Google AdWords recently announced a change in the way campaign summaries and Ad Group summaries will show click metrics in the future. AdWords will now separately show Google search performance and aggregate performance of the Search Partners, which includes AOL, Ask.com and several other search sites.
Until last week, click summaries were divided into two parts – Search, which included Google and its search partners and Content, which included all sites in Google’s content network that featured contextually targeted and placement targeted display ads from Google.
The change is expected to benefit advertisers, as it will provide a more detailed account of the performance of the ad campaign on different channels. Advertisers will now be able to see track performance on each of the channels from which traffic flows, and advertisers can then decide which partners they should continue advertising on.
A drop down menu on the top right corner of the box allows advertisers to review the campaign summary or ad group summary with any combination of results that they choose. Users can opt to split Google, search partners and content results, split just search and content results or view Google, search or content results only.
Reports providing separate Google and aggregate search partner statistics will also be made available in the near future.
Search Partners v Google
For the first time advertisers and everyone interested in search is able to accurately and easily gauge the contribution of search partners to the total number of clicks, and the numbers are pretty significant in some cases.
- Depending on the industry, the search partners can contribute anywhere from 15 to 50% of the total number of impressions.
- Click through rates from the search partners seem to be consistently lower across all verticals.
- Mobile traffic on the search partners seems to be very low compared to Google Mobile – accounting for less than 5% of total mobile searches on our accounts.
