Adam Howitt Consulting Blog - Google AdWords

AdWords Enhanced CPC v. Conversion Optimizer

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:25:00 -0400

Google released Enhanced CPC this week to help AdWords users improve ROI. But is it better than Conversion Optimizer? Let's take a look:

How Enhanced CPC works:

Each and every time an ad is eligible to appear, Enhanced CPC will automatically adjust your bid based on the likelihood a click will convert. If the system sees that there's a probability this will occur, it will increase your max bid by up to 30%. If it predicts that an auction has a low probability of resulting in a conversion, it will decrease the bid in order to reduce the cost of a potential click from that auction. There is no limit on how much the system will reduce your maximum cost-per-click bid.

When first enabled, Enhanced CPC will modify 50% of the auctions your ad is eligible for. Once the system has enough information to analyze its performance against the remaining 50% of the ads, it will adjust bidding. If Enhanced CPC finds that it is not benefiting your campaign, it will automatically reduce its impact but not stop modifying bids. If it has made a positive impact and your campaign has a strong performance, then the system will modify the bids of up to 75% of auctions.

But how does it know what is likely to convert?

Among many other variables, the system looks at:

user's location
user's browser
language settings
time of day
time of week
specific words in search query
match type
historical performance

Conversion Optimizer

This free AdWords tool manages your campaign based on your cost-per-acquisition goals. To use, your campaign must have Conversion Tracking enabled. The Conversion Optimizer uses this data to optimize the placement of your ads in each auction based on the probability of a conversion will occur at that time. It uses historical data from Conversion Tracking to learn where and when your ads are most likely to get conversions.

How it works:

The tool analyzes conversion tracking data to decide the likelihood of which type and how often an auction will convert. It then predicts which auction will perform best in the future based on past perfomance. Conversion Optimizer will continually adjust bids and invest in the better performing ads to ensure that your money is spent effectively.

Conversion Optimzizer weighs the most recent data more heavily than older data. Therefore, it's better to use Conversion Optimizer with an exisiting campaign that has had AdWords Conversion Tracking enabled for a while.

Similar to Enhaced CPC, Conversion Optimizer looks at:

user's location
users' browser
language settings
matchtype and quality
historical performance
time

How it calculates the new automated max cpc: predicted conversion rate mulitplied by the max CPA bid= equivalent max CPC bid. Choose from either Target CPA or Max CPA bidding options and set different CPA bids for each Ad Group.

On average campaigns using Conversion Optimzer experience a 21% increase in conversions and a 14% decrease in cost-per-conversion. Of course, numbers and results vary by campaign.

Take away points:

The two systems aren't much different, but each has its own benefits. Choose which one is right for you based on how comfortable you are letting Google do the work for you.
Both tools are easy to test. If you don't like the results from Conversion Optimizer , turn it off and the campaign will revert to your previous CPC bids.
Enhanced CPC is very easy to use. Just check the box to enable it and let Google do its thing.
Conversion Optimizer can only be utilized if your campaign received 15 conversions in 30 days. Enhanced CPC does not have a required minimum number of conversions to be used.
Both will show your ads more when you are likely to get conversions.

Even after reading all this are you still apprehensive about handling your AdWords campaigns? Let us help!

Seth Godin says my seminar is a lost cause

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:44:00 -0400

Well, close. Jeff just sent me an article from Seth's blog pointing out that marketing evolution is much harder than marketing gravity because gravity is something people already believe in.

I'm banking on people believing that evolving your website is cheaper and more productive than starting from scratch or paying for AdWords campaigns.

The seminar follows a logical flow from fixing the problems for the visitors you get before chasing new visitors with SEO and AdWords campaigns.

The morning shows you how to use Google Analytics to analyze the traffic you get to find the problems on your website. Next I'll cover Google Website Optimizer to help you split test a theory without fighting with the CEO over what goes on the home page.

The afternoon starts with Search Engine Optimization basics to make sure you're getting the best free traffic possible before you invest in pay-per-click, the focus of the last session of the day. Google AdWords can be expensive if the material covered in the first 3 sessions isn't addressed and I'll teach you how to change the way you buy your campaigns to get the most for your dollar.

The first one day seminar is December 17th in Chicago and space is restricted to a cozy crowd of 10 to promote interaction and make sure everyone goes home with a personal action plan. If you can't make it to Chicago for the day, let me know if you think there is a demand for the seminar in your city.

Website Evolution Seminar

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:39:00 -0400

Up the expertise you bring to the table. One-day intensive covers designing for search engine results, split testing of Web pages, using Analytics to arrive at a best design. Google tools provide you with a slam-dunk answers to every client design request.

I'm running a one-day four session seminar from the offices of Adam Howitt Consulting in Chicago on Wednesday, December 17th 2008.

Find out more about Website Evolution!

Clickbank vs. Google AdWords Discrepancies

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:00:00 -0400

A client recently contacted me to ask why Google AdWords was reporting conversions but the clickbank affiliate account the Google AdWords ad linked to showed zero conversions. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. That includes the site - I have no idea about websites selling pipecleaners.

The "Basic" Process

Joe the plumber (just to be topical) searches in Google for a phrase that triggers my client's AdWords ad for bestpipecleaners.com.
If Joe clicks the link, Google AdWords places a cookie on his machine that lasts 30 days to record the Ad that drove him to the site
Google AdWords redirects Joe to the link in the Ad, in this case my client's clickbank affiliate link
Clickbank creates a clickbank cookie good for 60 days to record the affiliate ID responsible for taking Joe to the clickbank destination URL, in this case, my client's landing page finally.
Joe goes from the landing page to a few more pages and then hits the purchase button
The purchase button goes to the clickbank checkout process
Clickbank pulls the 60 day clickbank cookie from Joe's machine
When he completes the sale, the affiliate ID from his cookie is credited with the sale
Clickbank redirects Joe to the thank you page on my client's site
The thank you page is tagged with the affiliate tracking code and Joe closes his browser and goes to fix some pipes.

Simple huh? So in this case clickbank correctly accounts for one sale from my client's affiliate ID and Google AdWords records one conversion against the Ad that convinced Joe to purchase.

The Blockage in the Pipes
Josephine the plumber searches in Google for a phrase that triggers my client's ad and follows a similar path as Joe but when she gets to the landing pages, she doesn't trust the hype, leaves the website and goes to fix some pipes.

A week later she is still trying to solve her underlying problem so she goes back to her computer and finds another website on the topic, pipecleanerreviews.com. Unbeknownst to her, this site is also an affiliate of my client and after she sees a review of my client's product, she decides it might work after all and clicks the link to visit my client's landing page again at bestpipecleaners.com. Behind the scenes, the URL she clicked on is a clickbank link with pipecleanerreviews.com's clickbank id instead of my client's clickbank id.

Clickbank records the affiliate id as pipecleanerreviews.com in the cookie on Josephine's machine, replacing the original affiliate id of bestpipecleaners.com
Clickbank redirects her to bestpipecleaners.com and she completes the sale
Clickbank pulls the cookie from her machine (pipecleanerreviews.com's affiliate id) and so they get the credit for the sale
Clickbank redirects her to the thank you page which is also tracked with pipecleanerreviews.com's conversion tracking code (in addition to bestpipecleaners.com's code), and she goes off to fix some pipes.

The problem in this scenario, is that the thankyou page has both Google AdWords conversion codes and so both AdWords accounts (bestpipecleaners.com and pipecleanerreview.com) will record a conversion, when clickbank only credited a single affiliate with the conversion.

There are many other scenarios that play out in a similar way and she might have visited many sites. In fact some of the links from my client's site bestpipecleaners.com points to pipecleanerreviews.com because it's a good idea to let people get third party opinions of your products to help them decide if it's worth buying.

To accurately measure the AdWords campaign, the first search she did was not responsible wholly for the sale but since conversions are absolute we have to decide who gets the credit. Regardless of your opinion on this, clickbank believes the last affiliate ID used should get the credit since they ultimately generated the sale. Google AdWords however has split the credit because of the conversion code existing for both affiliates on the thank you page.

The BestPipeCleaner for the job
If we want to change this behavior to make it match clickbank we have to show only the Google AdWords conversion code for the affiliate recorded by clickbank. Fortunately, Clickbank reports the affiliate ID (if there was one) in the URL as the variable cbaffi when the visitor is sent to the thank you page so it is a simple matter of detecting which affiliate ID was passed and showing the appropriate tracking code snippet. This could be a google snippet, a Yahoo PPC snippet or any other conversion code really, we just need to show one or none.

The URL will look something like this where zzzzzzz is the affiliate ID and ... means there is much more than I want to type out:
/common/thankyou.cfm?item=9&cbreceipt=xxxxxxx&time=1224443502&cbpop=yyyyyyy&cbaffi=zzzzzzz&cname=...

For my solution I propose a database table of unique affiliate IDs mapped to their tracking code snippet but if you are only dealing with a few affiliates you could manually write this out to a property list or structure if you can carefully escape any quotes or double quotes that might break your code.

If the affiliate ID is blank or isn't passed to the thank you page, do nothing and skip to the rest of the page
If the affiliate ID is not blank, look-up the affiliate ID in the database:
1. If there are no matches do nothing and skip to the rest of the page
2. If there is one result, display the conversion tracking code and then show the rest of the page
3. If there are mulitple results for the affiliate ID, loop over the rows and write each snippet out then show the rest of the page

Ideally, each affiliate would have only one snippet per ID but it is foreseeable that an affiliate might be promoting your site on Google, Yahoo and several other conversion tracking channels. If you don't give them a unique affiliate ID per channel, they will record a conversion against each in the unlikely event that someone saw an affiliates Google ad, then their Yahoo ad before making a purchase. It's a complex scenario but worth noting. If you can, give them a unique affiliate ID for each separate ad medium they use (Google, Yahoo) so they can see the stats they need.

For help with your Google AdWords issues take a look thru my consulting site and contact me. If you need help with Clickbank I have to confess it's not my specialty but I can try to help.

I've also worked extensively with third party e-commerce providers to configure Google Analytics to ensure revenue is recorded against the correct referral sources which is a related issue.

Google Technology Presentation selling out fast

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:09:00 -0400

I've just had some exciting news that my "Using Google Tools to optimize content for business results" presentation at Web Content 2007 is filling up fast. The presentation explains how to manage the risk assoicated with making changes to your website through Google's A/B testing tool "Website Optimizer" and how to use Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of your changes. It wraps up with an explanation about how to run a profitable Google AdWords campaign.

If you are interested in attending, the two day seminar is in Chicago on June 18th and 19th and includes Jason Fried of 37signals amongst other big names.