Not setting the correct location option can cost fortune. Google’s default option can prove very expensive. In this case, over 60% of the budget was wasted as the campaign manager picked the default targeting option.
In April 2023, as a part of our Data Analytics infra setup and consulting, we asked client to setup BigQuery. The goal was to optimize ads for some actions of interest. When the data flowed in, we were astonished to see that 54% of the users performing a certain action came from Pakistan – whereas the client only offered services in India.
We dug more into the ad campaigns and found a very simple link:
Because of this setting, here’s what they got:
This was a mind boggling number. 54% of the overall users came from Pakistan. Their actual target market – India, got less than 40% traffic. (The rest of the users were from other countries). Soon after fixing the campaign, the number dropped to less than 1%.
How can you prevent such things?
- It’s very useful to export your analytics data to BigQuery.
- Setup every single event that you think is important in the user journey. (In this case, there was an opportunity to track 5 events in the user journey, but only 3 were tracked).
- Do frequent audits of your ads and analytics account.
We do offer Analytics consulting, and infra setup, and if you are interested, please reach out to you. You can also request a free audit of your analytics infrastructure by contacting us.