Tracking AdWord ads with different text in Google Analytics

Question

I'm trying to see how the text in my Google AdWords ads affects my metrics in Analytics. I have auto-linking enabled, so I figured I would be able to automatically see this in Analytics. Unfortunately, if I try to add a second dimension of Traffic Sources->Ad Content, the metrics are only split by the ad's Headline. Most of my tests are changing only the ads' descriptions...

So I guess I need to add a tracking parameter like ?campaign=special_text to my URLs? Or is there a way to see the ads split by ad descriptions? Should I add the full suite of utm_campaign/utm_medium/etc parameters? What's the proper way to track these ads which are mostly similar except the ad descriptions?

Answer 1

You should add the complete utm parameters. It's probably the best way to see the data in your Google Analytics (GA) account.

Another method to do this would be to add your Analtyics account to your Adwords account. This can be done via the Adwords -> Tools -> Analytics interface.

I realized that apart from you can pass the ad id in your landing page URL as {creative}

Answer 2

I'm not sure why Google analytics doesn't expose this through the interface. But you can get the ga:adwordsCreativeId via API, that later can be used with the AdWords API to extract the ad text.

http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gdata/gdataReferenceDimensionsMetrics.html#ga:adGroup