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A headache for any person who decides to use Direct is evaluating the effectiveness of advertising. There are impressions, there are clicks, there are even leads. But is this a lot or not enough? Are all campaigns working effectively? Isn't the budget draining in vain? To answer these questions, you need to analyze the work of the context, and on its basis, already think how you can squeeze more out of it. I dedicate today's blog entry to this difficult, but really exciting topic.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of contextual advertising

To evaluate something, you must first of all determine the goal, the main indicators of the effectiveness of contextual advertising, objects / periods of comparison and tools for obtaining data.

Objectives

There should always be specific and measurable goals. Not abstractly “increase sales”, but, for example, “provide 100 leads”, “achieve an order value of no more than 200 rubles”, “conversion from 15%”, etc.

Without this, there will be no point in looking at something for yourself, and there will be a misunderstanding with the contractor, and empty arguments about who meant what.

Now about the performance indicators of contextual advertising.

Indicators

Conversion

The target action when analyzing the effectiveness of contextual advertising can be:

For many, these are the basic data used, although they are not fully expressive.

Economic

The most significant indicators of the effectiveness of contextual advertising - reflecting the direct contribution of Direct to website revenues:

• ROI - return on investment. ROI \u003d (return on investment - investment size) / investment size * 100%;
• CPA is the cost of action. CPA \u003d amount of costs per context / number of targeted actions;
• CPL - cost per lead. CPL \u003d amount of ad spend / number of leads;
• CPO is the cost of the order. CPO \u003d sum of expenses / number of confirmed orders.

These calculations will allow you to see the picture more clearly, in understandable terms for the business.

Behavioral

The characteristics of visits can also be a criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising.

For infotainment projects, they can be practically the main criteria, for commercial projects they are also significant, because behavior is correlated with conversion.

What to compare with

The question is not so simple, with what to compare the accumulated data:

• with the last month;
• with the corresponding last year;
• for the same period with other channels;
• with the advertiser's expectations, etc.

The first option, which makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of contextual advertising, seems to be the most obvious, but it does not take into account that in some time period there could be something that could greatly affect the result: holidays, promotions at an advertiser, a collapse in prices from competitors, yes just some event that distracts the minds (elections, Olympics, etc.).

The second one is even more difficult, because there could be strong changes in campaigns, on the website, in the range, prices, etc.

The option of assessing the effectiveness of contextual advertising in comparison with another source causes difficulty in choosing the optimal channel, and you also need to know all the actions taken on it.

The latter threatens with blurriness and insufficient basis, because you need to know what the plan was made of, how real it was and how it met the needs.

Tools

You need to choose a source for receiving and processing data. Of course, Excel and various downloads are most often used.

How to improve the effectiveness of contextual advertising

When goals, KPIs are defined and data has accumulated, you need to start analyzing and adjusting campaigns.

To increase the effectiveness of contextual advertising, it is advisable to move from large entities to a detailed examination of their components. That is, first we evaluate the effectiveness of the context as a whole, then a separate campaign, group, ad, phrase.

• We compare the dynamics of KPI achievements in different sections across the entire channel, between different campaigns and within each one.

For example, here you can see that Direct works much better than AdWords, where there are clearly serious problems or errors in utm tags.

• We identify the critical points and try to guess what could be the reason. We check whether the problems lie outside of contextual advertising: an inconvenient / ugly site, poor-quality processing of applications, an incorrect phone number on the site, incorrect substitution in call tracking, etc. We look at the changes in advertising: the money ran out, a new version was tested text, there was a rate increase, etc.
• Let's examine the data pointwise. We look at which phrases brought leads and conversions, how much they paid for them, whether this price suits them. We check expenses for phrases that did not bring income.

Example: looking at leads for specific ads.

• We redistribute the budget for key phrasesproviding more profit.
• If the evaluation of the effectiveness of advertising shows that the costs are too high, we are looking for ways to reduce them.
• We check the adequacy of the phrases for which there were impressions. If necessary, we correct: non-target ones are transferred to negative keywords, good options, if possible, to make a more accurate answer, can be added as keywords.

Example: Here are impressions for non-target phrases.

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I remember the times when it was possible to launch contextual advertising on a website and get clients.

Following the increase in competition, investments increased, while efficiency, on the contrary, began to fall rapidly.

Therefore, now you cannot just hope at random, you need to be able to measure the effectiveness of contextual advertising and punish the performer for his mistakes in time.

But let's decide right away. Specialists in setting up contextual advertising will hardly be able to calculate the effectiveness of the provided models. Why so, you will soon understand.

Therefore, the article will primarily be useful to business leaders who are brought in reports with a huge number of figures that cannot be understood. If this is about you, then sit down, we are on the way.

One by one

To start an article about the effectiveness of contextual advertising with a story about what contextual advertising is, in my opinion, it is bad manners. If you do not know what it is, then you are welcome to read the article

It describes everything in great detail and with examples (as in all our articles).

I'll start with what for a specialist who does contextual advertising (director), and for the business owner, to whom the director brings these reports, efficiency is completely different things, and the criteria for evaluating it are also completely different.

In the head of the director

For a typical directorate, the effectiveness of contextual advertising is measured in 4 dimensions. Rarely do we meet a specialist who looks further and deeper:

1. Transitions. How many customers after the launch of the ad clicked on the ad.
2. CTR of the company. The ratio of ad impressions to the number of people who clicked on the ad.
3. Click cost. In contextual advertising, you pay only for clicks.
4. Refusals. Displays the number of people who have been on the site for less than 15 seconds (in Yandex.Metrica).

Helpful. You can easily look at the first two indicators of the effectiveness of contextual advertising in any one.

Choose from the most intuitive or Google Analytics. To see the rest, you need access to personal account contextual advertising.

It is by these indicators that directors evaluate their work. “Is the CTR high? Is the cost per click going down? So what more do you want from me? I am doing everything perfectly! ”.

Here comes the fun part. Because the employer sees everything in completely different colors.

WE ARE ALREADY MORE THAN 29,000 people.
TURN ON

In the head of the head

For a business leader, the effectiveness of contextual advertising is measured as follows.

And ... In theory, there should be clear criteria by which each manager evaluates the “effectiveness of online advertising”.

But they are not. For some, this is website traffic, and for others, calls and orders. For the third - advertising budgetthat is being spent. For the fourth - money at the box office at the end of the month.

But if the owner has not been married for the first day with contextual advertising, then, discarding imaginary criteria, he begins to come to logical goals, which, depending on the business, can have one of three forms of result:

1. New (form on the site);
2. Calls;
3. Purchases.

The third goal is the best. The first two are also not a bad option, although in the end they will still lead to the latter.

Each leader takes as a basis one of the listed results. And they are fundamentally different from what the directologist measures. We'll figure out where the truth is now.

Three approaches

- I spend 200 thousand rubles monthly on advertising on the Internet. Where are my clients?
- You have a very high CTR.
- To hell with your CT ... how is he? Where is the efficiency?
- What do you think is efficiency? What is the formula?
- What is the formula? I see little sales.
- Clearly.

This will not work

Do not do it this way. We are all serious businessmen, which means that we must measure the results of contextual advertising with a serious approach.

Ideally, be able to understand the indicators of the director, but if you don't like them, then you need to count everything in the money received.

Therefore, especially for you, beloved reader, I have prepared 4 approaches for making a decision - is your campaign effective or not.

These are ready-made formulas according to the level of your knowledge and desire to know every detail in your advertising.

ROMI: Beginner level

The easiest way to assess the effectiveness of contextual advertising is to calculate the ROI.

It is a rate of return on investment that is used in almost every line of business.

If ROI is more than 100%, then this is good news, it means that you most likely have no loss.

I say “most likely not a loss”, because you still need to remove the cost and other expenses. That is why this model is for beginners.

If you want to learn more about this approach and see how to calculate ROMI with examples, then I highly recommend reading our article.

CPL: Experienced Level

CPL is the cost of one call or, as it is fashionable to say now, the cost of a lead / application.

This indicator is calculated using the formula for a certain period of time. The typical period is a month, as once a month the company pays the salary to the director.

Since sometimes not all applications can be reached and talked about your product. Therefore, be sure to remove low-quality leads.

It remains only to combine the number of calls with applications for the final result.

By the way.If you want to connect call tracking, then I have a gift for you - a selection of TOP services. - 1,000 bonuses to the account (by code 99129),Roistat - 5,000 rubles. to the account (to the INSCALE code),Callibri (code 76C6IMERUQ),Mango-office .

CPS: The level is very experienced

CPS is the cost per sale. We only call it customer value.

Using the example of plastic windows, this is the one who left a request on the site, made an appointment with the manager and came to the office to make an advance payment. It is also considered by the formula:

In order to understand how adequate the cost of the client is from the context you have now, you need to know the maximum allowable value, taking into account all expenses and income.

Plus, customer value is a great start to a conversation with any director.

After all, after you tell him that you need sales (in the worst case, orders) for 2,000 rubles, then he will not have any thoughts to justify himself to you with a huge CTR.

But directors are not stupid either, they will ask you for conversions on each one. So be prepared for this.

LTV: Master level

If you do this, then, firstly, you will be greatly surprised by the received figures, and secondly, greatly change your view of attracting customers.

And thirdly, you will be a cut above 90%. russian entrepreneursthat are still peephole oriented. This means that an increase in work efficiency is not far off.

But believe me, it's worth it. This analysis of the effectiveness of contextual advertising is the most reliable. And looking ahead, there is no need to say that you have no repeat sales.

They are in any business, you just haven't implemented them yet. I bet anything 😉

By the way. If you are interested in analytics, I recommend testing the following services: Roistat (for the promotional code "INSCALE" +5,000 rubles for testing),Comagic orCallibri (with the promo code “76C6IMERUQ” + 500 rubles).

BRIEFLY ABOUT THE MAIN

Business is not only luck and flair, but also calculation. In business, everything must be measured in numbers.

They can be beautiful on paper (high CTR and low), but the quality of applications leaves much to be desired and, as a result, you will spend more on attracting a client than you earn from him.

Therefore, the time for general calculations has passed. Consider everything in detail. Moreover, now you know what to ask from the director: ROMI, CPL or CPS adjusted for LTV.

The directologist will give you the first two indicators easily, but to get the second he will have to work hard, and this, as you know, no one likes to do. But stand your ground.

P.S. Most business leaders do not like advertising on Google.Adwords, believing that since I'm not sitting there, then it will be effective for me.

And I want to disappoint you with the latest statistics on the cost of advertising in Google regarding Yandex:

1. For the center of Russia, the cost of attracting was 11.2% lower;
2. For cities with populations over a million, the cost fell by 14.6%;
3. For cities less than a million, the result reached 25.3% in Google's favor.

Contextual advertising works, it works for a month, works for two months. And something doesn't smell like big money. And a hefty stone appears in front of you, and on it the inscription: “You optimize your advertising - you will have big (and maybe small) revenue. If you increase the advertising budget, the revenue will increase, and the profit - as God will send ”.

You can throw lots, trust your intuition, or write to the "Battle of Psychics". I trust analytics and numbers more. I will tell you my shamanic secrets of how to "feel" the effectiveness of contextual advertising.

How to measure the effectiveness of contextual advertising

The key metric for all advertising channels is the purchase cost or CPO (Cost Per Order). To calculate the purchase price, you need to divide the acquisition costs by the number of paid orders. CPO can be calculated both for the entire site and for each channel separately.

The lower the purchase price, the more effective the channel, campaign or ad group performs.

So that the number of applications received from each channel does not have to be determined by the coffee grounds, I recommend setting up goals in Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics in advance, at least a couple of weeks in advance.

And in order to understand how much to lay out "dough" to get one order, you need to calculate how much money it brings on average for the business.

It is necessary to take into account both the average check, and the margin, and how many percent of income we are ready to spend on attracting new customers so that there is still money left for a car for our son and an apartment for our mistress.

It is better, of course, to use the average LTV (Lifetime Value is the profit that we get from one client for the entire time of cooperation with him). But such statistics are collected over the years, and they are not always available.

Lena, I didn't understand anything, explain normally!

To make it clearer, I will explain using the example of old business indicators of one of our clients - an agency for the sale of vouchers in the sanatoriums of the Caucasus and Belokurikha. Site conversion - 2.43%, on average, the agency earned 7,060 rubles from one sale.

Let's define the boundaries of our greed - indicators of the effectiveness of contextual advertising, which we will focus on. In order not to go into debt and loans, you can spend no more than 100% of the income for attracting one lead, which theoretically brings the campaign.

But you have to pay for telephony, pay salaries to employees, and LidMachina's services are also not free. And the business owner wants to see a profit: the more, the better. Taking this into account, we realized that we dream of spending about 20% of the profit on attracting, which is 1,412 rubles per sale or 212 rubles per order (CPOo is the expected sale price and CPLo is the expected price of a lead).

As a result, we determined the intervals in which we want to see the key indicators.

Expectation and reality

We have calculated the key indicators: the value we are striving for and the upper limit from which we must stay away. Now, rather, we open Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics and consider what the real CPL is.

In Yandex.Metrica, the number of orders for all channels can be viewed in the standard Sources, summary report.

In the table that opens, select a target and see how many requests each channel brought.

The costs for the context can be viewed in the advertising services "Yandex.Direct" and Google AdWords... We divide the cost by the number of applications and we get our real cost per lead. Then we either dance or cry.

If you are satisfied with the lead price - in pursuit of profit, just pour more money into the advertising budget. But after such manipulations, the CPL can also grow, so you must always keep your finger on the pulse.

If the client is too expensive

If the price of a lead is not satisfactory, or, even worse, it is higher than the maximum allowable value, the effectiveness of contextual advertising leaves much to be desired. So you need to dig deeper.

It is better to look at Yandex.Direct statistics in Metrica. Open the standard reports again, select "Direct, summary" in the sources, specify the desired goal.

Now you know the number of applications for each campaign. Expenses can be viewed in the "Direct - expenses" report, if you have configured the integration of two services correctly, or in "Yandex.Direct".

Google AdWords statistics on the number of requests and costs are best viewed in Google Analytics. To do this, select "Traffic Sources" - "AdWords" - "Campaigns". Previously, two services must be synchronized with each other.

Campaigns where the cost of the application does not suit you can be disabled, checked for errors, and optimized.

The effectiveness of contextual advertising in clicks

Another indicator that will help determine the effectiveness of contextual advertising is CPC, or cost per click.

Let's go back to our example. In an ideal world, we spend no more than 212 rubles per application. Site conversion - 2.43%. Those. approximately every 41st site visitor leaves an application. Let's call this index n, we will calculate it using the following formula:

Then the CPC in an ideal world does not exceed 212/41 \u003d 5 rubles 17 kopecks. This value can be set in Direct and AdWords as the maximum cost per click. But there will be few impressions and clicks, so it is better to gradually increase this parameter until you achieve the desired traffic.

As you increase your maximum CPC, remember that there is a limit beyond which you can face ruin and poverty. It is easy to calculate it:

The effectiveness of contextual advertising in ROI

End-to-end analytics services make all of these calculations simple and automated. You understand the costs of each channel and you see the income, you see the return on investment.

If it is not possible to use such a service, just control the costs and prices of applications for each channel, compare them with income. How this is done, I tried to tell you as simply as possible.

But be prepared that advertising optimization without taking into account ROI for each channel can backfire. In our example, the cost of an application from Yandex.Direct exceeds CPLo by 14%, and applications from Google AdWords by 52%. But the ROI of AdWords is higher: we received more profit from this channel for 22 applications than for 23 from Yandex.Direct. So it goes.

Understanding how it works and how to assess its effectiveness is difficult, sometimes very difficult. But with our small guide, it will be a little easier to do. If you don't know what a good advertising campaign should be in Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords, look for Zen, read and become enlightened. I've already.

How to evaluate the effectiveness of contextual advertising

First, you need a plan. State your campaign goal as clearly as possible. “Bring new customers” is not a goal. But “getting 15 applications per month” is fine. The second important point: the evaluation of the effectiveness of contextual advertising should be carried out in comparison with any period. If this is your first ad, you can look at the abandoned cart conversion rates that your site is already generating.

Targeted actions identified

It can be:

• Purchases;
• Calls;
• Filling out the feedback form;
• Adding a product to the cart;
• View contact page;

To assess the effectiveness of contextual advertising, it is also useful to analyze user behavior on the site. This will help you understand how users are interested in your offer and how it meets their expectations. Be sure to look at:

• Time spent on the site;
• Viewing depth;
• Bounce rate;
• Repeated visits.

To track all this, be sure to set up goals in Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics. And don't forget about the utm tags for your campaigns.

Well thought out the structure of campaigns

It's okay if different types ads are grouped into separate campaigns - this makes it easier to calculate the conversion. For example, by type of services or goods, region, type of requests.

Ads are correct

For everything to work well, your ads need to be optimized. Here is a small checklist:

• There is a keyword in the title and text;
• The ad contains short description benefits, price, call to action;
• Phone, address, quick links (for example, to the corresponding category in the store) are indicated.
• Landing pages are selected correctly and meet the expectations of users;
• Links have UTM tags;
• The correct semantic core has been selected.

KPIs determined and calculated

Let's say you figured out the metrics and AC settings, stocked up on popcorn and prepared to watch the profit growth with tears of happiness. Now it's time to calculate KPI - this is the main tool for checking the effectiveness of contextual advertising. They help estimate the value of each visit, call or sale. If the values \u200b\u200bare within the normal range (which depends on the average check and other parameters), then you can just sit and enjoy life, and if the campaign is unprofitable, once again go through all the points of the checklist and look for errors. It is worth paying extra attention to CPA and, because these are key indicators, but analyzing everything else is also useful. Let's deal with each incomprehensible abbreviation separately.

ROIstands for return on investment, and in Russian "return on investment". It is calculated as follows:

ROI \u003d (Income - Investment) / Investment x 100%

CPAIs the cost of one targeted action. It is calculated like this:

CPA \u003d Costs / Number of targeted user actions

CPL- the cost of one call. Here, too, everything is simple:

CPL \u003d Costs / Number of hits

Finally, the indicator can be calculatedCPO / CPS (cost per order / sale) is the cost of the actual sale. As in other cases, to estimate this indicator, you need to divide the cost of contextual advertising by the number of sales.

Limit rates set

It is imperative to decide how much you are willing to pay greedy search engines for one visitor. This metric is calculated from conversion rates and average sales profitability. If you do not set a limit on the value of the visit, money will fly away very, very quickly, and the efficiency will not be very high. It is also helpful to define a daily budget to help you optimize costs.

How to check the effectiveness of contextual advertising?

Compare the dynamics and KPIs of campaigns among themselves and in different periods of time. Obviously, you need to evaluate the number of conversions and their cost.

Budget \u003d Number of Clicks x Average Cost per Click

Yandex.Direct

Direct has special serviceaccessible from the main interface. It's called (suddenly) Budget Forecast.

It helps to calculate ad costs and predict key indicators: cost per click on requests, CTR, impressions and clicks. The main thing to remember is that a forecast is a forecast and indicators are calculated from the statistics available to Yandex. And it consists of the results of campaigns of other advertisers, which vary greatly in quality: some do everything in a jewelry way, while others just drain the budget for no reason. The real picture will greatly depend on the settings of the RK. If everything is done correctly, then the budget may well be less than projected.

Google AdWords

On Google, the Keyword Planner Tool does the same.

All the same is available there: calculating the average number of impressions and clicks, their cost. All indicators are also calculated based on statistics, so the real picture may differ and will depend on the campaign settings. It is also important to keep in mind that only placement in the search is taken into account, i.e. no forecast for impressions and clicks in partner networks is built (this is true for both systems).

What does context cost depend on?

• Type of allocation. The most clickable places - to the left above the SERP - are the most expensive.
• Campaign settings.If you set up impressions for the whole of Russia and do not set the time range, then the advertising budget will grow dramatically. Good way optimize costs - set geotargeting as accurately as possible and show your ad only during "hot" hours.
• Season.The demand for air conditioners grows strongly in summer, and for heaters in winter. This must be taken into account when planning an ad, because the higher the demand, the higher the cost per click will be. You can see the dynamics of changes in the frequency of requests in Yandex.Wordstat and Google Keyword Planner.

If each ad group has its own advertising campaign launched, goals are correctly defined and KPIs are calculated, it will not be difficult to assess the effectiveness of the context and in which case it will not be difficult to adjust the strategy. It is also easy to calculate advertising costs: for a rough estimate, you can use special tools "Yandex" and "Google".