5 Excel Methods for Creating Paid Promoting Campaigns
To effectively create a paid advertising campaign, you need a solid strategy for organizing your data and tracking your ad performance.
Excel spreadsheets can do just that.
While a spreadsheet might not be the most intuitive tool for managing your marketing efforts, there are plenty of Excel tricks you can use to quickly optimize your data, track metrics, and improve conversions.
It doesn't take an Excel expert to master these tricks. All you need is access to a version of Excel and the desire to learn.
You may be wondering if you should go through the effort learning Excel if you are already using other tools like CRM software or Google Analytics to manage your marketing campaigns.
In all honesty, you probably should.
The humble Excel spreadsheet gives you a simple, yet highly effective way to organize all of your data from various project management tools in one place. Whether you want to use your spreadsheet for keyword research or turn data into a bar chart, there is an Excel trick to make your job easier.
Plus, you never know: You could end up with a company that still only uses Excel for these things!
With that in mind, let's take a look at using Excel to improve your paid ads or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.
Should i use it Excel or Google Sheets?
Excel and Google Sheets are not the same thing.
Google Sheets is a fantastic (and free) alternative to Excel. It's not designed to handle the huge amounts of data you might want to store in Excel, such as: B. for keyword research. However, it's great for managing deadlines, analyzing customer relationship data, and filtering statistics to get key insights into your ad performance.
I'll be using Excel to work through examples here, but of course you can use Google Sheets for many of these tasks if that is available to you. You can also try Calc in OpenOffice as the features it offers are very similar.
5 Excel Tricks To Use In Paid Advertising Campaigns
When creating paid advertising campaigns, you need to think about which keywords to use and bid, how to increase your click-through rate and increase your conversions once people land on your page. You also need the ability to compare different ads within the same family to see if the content is below average.
Fortunately, Excel can help you solve all of these problems and more. Here are my top five Excel tricks to help you design, track, and analyze your paid advertising campaigns.
1. Filter and sort key data
As I mentioned earlier, the goal of creating a PPC campaign is to get as many clicks and conversions as possible. How do you maximize your chances of success? You need to choose the right keywords first.
If you use keyword research tools like Ubersuggest, you will likely see hundreds, if not thousands, of keyword suggestions. Excel can help you sort this data to identify the keywords that you should be using.
Depending on your campaign goals, you can filter the data based on the following factors:
For example, let's say you're creating a video marketing-themed PPC campaign. You enter the keyword "video marketing" into Ubersuggest. When you click "See All Keyword Ideas," you'll see 342 suggested keywords and over 11,000 related keywords.
How do you translate this in Excel? First, download a copy of the keywords by clicking the "Export to CSV" button:
Now filter the results to show only the keywords that are most relevant to you and your campaign. To do this, load the table, go to the "Data" tab and click on the "Filter" option:
In our example we are filtering the keywords according to SEO difficulties. Go to the column heading and click the arrow. In the drop-down menu, uncheck the boxes for the irrelevant keywords. They disappear from your search results so you can focus on the key keywords:
Once you have finished analyzing the data using one filter, this Excel trick is a quick way to switch to another.
You can also filter out "negative" keywords from your search results. For example, let's say you don't want your PPC ad to show in search results for "real estate" because you're not targeting that audience. In the drop-down menu, click "Text Filter", then click "Does not contain". Enter the words "real estate" in the field.
2. Use a PivotTable to track and compare audience demographics
The next Excel trick I'm going to show you is creating a PivotTable.
What is a PivotTable? Think of this as some kind of interactive report. It enables you to analyze large amounts of data and extract critical data to inform your decision-making process. A PivotTable could look like this:
From a marketing perspective, pivot tables are invaluable. They can show you at a glance who is clicking on your ad and where it is. Also, having multiple ads will help you determine if certain demographics have more clicks on one ad than the others, and so on.
In other words, if you're a marketer trying to track your campaign's success, a PivotTable could be your new best friend.
To use a PivotTable effectively, first identify your data source. You may be using data from Google Analytics or another analysis tool.
Then import this data into an Excel spreadsheet. The easiest way to do this is to import a CSV into Excel. To import a CSV into a new Excel workbook, simply click the "Data" tab, then "Get External Data" and select "Text" from the menu options:
After you've verified that the data has moved correctly, create your PivotTable. Add columns for demographic data like location, age, and gender, and columns for tracking metrics like conversions and impressions.
Highlight the cells with the dates that you are interested in. Then switch to the Insert tab and click PivotTable. Confirm the fields you want to include to generate your table.
Next, decide what data you want to include in your PivotTable. For example, if you're tracking audience demographics, you have columns for data like location, age, and gender.
You will also need columns for metrics like clicks, impressions, and conversions as you are trying to track performance.
Finally, analyze the results and make the necessary changes to increase your conversions and improve the success of your PPC campaign.
3. Use VLOOKUP to track metrics
Do you want to combine two sets of data from different spreadsheets or tracking tools into a single sheet? Then you need to check the VLOOKUP function.
Essentially, VLOOKUP lets you quickly combine a vertical column of data from one table into another. Note: Both data sources must have at least one column in common. Otherwise this method will not work.
For example, let's say you're looking for new keywords for your PPC campaign. You don't want to duplicate keywords, so you want to check if any of the new keywords you found are already in your existing Keyword Table or PivotTable.
With the Excel trick VLOOKUP you can really identify new keywords and import them into your spreadsheet.
First, identify the new column in your existing table that you want to populate with new keywords. Then select "VLOOKUP" on the "Formulas" tab.
Next, complete the VLOOKUP formula. You will need four things:
- Lookup value: This is the value that both records have in common, e.g. B. a keyword.
- Table array: The table array is the area of columns that you are dragging from.
- Column number: The column number is the column number from which you will retrieve data. For example, if you are pulling data from the second column of your table array, the column number is "2".
- Range: Finally, it is best if you leave the range "FALSE" just to get exact matches.
Once you have completed the formula, the records will be merged.
VLOOKUP is pretty technical. For more information on creating your formulas, see the Office Support page.
4. Use charts to add visuals to your displays
Visual marketing works. Visuals can increase audience engagement by up to 40 percent, and 40 percent of marketers believe infographics have been their most successful visual content.
When creating PPC ads, consider adding original graphics or data visualization tools such as bar charts or graphs to potentially increase your click-through rates and conversions. Fortunately, Excel can help you with this.
If you already have a PivotTable, it only takes a few clicks to turn it into a chart. Just click the Analyze tab, select PivotChart and decide which type of chart to use. That's it!
Don't have a PivotTable? No fear.
First, select the data you want to include in your chart, click "Insert", then click the "Recommended Charts" button:
Choose the design you like the most and create the diagram:
Visit the Microsoft support page for more hints and tips about customizing your chart.
5. Save time with Excel macros
When creating paid ads, you often follow the same steps every time. Excel lets you automate repetitive tasks to save time.
How do you automate these tasks? This neat little Excel function is what is called a macro.
Macros are essentially automated or recorded sequences. You “record” a series of actions that you want Excel to automate, such as: B. Keystrokes. If you need to do this action again, just run the macro and Excel will do the rest for you.
Well, there is no limit to what you can use it for, but here are some paid ad campaign steps suggestions that you might want to automate.
- Complete the keyword research
- Generate new campaigns
- Converting data to PivotTables
- Create new templates
Setting up a macro should be a quick process. However, you can always go to the Microsoft help page if you need further guidance.
First, make sure you can see the Developer tab in Excel. From here, click on "Visual Basic" and then click the "Record" button. If you can't see the Developer tab, just click the View tab and click Record Macro from there:
Choose a name for your macro and start recording. Once you click OK, Excel will record every action you take on the spreadsheet until you click Stop Recording. Now you've set up a macro that you can use anytime.
Before running a real and complicated macro, try setting up your own simple test macro to get a feel for how it works.
Conclusion
If you're a marketer, these Excel tricks can help you create, track, and manage your paid advertising campaigns more effectively than before. No Excel expert is required either. All you need to know are a few simple commands and you could be up and running pretty quickly.
From keyword research to customer relationship management, Excel could be the tool you are looking for. If you've tried these Excel tricks a few times, you are probably wondering how you managed to run your PPC campaigns without them!
If you need more help with Excel, be sure to check out Microsoft's Excel community support page.
Have you used any of these Excel tricks on your paid advertising campaigns?
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