all your ads in their existing campaigns and ad groups!
• Click "Find Matches" > "Duplicate and Replace All" 
• Sort these newly created ads by "All Local Unposted Changes", or clicking on the 'Changed Status' column (there will be a + sign next to all the new ads) 
• Highlight all the newly created ads and change the Device Preference to "Mobile", and the Destination URLs en masse.
• Upload your changes- done!​

Everyone who saved about a months worth fr work on this owes me a coffee!  ; )​

Figuring Out Time Zones in PPC Campaigns Part 2

In Part One I showed how to know how to adjust Adwords campaign scheduling for time zones in the U.S.   But what if your client says:  "Can you show my ads in other countries, but ONLY during their 9am-5pm business hours?"  

Granted, its pretty straightforward to show your ads in other countries.   Simply go into your campaign setting in Adwords, click settings tab and select the countries you want to show up in.  You can also show your ads to only English speaking people in those countries.  

But only showing the ads during a specific time?  That's a little more involved, but no impossible.  Here's a real life example:

I had to show the campaigns in ads in the following countries:  UK, India, S. Africa, Australia, Italy.  English speaking people only, 9am-5pm local time in each country.

1.  Use Adwords Editor and copy the campaigns you want to show in other countries.  This awesome tool allows you to make many changes to your Adwords account.  

2.  Change the name of the campaigns.  For instance if you campaign is Mens Shoes you might add Mens Shoes-UK so you know what country you're targeting.  

3.  Upload the campaigns to Adwords.  

4.  Figure out what 9-5 is in each country.  For little countries like UK, it has only one time zone.  Even bigger countries like India have one.  You may have to do a search for "India time zones" to see if they country you're targeting has one or more time zones, like the U.S. has 4, not sure about AK or HI.  For instance I found that Australia has more than one.  So I found the cities at each end of Australia (Perth to the west and Brisbane to the far East of the continent).

5.  Important!  You can't just make a campaign in Australia and put the scheduling at 9am-5pm.  That won't work because Adwords uses YOUR time zone as the basis.  So you have to use your time zone and then figure our what that time is in the country you want to run ads in.  For example, 9am-5pm in Chicago is 3pm-11pm in the UK.  

How to do this:  Use a cool tool to see what your time zone is in that country.  Here's a cool one:  http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

Go to that page, put in the city your Adwords time zone is set to.  Look in your billing section of Adwords to find this out.  So for example for Chicago, if that's where you're Adwords time zone was set, enter it as a city.  Then enter the city you want to find the time in.   Let's do Mumbai, India.  Then drag the little green box on 9am-5pm for Chicago.  You'll see that it shows what 9am-5pm is in Mumbai...

Write this down.  Repeat for all the countries you want to target.  

Here's what I got for the countries I wanted to show the client's ads in at only 9am-5pm their time:

Australia:  10pm-11am

UK:  3p-11pm

Italy:  4p-2a

India:  8:30pm-4:30am

S. Africa:  5p-3am

Now in Adwords, go to your newly uploaded campaigns for your countries for each country.  So for UK I'd go to Settings, Advanced Settings, Ad Scheduling, Edit.  I see that I have down that 9am-5pm the clients Adwords account time is 3p-11pm in the UK.  That's what I'd put down then click save.  

That's it!  Too Easy!  That's why they pay us the big bucks.  ; )

Did this help you?  Hope so!

Figuring Out Time Zones in PPC Campaigns Part 1

Have you ever had to run PPC campaigns outside the time zone you were in, but only for a specific time period.  For instance if you're targeting the entire U.S. with your campaign yet are based in New York, how would this work?  

Its called Adwords Dayparting or Ad Scheduling.  You can set the days or times of the day your ads show.  To learn how, go here:  http://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2404244?hl=en

P.S.:  This is Part 1 of a 2 Part Series

First of all, why would you want to do this?

1.   You can save money.  You might not want to waste money and clicks on people who are awake at 2 am and click on your ad when you're not at work to answer the phone.  

2.  You can get better performance.  People might click on your ads on Saturday when you're not there to respond, or your ads may show and show and no one is going to buy a new office IT system at 4 am.  So because you ad shows but no one clicks, your performance goes down and cost goes up.  

Things you might not know:

If you are using Adwords, you set up the the time zone when you set up the account.  And once its set, you can't change it.  

So taking the above example:  

Let's say you want to target the entire U.S., but only during normal office hours of 9am-5pm and again your based in NYC:  

You would look and see that Pacific Time Zone is 3 hours before you.  So to target the whole of the U.S. 9am-5pm you would schedule as follows:  9am Eastern Time to 8pm Eastern Time.  Why?  Because you're starting at 9 am EST but if you shut it off at 5pm EST that would be 2pm PST and your ads wouldn't show in Los Angeles all the way to 5pm L.A. time.  So to do this you'd have to figure in the addition 3 hours and based on your time that would be 8pm.  

Confused yet?  Wait till the next article when you see how to show your ads at a specific time in other countries!