There’s day’s where I feel like I spend my entire day switching between our analytics program and excel looking to achieve optimum ROAS for our paid search campaigns. After a while, numbers seem to just run together so I thought it might be useful to put some of the metrics that I use daily in a list and how I get those final numbers.

For some of our accounts we optimize based off sales but these metrics are going to be based off page views and CPM based advertising.

Impressions – The number of times a pay per click ad was displayed to a potential site visitor.

Clicks – The number of visitors that clicked on a paid search ad.

Click Through Rate (CTR) – The percentage of impressions/clicks.

Page Views – The number of page views viewed by paid search visitors. Note: With the use of ajax etc you’ll want to make sure your tracking not only page views but interactions as well.

Page Views Per Click – The average number of page views/click.

Pre-Rolls – Many sites are running video so its important to track the number of pre-rolls, post-rolls etc..

Pre-Rolls Per Click – Total Pre-Rolls/Clicks.

Cost – The amount spent on paid search

CPC – The average cost per click. Take cost/clicks.

Cost Per Page View – Take your cost/page views

Revenue Per Page View – When your revenue is based on page views, you simply take your revenue and divide by total page views.

Revenue – Once you know your page view value you can determine your revenue. An example would be (Page Views * CPM)/1000. Here you can also include video plays or other metrics which have a value tied back such as sign-ups or entries.

ROAS – Your return on ad spend is simply your Revenue/Cost (It’s more involved when determining ROAS on purchases)