SEO Blog - Internet Marketing News

Google AdWords have today launched Conversion Optimiser in beta, this is currently only available for campaigns which have received 300 conversions during the last 30 days.

Here’s the new feature alert from my Google AdWords account:

Use the Conversion Optimiser to save time and minimise conversion costs
The Conversion Optimiser lets you specify a maximum cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bid for each ad group. Then, this feature continually adjusts your CPC bids to keep your conversion costs under your maximum CPA bid, showing your ads only when you are likely to get conversions. By using the Conversion Optimiser, you can save time while minimising your conversion costs.

This sounds like it could be a very useful tool to predict future conversion rates, which are calculated using the conversion rates of keywords, the users location and also individual websites on the content network.

For example, here are some of the factors that affect the conversion rate on Kim’s custom shirt website:
- The search query. Kim’s conversion rate is higher when users search for custom shirts than when they search for shirts.
- The location of the user. Her conversion rate is highest when her ad shows in New York.
- The conversion history of particular sites. When her ad shows on certain types of content sites in the Google Network, Kim is more likely to get conversions.

Kim does not have access to these details, but they directly affect her conversion rate and costs. By considering these factors every time her ads are eligible to appear, the Conversion Optimiser can show her ads when she is more likely to get conversions, meanwhile working to keep her average cost per conversion below her CPA bid. Using real time performance data allows the Conversion Optimiser to adjust Kim’s bids for better performance than she would get with manual bidding alone.

Update: Google have now announced the new CPA bidding product on their Inside AdWords blog with an introduction to how this works.