Google AdWords allows advertisers to add custom columns to their campaign statistics. Metrics include impression share, bid strategy type, shares, comments, follows, and more. One of the most underestimated tools are the custom columns for search funnels, namely assist clicks and assisted conversions. This article is designed to demystify the process and make it easier for you to implement these tools.
If you already know where to add competitive metrics in AdWords, jump to the next heading. Otherwise, here are brief instructions on customizing columns.
As seen above, assist clicks and assisted conversions can be found under Search Funnels which is a standard metric and should show up in every AdWords account.
This is part one of the article explaining assist clicks.
Assist clicks occur only when more than one search ad has been clicked prior to a conversion. Any search ad click that happens before the last click immediately before a conversion is referred to as an assist click. Since assist clicks are displayed on a keyword level, the definition can be adapted to make it more precise.
The Assist Click column displays any number of clicks on a search ad triggered by the same keyword that happened prior to the last click that leads to a conversion.
In order to fully understand assist clicks, I have created three concrete examples of real life scenarios and how the results are displayed in the assist clicks custom column in Google AdWords.
A user searches on Google for black shoes, clicks the ad and doesn't convert. A week later, the same user searches on Google for brown shoes, clicks the ad and doesn't convert. One week later, the same user searches on Google for white shoes, clicks the ad and doesn't convert. Two days later the same user searches on Google for black boots and converts.
Since assist clicks exclude the last click directly prior to the conversion, we can cross out black boots. Any other clicks before black boots is an assist clicks. Therefore we have three assist clicks (black shoes, brown shoes, and white shoes). Keep in mind that the assist click column does not display the amount of assist clicks per conversion but the number of assist clicks per keyword.
A user searches on Google for black shoes, clicks the ad and doesn't convert. 1 week later, the same user searches on Google for brown shows, clicks the ad and doesn't convert. A week later, the same user searches on Google for black shoes again, clicks the ad and doesn't convert. Two days later the same user searches on Google for black boots and converts.
Since assist clicks exclude the last click directly prior to the conversion, we can cross out black boots. Any other clicks before black boots is an assist clicks. Therefore, we once again have three assist clicks (black shoes, brown shoes and black shoes). Keep in mind that the assist click column does not display the amount of assist clicks per conversion but the number of assist clicks per keyword.
In comparison to Example 1, the keyword black shoes now shows two assist clicks because it assisted twice.
Now let's look at what happens when two different users searching and some of the keywords are overlapping.
As seen above, two different clients converted with different search funnels that both started with the same keyword.
In this case, the keyword black shoes assisted twice even though it assisted two different conversions. Since assist clicks aren't displayed per conversion but per keyword, black shoes shows two assist clicks.
The keyword black boots regularly gets a significant amount of profitable conversions but the keyword black shoes does not. As a matter of fact, you can see in the account that the keyword black shoes accumulates a lot of clicks but rarely or never converts. You consequently pause the keyword black shoes to allocate more budget to the keyword black boots. For no apparent reason, immediately after having taken that action the conversion rate for the keyword black boots decreases dramatically.
In order to find out, you add the custom column assist clicks because you suspect the keyword black shoes is the beginning of a search process that is closely related to searches who later search for black boots and convert. As the assist clicks columns shows in AdWords, this is in fact the case.
You can then revert the change that caused the issue based on the insights you have gained through the assist clicks column by reactivating the keyword black shoes.
Assist clicks can be essential when it comes to keyword optimization and understanding the search funnel report in Google AdWords. It provides detailed information about the relevancy of each keyword to the amount of conversions it has indirectly contributed to.
However, the concept must be fully understood in order to interpret the information correctly. Also, consider that the assist clicks column does not indicate the profitability of the clicks it displays.