Learn how to collect, monitor, analyze, and present data from marketing campaigns

using analytics and presentation tools.

Module 1: Introduction to Assess for success:

Marketing analytics and measurement
You will learn about marketing campaigns and how marketers set performance goals.
You’ll also explore media planning and practice creating your own media plan. Finally,
you’ll be introduced to common tools used in marketing analytics and how they work.

Media planning
Inclusive marketing campaign tips & examples - Think with Google

Steps for media planning

This reading provides more information about the contents of a digital media plan and
the general steps to create one.
Digital media plan contents
You learned in a video that a digital media plan contains details about where, when, and
how often ads will appear across digital media channels, and includes the following
information:
● Target audience
● Budget
● Media mix
● Duration
● Key performance indicators (KPIs)
● Performance goals and metrics
Here are descriptions of each, along with the purpose they serve in a digital media plan.
Target audience
A target audience is the group of people most likely to purchase the products or
services being advertised. Sometimes, a target audience is defined by a combination of
customer personas that help marketers determine how to reach people using the right
messages, offers, and products. A digital media plan should leverage customer
personas as much as possible. A digital media plan can also include audience
demographics, such as age, income, devices used, and preferred media for the content
consumed. However, demographic information might not be available from all customer
personas.
Purpose: A target audience is documented in a digital media plan for purely economic
and strategic reasons. You want to spend a limited campaign budget on the people
most likely to make a purchase.

Budget
Campaigns usually have a fixed budget allocated from a larger marketing budget.
Spending more than what is budgeted for a campaign often requires further justification
and approval.
Purpose: A budget is documented in a media plan to help prevent over- or
under-spending for a particular channel during a campaign.

Media mix
A media mix specifies how much of a budget will be spent across each media channel
in a campaign. If actual amounts are unknown, you can specify percentages of the
budget in the media mix. For example, you could assign $20,000, or 30% of the budget
to social media. Either is acceptable in a media plan.
Purpose: A media mix is critical to a media plan because it enables the right content
decisions to be made based on an allocated budget for any particular media channel.

Duration (flight)
Duration, also referred to as flight, is the length of a campaign and is easy to
document. But if you’re running a campaign using a pay-per-click (PPC) model, duration
becomes trickier because you’ll need to ensure your budget is sufficient for the entire
duration of the campaign. For campaigns like these, duration is heavily influenced by
budget.
Purpose: Duration, or flight, in a digital media plan specifies how long the campaign will
run.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

A key performance indicator, or KPI, is a measurement or metric used to gauge how
successful a campaign is. It’s important to include KPIs for each media channel in a
digital media plan so you can measure the success of a campaign at that level. For
example, in another video lesson, you learned how each channel can have its own
return on ad spend, or ROAS, as a measure of success.
Purpose: KPIs in a media plan document how you will measure campaign success for
each media channel.

Performance goals and metrics

A performance goal is a target that has a measurable, numeric value. Performance
goals help define success. If metrics meet or exceed a performance goal during a
campaign, the campaign is successful. Clickthrough rate (CTR), the number of clicks
divided by the number of impressions, is a popular metric for ads.
Purpose: Including performance goals in a media plan allows you to consistently
measure the performance and success of each media channel during a campaign.

Steps to create a digital media plan

Assuming that business and marketing goals have already been created, here are the
general steps to create a digital media plan:
1. Confirm business goals: Assuming that these have already been established,
identify and confirm what they are.
2. Confirm marketing goals: Assuming that these have already been created,
identify and confirm what they are.
3. Conduct market research: (Optional) If a target audience isn’t clearly identified,
market research can help you determine what it is. For example, market research
can determine both customer personas and target audience.
4. Define performance (also called campaign) goals: Be clear on what the
campaign should achieve. Campaign goals usually have a relationship with a
higher-level marketing or business goal. For example, if sales growth needs to
occur in a particular region, a campaign’s goal can be to increase brand
awareness through ads directed at users in that region.
5. Select the media channels: Media channels selected for a campaign should
align with the media preferences of the target audience. A media mix can then be
created after identifying which channels have the highest priority.
6. Determine and document all media plan items: After you have determined the
required items for a digital media plan, you can use a document or software
media planning tools to help you create the plan.

Format of a digital media plan

 A digital media plan can be created in many formats. You can use documents,
spreadsheets, or even specialized media planning tools. Remember that the format of a
digital media plan isn’t as important as its contents.

Digital media plan templates

If you use a document for your digital media plan, media planning templates are widely
available. You can also create your own organization format. Below is an example of a
basic table that can assist with media planning. Sample content is in italicized text.
Marketing Budge Duratio Target Media Media KPIs Performance
Goals t n Audience Channel Mix Goals and
s Metrics

Grow brand $75,00 3 Adults Display 60% CTR 5% increase in

awareness of 0 months 50-65 page views
target years old CTR > 2%
audiences

All adults Search 30% CTR 10% increase in

page views
CTR > 2%

Adults Social 10% Audience 20% or greater

18-49 Media growth audience
years old rate growth rate
In a digital media plan, you can also include a reference image of a marketing funnel to
map performance goals and metrics to the relevant stages of the funnel. This helps
people visualize what your campaign is trying to achieve at any given stage. The
illustration below is an example.
Target Media Media KPIs Performance Goals and
Audience Channels Mix Metrics for AWARENESS

Adults 50-65 Display 60% CTR 5% increase in page views

years old CTR > 2%

All adults Search 30% CTR 10% increase in page views

CTR > 2%

Adults 18-49 Social 10% Audience 20% or greater audience growth

years old Media growth rate rate

Media planning tools

If you use media planning software to create a media plan, there are many tools to
choose from. A HubSpot blog article identifies twelve available media planning tools in
their Essential Media Planning Tools list.
15 Essential Media Planning Tools: Provides website links for several media planning
tools

Performance goals
Customer acquisition is a marketing term for the process of gaining new customers. In
e-commerce, customer acquisition depends on traffic to a brand’s site. The more traffic coming
to the site, the greater the chance of acquiring new customers.

Cost-related performance goals

The video in this course that covered performance goals focused on how to use return on ad spend
(ROAS), but there are many other kinds of cost-related performance goals to consider. This reading
describes performance goals for bidding strategies that were introduced earlier in the program.
Smart Bidding enables Google Ads to monitor goals to ensure that strategies are optimized to reach
those goals. Both Smart Bidding and manual bidding use targets or performance goals for metrics
like
● Cost per acquisition (CPA)
● Cost per click (CPC)

Note: With Smart Bidding, you can use Target CPA and Enhanced CPC strategies. An Enhanced
CPC strategy combines manual CPC bidding with Target CPA or Target ROAS.
Lower CPA to improve campaign value
Note: Performance goals will vary by campaign. Cost-related information provided below is for
illustrative purposes only.
Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the average cost paid for each conversion. If you have comparative
data from historical campaigns, you can use the average CPA value as a performance goal. You can
then optimize your campaign to try to achieve a lower CPA to improve the value of your campaign.
If you don’t have historical campaign data, you can try using an industry-average value as a starting
point. Industry averages are typical values found across an entire industry. CPA for search ads for
the auto industry, CPA for Facebook ads for the clothing industry, and CPA for e-commerce are a few
examples.
Imagine you’re working for a real estate firm but don’t have historical campaign data. You research
and find that the industry-average CPA for real estate search ads is $41.14, so you set your target
CPA at $40 (red line in chart below). Your budget for search ads is $10,000 so you’ll be aiming for at
least 250 conversions to meet or exceed the target CPA of $40. Any number of conversions below
the red line would exceed your target.
Number of conversions for improvement = Budget / CPA = $10,000 / $40 = 250
Chart shows cost per acquisition versus number of conversions for a $10,000 budget. A minimum
goal of 250 conversions is shown as the target based on a CPA of $40
If a conversion is defined as a potential customer requesting information about realty services, you’ll
need at least 250 people to take that action after seeing your search ads. If more than 250 people
take that action, you will have improved your campaign’s value above the industry average for real
estate.

Use daily spend to manage CPC

Note: Performance goals will vary by campaign. Cost-related information provided below is for
illustrative purposes only.
Cost per click (CPC) is a metric used in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. One way you can control
cost is to manage CPC on a per-campaign basis. You can allocate more budget to the PPC
campaigns that are the highest priority.
Going back to the example of working at a real estate company, if you’re running national search ads
for multiple regions, but the northwest sales region has a higher priority than the southwest sales
region, you can spend more of your budget on the PPC campaign for the northwest region.
Assuming the maximum CPC is $0.50 for both regions, you can allocate a daily spend that’s higher
in the northwest to achieve more clicks in that region. If you assume a daily spend of $200 for the
northwest region and $100 for the southwest region, the following calculations apply:
Number of clicks in the northwest region = Daily Spend / CPC = $200/$0.50 = 400 clicks
Number of clicks in the southwest region = Daily Spend / CPC = $100/$0.50 = 200 clicks
Chart shows number of clicks versus daily spend for a CPC of 50 cents. 400 clicks at a daily spend
of $200 and 200 clicks at a daily spend of $100 are two data points for comparison.
Based on the difference in the daily spend, the number of clicks you are willing to pay for in the
northwest region (darker blue datapoint) is greater than the number of clicks you are willing to pay
for in the southwest region (lighter blue datapoint). You can control the daily spend during the
campaign to manage performance outcomes in each region.

Conversion rate (CVR):

Conversions / Total Clicks x 100 = Conversion Rate Percentage

Click-through rate (CTR):

Total Clicks / Total Impressions x 100 = Click-through Rate Percentage

Introduction to tools for marketing analytics

Resources to learn more about Google

Analytics
In this course, the video introducing the Google Analytics demo account provides an overview of
Google Analytics' features and monitoring capabilities. To learn more about using Google Analytics,
review the resources for online training described in this reading. The listings in this reading are for
free online training. You can look up additional training opportunities online if you’d like, but they may
cost money to access.
Free online training
Read the following descriptions to find the training that’s right for you.
Note: The free training resources listed are for Universal Analytics, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), or
both. As more organizations migrate to Google Analytics 4, more training will be added for the newer
version.
Google Help Center Analytics Training and Support
The Google Help Center Analytics Training and Support. This website contains a list of important
topics and resources to browse. This is a useful resource to bookmark in your browser for reference.
Some resources to check out include:
● Google Analytics Academy: (Universal Analytics only) Google Analytics courses for
beginners, advanced users, and power users
● Google Analytics YouTube Channel: Videos and product help for Google Analytics
● Google Analytics Blog: Current articles about Google Analytics
● Google Marketing Platform Academy (Google Analytics 360): Live and on-demand webinars
and tutorials for Google Analytics

Skillshop
Skillshop is Google’s self-paced training platform for Google's tools and solutions. When you sign
up, you'll be able to access online courses at any time, and complete them at your own pace.
● Skillshop training for Google Analytics: Learning paths for Google Analytics 4 or Universal
Analytics
● Google Analytics Individual Qualification: Qualification track covers basic and advanced
Google Analytics concepts

Paid online training

Examples of training courses that charge a fee for access are:
● Udemy Google Analytics Courses
● LinkedIn Learning
●
Activity Exemplar: Metrics for January

Resources to learn more about Google Ads

In this course, the video introducing Google Ads provides an overview of Google Ads’ features
and campaign performance monitoring capabilities. To learn more about using Google Ads,
review the resources for online training described in this reading. The listings in this reading are
for free online training. You can look up additional training opportunities online if you’d like, but
they may cost money to access.
Free online training
Read the following descriptions to find the training that’s right for you.
Google Ads Help Center: Analytics Training and Support
We recommend bookmarking the Google Ads Help Center: Analytics Training and Support
website. It contains a list of key topics to browse.

Skillshop
Skillshop is Google’s self-paced training platform for Google's tools and solutions. When you
sign up, you'll be able to access online courses at any time, and complete them at your own
pace. The training offered for Google Ads includes specifics for:
● Search ads
● Discovery ads
● Display ads
● Video ads
● Shopping ads
● Mobile app ads
● Google Ads measurement

Paid online training

Examples of training courses that charge a fee for access are:
● Udemy: Google Ads
● LinkedIn Learning: Google Ads
● Coursera: Google Ads

Other tools for marketing and analytics

You have been introduced to Google Analytics and Google Ads as examples of marketing analytics
tools and platforms. This reading lists similar tools and links to find more information about them.
Except for the open source tools which are free, a variety of subscription plans and pricing is
available for each tool or platform.
Note: The certificate program doesn’t promote or endorse any of the tools listed. The purpose is to
provide you with a sampling of other tools that are available.
Tools for marketing analytics
Here is a list of several marketing analytics tools:
● Clicky
● Fathom
● GoSquared
● Heap
● Kissmetrics
● Mixpanel
● Oribi
● Statcounter
● Visitor Analytics
● W3Counter
● Woopra
Marketing suites with analytics
Marketing software suites that offer analytics features include:
● Adobe Analytics
● Adobe Marketo Engage
● HubSpot

Open source tools

Open source tools for marketing analytics include:
● AWStats
● Countly
● Matomo
● Open Web Analytics
● Plausible

Advertising platforms
Here are a few advertising platforms and links to learn more:
● BuySellAds
● Media.net
● AdButler

Module 2: Use metrics from Google Analytics and

Google Ads
You will learn about key metrics and data sources from various platforms. You’ll learn
how to use the metrics in Google Analytics and Google Ads to gain insights for
marketing campaigns. You’ll also learn how to link data from Google Ads to Google
Analytics and export data from both platforms for further analysis.

Variables and tab settings in Google Analytics

Explorations
Variables in Explorations
In an Exploration, a variable refers to the segments, dimensions, and metrics configured in your
Google Analytics account. If you use a template to create a new Exploration, a default set of
variables is already enabled. You can add additional variables for use in your Exploration, if desired.
A segment is a subset of analytics data that features a common characteristic. For example, a user
segment might be users from a particular country or city. In addition to user segments, event
segments and session segments can also be created. An event segment is a subset of all
configured events. Recall that an event triggers data collection in Google Analytics. For example, an
 event segment might be just the data collected from users on a particular type of device. A session
segment is a subset of all sessions. Typically, a session starts when a user begins to interact with a
website or application. For example, a session segment can be created for the sessions that
resulted from a particular advertising campaign. You can create up to 10 segments in an Exploration.
A dimension is an attribute or characteristic of the data. For example, the City dimension indicates
the city which a configured event originated from. You can apply up to 20 dimensions in an
Exploration.
A metric is a quantitative measurement, including calculations like an average or ratio. For example,
the Event count metric is the number of times an individual event occurs. You can apply up to 20
metrics in an Exploration.
Segments
The following table summarizes the default segments enabled for each Exploration template
available in the Google Analytics demo account.
Note: The information in the following table is provided because you will work with the Google
Analytics demo account in upcoming activities. If you’re not using the Google Analytics demo
account, segments could be defined differently. After you select a template, click the + icon if you
want to define a new segment for the Exploration.
Funnel Path Segment User Cohort User lifetime
Exploration Exploration overlap Exploration Exploration Exploration
template template Exploration template template template
template

Direct X X X X X X
traffic

Paid X X X X X X
traffic

Mobile X X X X X X
traffic

Tablet X X X X X X
traffic

Dimensions
The table below summarizes the default dimensions enabled for each Exploration template available
in the Google Analytics demo account.
Note: The information in the following table is provided because you will work with the Google
Analytics demo account in upcoming activities. If you’re not using the Google Analytics demo
account, dimensions that are enabled by default could be different. After you select a template, click
the + icon for Dimensions if you want to select and enable other dimensions for the Exploration.
Funnel Path Segment User Cohort User lifetime
Exploration Exploration overlap Exploration Exploration Exploration
template template Exploration template template template
template
 Event X X X X
name

Gender X X X X X

Country X X X X

Device X X X X
category

First user X X X X X X
medium

First user X X
source

First user X X
campaign

Platform X

Last X
audience
name

First visit X
date

Metrics
The table below summarizes the default metrics enabled for each Exploration template available in
the Google Analytics demo account.
Note: The information in the following table is provided because you will work with the Google
Analytics demo account in upcoming activities. If you’re not using the Google Analytics demo
account, metrics that are enabled by default could be different. After you select a template, click the
+ icon for Metrics if you want to select and enable other metrics for the Exploration.
Funnel Path Segment User Cohort User lifetime
Exploration Exploration overlap Exploration Exploration Exploration
template template Exploration template template template
template

Active users X X X X

Event count X X X X X
Transactions X X X

Total users X X

Sessions X

Purchase X X
revenue

Transactions X

Conversions X

Active users X

LTV average X

Lifetime X
engagements

Lifetime X
transactions

Tab settings in Explorations

The tab settings will change depending on which technique (template) you have chosen. The main
tab setting in an Exploration is Technique, which is the same as the type of template being used. As
mentioned previously, you can create up to 10 segments in an Exploration. However, only 4
segments can be applied to a single technique at the same time.
Refer to the resources at the end of this reading to look up the settings specific to each technique;
for example, click Funnel Exploration link to find a list and explanation of each setting for a funnel
visualization.

Resources for more information

You can refer to the following links for more information about using Google Analytics 4 Explorations:
● Get started with Explorations: Introduces Explorations and how they are used
● Funnel Exploration: Provides instructions to create a Funnel Exploration and examples
● Path Exploration: Provides instructions to create a Path Exploration
 ● Segment overlap: Provides instructions to analyze segment overlap
● User Exploration: Provides instructions to explore user behaviors and activities
● Cohort Exploration: Provides instructions to create a Cohort Exploration. A cohort is a group
of users who share a common characteristic.
● User lifetime: Provides instructions to analyze user lifetime metrics
● Free-form Exploration: Provides instructions to create a Free-form Exploration to visualize
data in a table or graph.

Dashboards, scorecards, and reports in

Google Ads
In this course, the video about Google Ads metrics introduced how they are used. This reading
covers how you can create dashboards in Google Ads to monitor the metrics you’re most interested
in viewing.
Google Ads dashboards
The Google Ads Overview page features a standard dashboard to monitor key advertising metrics.
You can also create additional dashboards. In any new dashboard, you can add scorecards, charts
and tables from reports, and notes if you’re collaborating with others on a project.
Dashboard examples
Click the following links to view dashboard examples in the Data Studio Report Gallery:
● Account health: These are examples of dashboards for account health and include views of
overall account performance and performance of individual campaigns such as search,
display, video, shopping, and mobile app campaigns.
● Ad group performance: This is an example of a dashboard with selectable options to display
the performance metrics for a campaign, campaign type, ad group, or device.
● Performance by day: This example is similar to the ad group performance dashboard
example, but displays the metrics for each day.
● Insights by ad type: This is an example of a dashboard with selectable options to display the
clicks and click through rate (CTR) for responsive search and expanded text ads for a
campaign, ad group, or device.
● Keyword performance: This is an example of a dashboard with selectable options to display
the conversion rates and keyword matches for a campaign, match type, ad group, or device.

Steps to create a dashboard

To create a new dashboard in Google Ads, complete the following steps:
1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Click the Reports icon.
3. Select Dashboards.
4. To create a new dashboard, click the plus icon.

Scorecards
Scorecards are commonly used to visualize key performance indicators on a dashboard.
Note: Scorecards on the Google Ads Overview page are different from the cards that are on the
Recommendations page. Refer to the View and apply recommendations in Google Ads reading in
this course for more information about the cards on the Recommendations page.

Scorecard examples
The following are examples of scorecards displayed in the Overview page.

Steps to add a scorecard to a dashboard

To add a scorecard to a dashboard, complete the following steps:
1. From the dashboard, click the plus icon.
2. Click the Score card icon above the dashboard.
3. Enter a name and description for the scorecard.
4. Choose the measures you want to include.
5. (Optional) Enter a filter you'd like to add to the data.
6. (Optional) Add conditions for conditional formatting.
7. (Optional) Customize the data shown in your scorecard by checking the boxes to include
items like a Sparklines chart, percent change, and absolute change.
8. Click Add.

Reports
You can also create a table or chart using the built-in Report Editor, and then add the table or chart
to a dashboard.

Steps to add a table or chart to a dashboard

To add a table or chart to a dashboard, complete the following steps:
1. From the dashboard, click the plus icon.
2. Click the Reports icon above the dashboard.
3. Select Report and then select Create Report.
4. Click Create Report and select Table to create a table or select the type of chart you want to
create:
● Bar
● Column
● Time Series
● Pie
● Scatter
5. Drag and drop a dimension into a labeled section. The dimension you select determines the
metrics available in the next step.
6. Drag and drop metrics, such as Clicks or Conversions, into a labeled section to include the
data in the table or chart.
7. Name your report, and click Save.
8. (Optional) Enter a description for the report.
9. Click Apply.

Resources for more information

For more information about creating, editing, and adding a dashboard, scorecard, or report in
Google Ads, refer to the following resources:
● Dashboard: Definition: Describes dashboard functionality and features
● Create and edit dashboards: Provides instructions to create a dashboard and add a
scorecard or custom report to it
● Create custom reports in Report Editor: Provides instructions to create a custom report that
you can add to a dashboard

Link data for better insights

The video in this course that demonstrated how to link a Google Ads account to Google Analytics
mentioned a couple of benefits to:
● Better understand the marketing funnel
● Better define audiences for remarketing

This reading provides more details about these benefits and what marketers gain from them.
Better understanding of the marketing funnel
Google Analytics can be thought of as a single pane of glass. This term is sometimes used to
describe a software product that offers an integrated way to view data. After accounts are linked, you
can use your Google Analytics account as a central place to view and analyze metrics from Google
Ads. This centralization is helpful when you are trying to understand how potential customers
proceed through the marketing funnel. To access linked advertising metrics in Google Analytics, click
the Advertising icon in the navigation panel.

Advertising snapshot
The Advertising snapshot contains data panes labeled with specific questions that are aligned with
certain stages of the marketing funnel:
● Which channels drive the most conversions? (Conversion)
● What touchpoints do customers take to convert? (Consideration and Conversion)
● How do your channels perform under a different attribution model? (Conversion)

Another pane in the Advertising snapshot enables you to view insights identified by Google
Analytics, such as conversion spikes for campaigns as shown below.
Insights pane in the Advertising snapshot with individual insights identified by Google Analytics.

Model comparison
In the video about linked metrics, you learned how you can compare attribution models in Google
Analytics after you link a Google Ads account. When you select Model comparison from the
Attribution menu, you can view a side-by-side comparison of conversions from different touchpoint
perspectives. This is helpful to gain a more refined understanding of the marketing funnel.
Cross-channel models attribute a percentage of a conversion to all advertising channels with
touchpoints. Cross-channel models use one of the following rules to give credit for a conversion:
 ● Data-driven: Attributes conversions based on historical data about how people searched for
your business and interacted with your ads. Data-driven attribution looks at the entire
customer journey that leads a user to convert and allocates conversion credit to each step in
that journey.
● Last click: Attributes 100% of the conversion to the last channel that a customer clicked
through or engaged with before converting.
● First click: Attributes 100% of the conversion to the first channel that a customer clicked
through or engaged with before converting.
● Linear: Distributes attribution for a conversion equally across all channels a customer
clicked through or engaged with before converting.
● Position-based: Attributes 40% of a conversion to the first channel, 40% of a conversion to
the last channel, and attributes the remaining 20% equally among the other touchpoints in
between.
● Time decay: Attributes a conversion to each channel based on a 7-day half-life scale. In
other words, a click through a channel eight days before a conversion gets half as much
credit as a click one day before a conversion.

Note: As of January 26, 2022, Google Analytics 4 properties have cross-channel data-driven
attribution enabled as the default model.
The Ads-preferred model attributes 100% of a conversion to the last Google Ads channel that the
customer clicked through before converting.
The model you choose to view metrics with depends on the kinds of questions you’re trying to
answer. Suppose you want to know how your display and search ad campaigns are impacting each
other. You could view the number of conversions for each channel in side-by-side comparisons using
the first-click and last-click models. If the number of conversions in each model are proportionally the
same, the campaigns probably aren’t impacting each other. However, if the display channel has
significantly more conversions in the first-click model than in the last-click model, it might be worth
investigating how many times a display ad is a first or middle touchpoint before a last-click search ad
conversion is made. To investigate further, you can look at the data for conversion paths.

Conversion paths
Conversion paths enable you to view first and last touchpoints before conversion, and touchpoints
in between. For example, if you examine the conversion path in row 29 below, users performed a
search, clicked a referred link, and searched again before making a purchase.
Conversion paths for the Google Merchandise Store in Google Analytics, including multiple
touchpoints for Organic search and Referral.
In the previous scenario given for model comparison, the display channel had significantly more
conversions in the first-click model than the last-click model. In the conversion paths, you could
investigate further by finding all instances of Display. This would enable you to better understand the
impact that display ads have on search ad conversions.

Better definition of audiences for remarketing

The linking of data goes two ways. If personalized advertising is enabled in Google Ads, you can
also use the audience data from Google Analytics to reach the right customers for remarketing.
Personalized advertising relies on user interest or behavior data to determine the right audience
for ads. If accounts are linked, audiences created in Google Analytics are automatically exported to
Google Ads.
Note: To collect session information for users in configured audiences, Google signals must also be
activated for the Google Analytics 4 property. For the instructions to activate Google signals, refer to
the relevant article listed at the end of this reading.

View configured audiences

To view the audiences that have been configured in Google Analytics:
1. In the left navigation pane, click the Configure icon.
2. Click Audiences.

A list of audiences similar to those shown below will appear.

Note: All Users and Purchasers are predefined audiences in Google Analytics. To create a new
audience, you must have the Editor role for the GA4 property.

Create a new audience

To create a new audience in Google Analytics:
1. In the left navigation pane, click the Configure icon.
2. Click Audiences.
3. Click New audience.

For an explanation of the settings to configure when you create a new audience, refer to the relevant
article listed at the end of this reading.

Key takeaways
Linking data between Google Ads and Google Analytics provides you with better insights about
potential customers as they progress through the marketing funnel stages. When audiences
configured in Google Analytics are made available in Google Ads, your remarketing ads can also
reach the right users more effectively.

Resources for more information

You can refer to the following Google Help articles for more information about linked accounts and
data:
● Link Google Ads and Analytics: Describes linking for Google Ads and Google Analytics
accounts
● About attribution and attribution modeling: Describes how multiple ads work together on the
path to conversions
● About data-driven attribution: Describes the Data-driven attribution model in Google Ads and
how to enable it
● Create, edit, and archive audiences: Describes how to create a new audience
 ● Suggested audiences: Identifies key audiences for retail and e-commerce businesses
● Enable remarketing with Google Analytics data: Describes how to enable Google Ads
remarketing using Google Analytics data
● Activate Google signals for Google Analytics 4 properties: Provides instructions to enable
Google signals for a Google Analytics 4 property

Module 3: Measure the success of marketing

campaigns
You will investigate the metrics and outcomes that define a successful marketing
campaign. You’ll examine different metrics that help you determine the ROI or ROAS of
a marketing project so you can make adjustments to improve returns. You’ll also learn
how to plan for and conduct an A/B test to optimize a marketing campaign. Finally, you’ll
examine what a successful marketing campaign looks like and what makes it
successful.

Determine the ROI of a marketing project

In a previous video, you learned a simple calculation for ROAS (return on ad spend):
ROAS = Revenue generated/Ad spend. You also learned that Lifetime Value
(LTV)—sometimes called Customer Lifetime Value—is the average revenue generated
per customer over a certain period of time.
Both ROAS and LTV enable you to get an estimate of your return on investment, or
ROI, for a campaign. ROAS gives you a way to measure the short-term performance of
your campaign. It answers the basic question: Did the campaign bring in more revenue
than what was spent on the campaign? LTV answers a more strategic question: Did the
campaign increase or promote the “stickiness” of customers so they made additional
purchases? When you consider both ROAS and LTV, you are placing a value on both
the numeric and strategic aspects of ROI for your marketing effort.
The video covered ROAS calculations based on revenue and what you can do to
improve ROI if ROAS doesn’t meet your expectations. This reading provides more
information about using LTV as a measure of ROI.
ROI using LTV
The definition of LTV does not provide a specific time period for which to calculate the
average revenue generated per customer. The amount of time can be years, quarters,
or months. Months is most commonly used in retail. When the time period is from the
past to the present, LTV is sometimes referred to as total LTV. When the time period
includes future dates, the LTV is referred to as predicted lifetime value (pLTV).
Because pLTV relies on transactions and customer behaviors to predict a future LTV,
pLTV becomes more accurate with each additional purchase and customer interaction
that occurs.
Using pLTV is a common method to estimate the impact of digital marketing efforts
before every sale comes through. For example, when newly registered customers make
their first purchase, you can use the historical performance of similar customer types to
predict the amount of revenue they will bring in over time.
Pro tip: When determining the ROI of completed campaigns, use total LTV rather than
pLTV. You can use pLTV to predict the ROI for campaigns that are still in progress.
Two ways you can use LTV to measure the success or ROI of a completed campaign
are:
● LTV by channel
● LTV to CAC ratio (LTV:CAC)

LTV by channel
Just as you can measure ROAS for each channel in a campaign, you can measure LTV
in the same manner. Attribution of conversions by channel must be enabled in advance.
For each channel in your campaign, calculate the following:

LTV = Average Order Value (AOV) x Purchase frequency

Comparing the LTV for each channel provides insights on ROI by channel.

LTV to CAC ratio

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the average cost of acquiring a paying customer.
LTV and CAC are used to calculate an LTV to CAC ratio. This ratio is helpful to
determine if the value gained from adding new customers during a campaign is enough
to cover the cost to acquire them. The higher the ratio, the better the ROI.
You can calculate the LTV to CAC ratio for a campaign or channel using the following:
LTV to CAC ratio = LTV/CAC
A result of 2 or higher is normally considered good. An ideal result is around 3. A result
below 2 could occur if you’re intentionally spending more to gain market share.
However, if that isn’t the case, you might need to cut budget spend to reduce the CAC
and increase the LTV to CAC ratio. If the result is above 3, your ROI is solid and you
have a steady and robust revenue stream. With a result above 3, you would presumably
have enough budget to expand your business. For example, if your goal is to diversify
the kinds of products associated with your brand, you could support that goal with
advertising campaigns that are adequately funded.

Marketing mix models

Marketing mix models, sometimes called media mix models, are statistical models
advertisers use to predict the effectiveness and ROI of their advertising spend. These
models rely on at least two years of historical data from previous campaigns. Since they
were first developed in the 1960s, they have become more reliable in predicting
campaign ROI because of the recent benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning. The actual models are beyond the scope of this reading, but you should be
familiar with these terms.

Module 4: Share metrics and insights with

stakeholders
You will learn how to work with stakeholders by anticipating their needs and
communicating progress or results from a campaign. You’ll explore how to analyze,
filter, and prepare metrics and insights to share with them. You’ll also practice creating
visualizations, presentations, and a dashboard to clearly summarize insights for
stakeholders. Near the end of the course, you’ll apply what you’ve learned by
presenting a set of practice insights to stakeholders.

Data analysis in spreadsheets: sort, filter, and

compare
A video in this course covered the steps to sort and filter data in spreadsheets. This reading
illustrates how sorting and filtering can help you pinpoint campaign or business-related insights that
you can share with stakeholders.
Description of spreadsheet
Suppose you have a spreadsheet that contains online sales data, like the one shown in the image
below. Recall from the video that a cell in a spreadsheet holds data. Columns are vertical and are
labeled alphabetically. Rows are horizontal and are labeled numerically. People refer to cell positions
by combining the column and row designation, like cell A2. In the sample online sales data below,
cell A2 contains the data, Alexander City.

Also recall from the video that sorting can put data in a certain order, and filtering can display data
you want while excluding other data. Sorting and filtering in this spreadsheet enables you to gather
insights like these:
● Number and percentage of purchases made from each campaign (by campaign codes)
● Campaign-related purchases (overall and by state)

Example 1: Purchases made from each campaign

1. To determine the number and percentage of purchases made from each campaign, sort the data
in the sheet by Column F, which contains a discount code used in each campaign. Sorting in
descending order (Z to A) places campaign-related purchases at the top of the sheet followed by
blank cells.
2. Next, after sorting, create a filter for Column F to display the purchases for each campaign
separately by deselecting the other two campaigns. For example, unchecking 39343E and CGRWAT
displays only the purchases made from campaign EZ3043.
3. And finally, count the number of instances of each code each time you filter. Divide the number of
instances of each code by the total number of purchases to get the percentage of purchases made
from each campaign. For example, 15 purchases made with the code EZ3043 out of a total of 563
purchases is 2.66% of purchases.
Pro tip: For large datasets, instead of manually counting instances, you can use the COUNTA
function in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. COUNTA returns the number of non-blank cells in a
range. For example, if the data range is F2:F500, enter the following in a blank cell:
=COUNTA(F2:F500). The number of cells in the range that contain data (such as a campaign code)
is returned in that cell.
Insight you could share with stakeholders: 2.66% of all purchases resulted from Campaign
EZ3043.
Example 2: Campaign-related purchases (overall and by
state)
If you add the number of campaign-related purchases and divide that value by the total number or
purchases, you get a percentage of campaign-related purchases. For example, if 59 purchases were
related to the three campaigns, the overall percentage would be 59 divided by 563, and then
multiplied by 100, or 10.48%.
Insight you could share with stakeholders: 10.48% of all purchases were campaign-related.
You could then filter the data by state (Column B) to get the breakdown by state. For example, if
filtering for Alabama in Column B displays nine results, two of which are campaign-related, you can
conclude that 22% of purchases from Alabama were campaign-related. You would have to repeat
the filtering process for each state to complete a state-by-state comparison.
Insights you could share with stakeholders:
● 22% of purchases in Alabama were campaign-related
● 0% of purchases in Alaska were campaign-related
● 38% of purchases in Arizona were campaign-related
● (and so on for each subsequent state in the U.S.)

Resources for more information

You can refer to the links listed below for more information about sorting and filtering data in
spreadsheets.
Google Sheets
● Sort and filter your data: This resource can help you organize data in Sheets. Use this guide
to sort part or all of a spreadsheet. You can sort by text, number, and color. Then, learn how
to create filters to show only certain data while hiding the rest. Finally, the article includes
information on creating, saving, and removing a filter view.
● COUNTA: This Google Help Center article provides syntax and usage examples for the
COUNTA function in Google Sheets.

Microsoft Excel
● Sort data in a range or table: This page guides you through all the steps you will need to sort
data by number, text, and color. You’ll also have the option to sort by custom list so that you
can customize exactly what you want to sort.
● Filter data in a range or table: This article has step-by-step instructions on how to filter an
Excel spreadsheet to show only the data you want to see. You can also use built-in
comparison operators, such as “greater than” and “top 10” to reveal only the most relevant
data.
● COUNTA function: This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the COUNTA
function in Microsoft Excel.

Data analysis in spreadsheets: pivot tables

A pivot table enables you to calculate, summarize, and analyze data for comparisons, patterns, and
trends. A video about pivot tables in this course reviews the steps to create a pivot table. You can
replay the video, if needed.
Another reading in this course that covers sorting and filtering in spreadsheets offers two examples
of how sorting and filtering enables certain insights. This reading uses the same examples from the
sorting and filtering reading. The examples are repeated to show how pivot tables enable the same
insights more quickly.
Description of spreadsheet
Suppose you have a spreadsheet that contains online sales data, like the one shown in the image
below. Recall from the video that a cell in a spreadsheet holds the data. Columns are vertical and
are labeled alphabetically. Rows are horizontal and are labeled numerically. People refer to cell
positions by combining the column and row designation, like cell A2. In the sample online sales data
below, cell A2 contains the data, Alexander City.
A pivot table in this spreadsheet enables you to gather insights like these:
● Number and percentage of purchases made from each campaign (by campaign codes)
● Campaign-related purchases (overall and by state)

Example 1: Purchases made from each campaign

With sorting and filtering, you determine the number of purchases per campaign code by filtering for
one code at a time. With a pivot table, you can view the number of purchases per campaign code all
at once. This can save you time when working with a large amount of data.
1. Create the pivot table with Code as the Columns and State as the Rows, and then add Code as a
Value summarized by COUNTA.
In the pivot table editor, State under Rows and Code under Columns are sorted in ascending order
with Show totals checked. Code under Value is summarized by COUNTA.
The resulting pivot table is similar to the one shown below, where the number of purchases for each
campaign is shown in the row labeled Grand Total.
Note: Some rows (states) in the pivot table have been hidden to save space and show the counts at
the bottom of the table.
2. You can then insert a formula to calculate the percentage of total purchases by dividing each
grand total by 563. The formula in cell C53 is: =C52/563 which takes the value in cell C52, or 28,
and divides it by 563. The resulting percentage is 4.97% for Campaign 39343E. Copy this formula to
cells D53 and E53 to calculate the percentages for the other two campaigns.
Insights to share with stakeholders
Using the the pivot table and subsequent calculations, you could share the following information with
stakeholders:
● 4.97% of all purchases resulted from Campaign 39343E
● 2.84% of all purchases resulted from Campaign CGRWAT
● 2.66% of all purchases resulted from Campaign EZ3043

Conclusion
The pivot table returned the same results as sorting and filtering the Code column and manually
counting instances for each code.

Example 2: Campaign-related purchases (overall and by

state)
Instead of filtering for each state one at a time to get the counts per code, each state’s count is
already summarized in Column G (grand total) in the pivot table. But now you need a count of the
non-campaign related purchases. If you insert None in the data as the campaign code for
non-campaign purchases, the pivot table automatically adds another count for None in Column G.
Finally, you can insert a formula in Column I to calculate the percentage of campaign-related
purchases for each state. In cell I4, enter =(D4+E4+F4)/H4. Next, copy and paste the contents of cell
I4 into all remaining cells in Column I.
For example, after copying and pasting the contents from cell I4 to cell I6, the formula in cell I6 for
Arizona becomes =(D6+E6+F6)/H6 which adds the values from the three campaigns and divides
that sum by the grand total of purchases in Arizona.
Calculation in cell I6: =(1+1+5)/18 = 0.38, or 38%

Insights to share with stakeholders

Using the calculations for campaign-related purchases, you could share the following information
with stakeholders:
● 22% of purchases in Alabama were campaign-related
● 0% of purchases in Alaska were campaign-related
● 38% of purchases in Arizona were campaign-related
● (and so on for each subsequent state in the U.S.)

Conclusion
The pivot table returned the same results as filtering the State column state by state to get a
breakdown of the data by state. However, using the pivot table saved some time!

Resources for more information

You can refer to the following resources for more information about working with pivot tables:
● Create and edit pivot tables: Instructions to create pivot tables in Google Sheets
● Create a PivotTable to analyze worksheet data: Help creating pivot tables in Microsoft Excel

Bonus guide to creating charts

How to choose a data visualization