"Measuring the success of a search marketing campaign starts with a
fundamental metric: the click. But clicks alone don't tell you the real story," the team said. "Similarly, measuring conversion rate--the percentage of search-generated visitors who make a purchase or
answer a call to action, such as registering for a white paper--doesn't give you enough insight to optimize your campaign performance."
The team suggests adding stats like "ad spend ratio," "bounce rate," "click path analysis," "lifetime value of search customer/visitor" and "profit per keyword" to your analysis to better gauge the health, success and efficacy of various campaigns. Bounce rate, for example, can yield insight into landing pages that need optimization and internal pages that could benefit from better navigation cues or content.