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Well, it’s been awhile since I first looked at conversion optimizer. I thought I would give you a brief update on my thoughts, and a report with some actual data. For another take on this tool from Google, take a look at the discussion on PPC Discussions, or this post from blogation.

So How Did Conversion Optimizer Work?

For the campaign I used it on, it worked well. Remember as I wrote initially, this is a campaign that had not been optimized thoroughly, although I had added some campaign negative keywords. I suppose the best test of the tool will be to put it up against my manual optimization skills. Perhaps I’ll try the technique advocated by Rose Sylvia of deleting all broad match terms, or try some other quick, formulaic approach. I think using a technique that can be applied quickly like that would create a more fair comparison, since the time needed to set up Google’s Conversion Optimizer is minimal.

I’m still going to reserve final judgment until further testing is completed, but in this case, Google’s tool did a fantastic job. Here are my numbers from the seven day period before using conversion optimizer, and the seven day period after turning it on. I am not using the day that I switched it, and I made no other changes to the ads or the landing page.

Just take a look at the before numbers:

So I was paying a little too much here. One of the ad groups is doing well, but the other is a little high on my conversion cost, and it’s the bigger one, of course. I decided I didn’t want to spend more than $70.00 per conversion, and that was what I ending up setting my Max CPA(Cost Per Acquisition) at. So how much did Google help me out?

Final Analysis

Not too bad. In the end, we have:

• 400 less clicks
• 106936 less impressions
• 22% higher CTR (click through rate)
• 4 cents higher average CPC
• $ 620.24 less spent. That represents $88.61 saved everyday.
• Slightly higher average position
• A little more than 42% lift in conversion rate
• A 35% reduction in cost per conversion.
• And even with less spend, we have 24 more conversions. That’s a little more than 3 extra sales every day.

So for this example, in this situation, Conversion Optimizer worked fairly well. It met my $70 CPA goal, and it saved me money while converting more traffic to sales. I can’t issue a blanket recommendation, but for anyone with unoptimized Adwords campaigns, or for the small business owner who needs to lower his or her cost per acquisition without paying for expensive software or consulting, Google Conversion Optimizer deserves a look.

So Google launched a new tool for adwords advertisers today, Conversion Optimizer (beta of course!). I manage a number of campaigns, and one of them is perfect for me to test this new tool, so I went ahead and started today. Here is a brief rundown of the tool and what to expect when setting it up. It’s easy, I promise.

What is Conversion Optimizer?

Conversion Optimizer for Adwords is a new bid management tool from Google that allows advertisers to target a cost per acquisition, rather than cost per click. Using data that is not available to you, but is available to google, they will target an acquisition cost that you set.

From Google:

Suppose you know how much you’re willing to pay for a conversion, and you know that your ads get better conversion rates on certain days of the week. Normally, you’d spend time monitoring and adjusting your cost-per-click (CPC) bids in order to get more conversions for a lower cost.

You can read more about conversion optimizer here, straight from the horse’s mouth.

How do I qualify to use the Conversion Optimizer?

It’s simple really, according to Google you only need to meet two requirements.

• You must have conversion tracking enabled.
• You have to have at least 300 conversions in the last 30 days.

I was lucky to have a campaign that meets these requirements. Since most of my campaigns are broken out into multiple specific campaigns for optimization purposes, a lot of them don’t get that many conversions a day. But I did have one that I still haven’t done much work on, so it’s perfect for this test.

So how do I start?

It’s easy, really! Here is a brief rundown, with a few screenshots so that you know what to expect.

The Conversion Optimizer is a new bidding strategy option, so you need to edit the settings for your campaign and click the link that says “View and edit bidding options”. Clicking on that link will bring you to the following page, with a new option:

Selecting “Use the converstion optimizer” and clicking “Save and Continue” takes you to a page where you will actually set your targeted CPA (Cost Per Acquisition), along with a recommendation from Google based on your conversion history.

Once you’ve edited and saved your bids, you are presented with a disclaimer before you can continue:

By clicking ‘I Agree’ you indicate you understand and accept the following conditions for the Conversion Optimizer (beta).

1. Your actual cost per acquisition (CPA) depends on factors outside Google’s control, so your actual costs can exceed the maximum CPA bid that you specify. However, the AdWords system automatically adjusts your costs over time, with the goal of keeping your average CPA under your specified bid.

2. When you enable the Conversion Optimizer, a small portion of the traffic on your ads will be used for evaluation purposes. This evaluation is part of our work to ensure a high-quality final product. Your cost and ad performance will not be negatively affected.

No surprise there, Google is testing something new. Once you agree to their terms, you are redirected back to the campaign summary screen, which should show you a confirmation that your campaign is now using Conversion Optimizer, and you now see that your Default Bid is set to your “Max CPA”.

That’s all there is to getting started. Will it work for you? I’m not sure, but like anything, you should always be testing.

Should you use conversion optimizer?

Only time will tell if this tool will work well, and if it will be worth it for you, but there are some circumstances where it may be useful, for example, if you are not currently using any bid management solution, or if targeting a specific CPA is a large part of your marketing strategy.

I do have a few concerns though. Like much of Google’s secret sauce, the data and methods they use to optimize your campaign are not available for you to examine (Google even tells you this data isn’t available to you). If the tool works really well, this may not be a issue for the smaller advertiser or business that wants to target a CPA without manually optimizing each campaign, hiring an agency, or paying for expensive bid management software, however I think that professionals in the industry want to know what is happening behind the scenes with their campaigns; these larger advertisers and agencies will continue to use and refine the tools they are currently using.

For anyone that’s interested, I’ll post an update with my results in a week or so. Even with the issues I brought up, I’m still interested to see how Google’s new automatic bid management tool works. What do you think? Are you testing this already, do you plan to, or have you already decided against it?

Just received this email from google. Looks like a new feature for adwords advertisers. I’m not sure how well this is going to work for most verticals, but for local searches, this could be very effective.

Hello **************,

We are happy to announce a new feature that will allow you to easily reach additional qualified customers who are searching Google from their mobile phones.

In the next few days, your search ads will be eligible to run on Google Mobile Search pages (like they currently do on Google.com).
We are offering this feature - and any resulting clicks - for free through November 18, so you can experiment with the rapidly growing mobile platform while still reaching qualified customers.

Each ad’s eligibility will be determined by its landing page and only ads with landing pages that can be adapted for viewing on mobile browsers will be shown.  You can monitor each ad’s performance via a special performance tracking page within your account called “Performance Data: Search Ads on Google Mobile Search.”

Again, you will not be charged for clicks on these ads until November 19, at which time we will begin charging the usual CPC prices.  And as always, you may opt-out of this feature at any time.

We hope you find this new feature helpful and profitable, and we urge you to learn more about it at our AdWords Help Center:

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=72226

Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team

Can you buy your way to better rankings? Maybe not, but adding advertising can be a great way to bring in more organic traffic. This is an interesting article that exposes a truth I’ve become aware of. You buy more than you bargain for with a good PPC campaign.

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