Linking your Google Adwords and Google Analytics accounts is a great way to share the data you are collecting about your campaigns with the data being captured on your website.
Anyone who is serious about driving a profit from their ad spend should be doing this so that they are able to analyze exactly where their advertising budget is going and use the data to optimize their campaigns going forward.
The reason that many people do not already have this set-up is because they do not know how to link their Google Adwords and Google Analytics accounts, so I have put together this short guide to make it a really simple process.
How To Link Your Adwords and Analytics Accounts
Before we start, a quick note: Please ensure that you are using a Google Account that has access to both your Analytics and Adwords accounts and has administrator rights on both accounts.
Lets get started:
- Log-in to your Google Adwords account.
- Click the ‘Tools and Analysis’ tab at the top of the page and select ‘Google Analytics’.
- In the top right corner of the page, click ‘Admin’.
- Select the account that you would like to link with your Adwords account.
- Click the ‘Data Sources’ tab.
- Click the ‘Adwords’ tab and then select ‘Link Accounts’.
- Select which profiles you would like to link to your Adwords data.
- Enable ‘Auto-Tagging’ if offered the option as this will save you from having to manually tag all of your ads to make them show in your Analytics. Then click ‘Continue’.
- Sit back, relax and wait for the data to hit your Analytics account.
It can take a couple of hours for the link to take affect and before you will see any meaningful data in your Analytics account. I always recommend waiting at least 24 for the data to become accurate enough to rely on.
Having a problem linking your accounts or with Adwords/Analytics in general? Post it below and I will do my best to help you out!
David Shaw is a Freelance Internet Professional and Web Analyst from Bristol, UK.Working for clients around the world he specializes in Website Analysis, Search Engine Optimization, Conversion Rate Optimization and User Experience Analysis.He has generated millions for companies around the world through A/B testing and website optimization to increase conversion rates and revenue.
[...] help you take your website to the next level. If you use Google Adwords then I would recommend you Link Your Google Adwords & Google Analytics Accounts to allow you to analyze where your money is going and identify areas where it can be better [...]