As part of the framework presented, I analyzed four well-known tools and their alerting features in detail: In addition to AdWords and Google Analytics, intelliAd and Econda were compared, with the focus being on the first two mentioned - which also have the far better features.
Alerting Tools table
The table above shows that Adwords and GA allow by far the best configurability of alerts. For the framework described below, a combination of AdWords and GA Alerts was therefore used. In brief, the highlights and lowlights of the tools are as follows, the best in my opinion are marked in red:
Alerting Tools Table 2
Conception of an Alerting Framework
Based on the account filters created so far, the actual uruguay phone number data work now begins: 1) defining appropriate alert rules for all relevant performance deviations and 2) naming the alert accordingly. In my opinion, the following naming convention has been established:
Table 3
In the appendix you can see an example list of possible performance alerts from AdWords and Analytics. Here are some basic considerations when designing:
Thresholds can also be fixed values, but these must be checked regularly. These can be monthly budgets or sales targets. Manual adjustments involve a lot of work, so AdWords scripts are a good option.
The rules created should not have any overlaps, but should also not omit any essential areas, e.g. deterioration of position or CTR.
AdWords alerts typically look like this:
Adwords alerts
For each alert, the recipient receives an email with a link to the filtered view. A Google Analytics alert looks like this:
analytics alerts
Google Analytics bundles all alerts of the day into one email and points out the “main culprits” on the linked page, a very charming feature.
A few days after the initial setup, the rules and thresholds created should be checked for their usefulness:
Do you need the active alerts at all or at the specified frequency? Does a lower frequency make more sense?
Are the resulting filter lists too large and the thresholds restrictive enough?
Are all irrelevant campaigns and elements excluded?
Are some alerts derivable from other alert rules and therefore redundant?
Daily alert management
After the initial coordination phase, the flood of emails consolidates into the valuable alerts. The following approach makes sense in the morning optimization routine:
– In a first time block per account, you take an unbiased look at the account performance, according to the top-down “feeling” principle
– In the second time block, we look at the alerts. A kind of check to see whether we have overlooked any important trends: Which alerts have been received for the account? Which ones need to be dealt with immediately, where is regular, e.g. weekly planned ad optimization according to the calendar sufficient?
Here, every in-house team or agency has to find its own routine and gain experience. Many of you have already done some: What are your experiences and learnings from dealing with performance alerts? Let us know in the comments!
APPENDIX: Concrete alert examples for AdWords and Google Analytics.