PPC managers live in Excel. We use it for everything from keyword research, to ad copy creation, to results data crunching. We love Excel so much that a recent PPC Chat discussion centered on it.
Pivot tables are one of the most powerful features of Excel. I discovered the magic of pivot tables fairly recently – I started using them in earnest about 3 years ago. Once I got the hang of them, I wondered why I’d waited so long to use them.
If you’re not using pivot tables to manage PPC, it’s time to start! Here are 5 resources that will help you get started.
Ultimate Visual Guide to Pivot Tables for PPC Data by Mark Jensen at Get Found First. This is your starting point for learning how to set up pivot tables. You’ll want to bookmark this fantastic resource as you’re learning how to use pivot tables for PPC.
The 10 Reports that Made Me Fall in Love with Pivot Tables by Sean Quadlin at PPC Hero. Sean walks through 10 ways to use pivot tables to analyze your PPC data. If you’re trying to figure out exactly what’s going on with your PPC account performance, try running some of these analyses using pivot tables.
Wasting Money In Your PPC Accounts? Pivot Tables Are Here To Help! by Dave Rosborough at PPC Hero. If you’re a visual learner, check out this how-to video. Dave does a nice walk-through for using pivot tables to figure out where you’re losing money in your PPC campaigns.
Brad Geddes Presents: How to Identify Google AdWords Quality Score Problems by Brad Geddes for PPC Hero. My good friend and PPC Moses Brad Geddes has a guest appearance at PPC Hero with a video on how to use pivot tables to analyze quality score. I first learned about this technique from Brad at HeroConf 2012, and I’ve used it ever since to optimize PPC quality score.
How To Manage Big Data with Pivot Tables by the brilliant Annie Cushing at Search Engine Land. If you’re having trouble with Excel, head over to SEL and read some of Annie’s posts. She’s probably the top expert on Excel in the SEM field. This post is a how-to, complete with screen shots, on culling insight from large data sets using pivot tables.
I use pivot tables weekly, at minimum. My favorite way to use pivot tables for PPC is for ad copy analysis. Finding the best-performing ad is easy with pivot tables.
What’s your favorite way to use pivot tables for PPC? Share in the comments!
Jam packed with great info. Will try to apply atleast some of this to my site. Thanks for sharing.
Great article and resource! I use pivot tables to power my dashboards: http://www.gazel.ws/adwords-campaign-performance-dashboard-template-for-gazel/.
I’m yet to start using pivot tables but this article has helped me get an idea of how to work with it.
I’ve still got more to learn first.