To cut the long story short
All of us looked at the metrics av. Ad Position in Google Ads interface from time to time. Many PPC specialists even set up all kinds of auto rules and scripts to adjust the position of the keywords. But the guys from Google decided that this indicator is not needed anymore in the era of automation and smart bidding, so removed this metric from the report. This article described how to return everything 🙂
Who will find it useful
Everyone who is not ready to put up with such restrictions and wants to continue to look at average positions of keywords, ads, etc.
How to find your Ad Position
Someone resigned, someone upset and even cried, the strongest began to calculate Ad Position based on the percentage of impressions received on the search network. We at shema were not upset: although the metric was removed from the Google Ads interface, the guys forgot (maybe temporarily) to remove it from the ValueTrack parameters.
What does it mean? We can easily transmit Ad Position through the ValueTrack parameter.
How to add the ValueTrack
This parameter is added to UTM tags. You should add a variable to the URL. The ValueTrack parameter, that you need:
| {adposition} | The position of your ad on the page. For example, the value 1t2 is deciphered as follows: page 1, display above the search results (letter “t” from the word “top”), position 2. |
How we do it (step by step):
Please note – this instruction is suitable for those projects where Google Analytics is configured through GTM.
1 / At the account level, add a variable to track the position:
We named our variable “pos”, and the tracking template itself looks like this: “{lpurl}? Pos = {adposition}”.
2 / Add a variable to GTM. We called it “URL – pos”:
2.1 / In the Variable Type, set the “URL“;
2.2 / Component Type – “Query”;
2.3 / Query Key – “pos” – the name of the variable label that we specified in the first step.
3 / Add another variable named “JS – pos”:
3.1 / In the Variable Type set to “Custom JavaScript”;
3.2 / In Custom JavaScript, write the following code:
function() {
posURL = {{URL - pos}}
var pos
if(posURL.includes("t")) {
m = posURL.split("t");
v1 = Number(m[0]);
v2 = Number(m[1]);
pos = v1 * 7 - 7 + v2;
} else if (posURL.includes("o")) {
m = posURL.split("o");
v1 = Number(m[0]);
v2 = Number(m[1]);
pos = v1 * 7 - 7 + v2 + 4;
} else {
pos = undefined;
}
return pos;
}
Since Google Ads passes the position in an unusual format to the variable “{adposition}”, for example:
- 1t3 – it means we are on the 3rd position in the top (higher than the results of organic results), so this is the 3rd position;
- 1o3 – it means we appeared in the 3rd place at the bottom of the first page, so this is the 7th position.
That’s why we came up with a formula that decrypts what Google Ads passes into an acceptable form for us.
The logic of the formula is:
If the variable “URL – pos” contains the letter “t”, then the first value * 7 – 7 + the second value; if in “URL – pos” there is a letter “o”, then the first value is * 7 – 7 + the second value is + 4.
For example, we received “URL – pos” = 2t2. According to our formula, it is:
2 * 7 – 7 + 2 = 9.
4 / Add a variable to Google Analytics:
Let’s name the variable as it will be convenient to work with it later, and configure the collection for sessions:
5 / Let’s return to GTM and add Custom Dimensions in the variable where Google Analytics is configured:
5.1 / In the Index field, specify the value Custom Dimensions from Google Analytics, in our case, it is 3:
5.2 / In the Dimension Value we set a variable from the 3rd item (JS – pos).
Done! Now you can see the position in Google Analytics.
Note: since we write the value in Dimension, no calculations can be made with them in GA itself.
To calculate the average position for a campaign or group, we upload data from Google Analytics to Google Spreadsheet and there we carry out all the calculations. Remember that you need to count the average weighted.
I wish you a lot of transactions!
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