Upcoming Improvements for Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC Users

Using AdWords Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC can help you get more conversions at lower cost, and reduce the time required to manually optimize your bids. When using either one, changing your ad rotation from “Optimize for clicks” to “Optimize for conversions” increases conversions by an average of 5%. That’s because “Optimize for conversions” shows your higher-converting ads more often.

To help you get better performance with AdWords, we’ll be linking these options more closely together in a series of changes that we plan to roll out during the week of November 12th, 2012.

What’s changing

• New ad rotation default when using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC. When you first activate Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC in a campaign, your ad rotation setting will change to “Optimize for conversions” by default. We recommend this setting to get the most conversions, but you’re free to change to a different option.
• Eligible campaigns will switch to “Optimize for conversions.”As we announced last December, all campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC which are set to use “Optimize for clicks” will be switched to “Optimize for conversions.” You can opt out of this update via this form up until November 9th, but you may miss out on getting more conversions by doing so.
  
  Update: The migration of eligible Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC campaigns will now occur during the week of 11/26.
  
  
• “Rotate evenly” change for campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC. As we announced earlier this month, campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” automatically begin to optimize for clicks when ads in an ad group are unchanged for 90 days. Similarly, when using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC, campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” will automatically begin to optimize for conversions when ads in an ad group are unchanged after 90 days.

After these changes roll out, you’ll still have control over your ad rotation settings and can make changes at any time.

More information

To learn more about the Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC, you can watch the following short videos. For more details on ad rotation, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Conversion Optimizer
 

Enhanced CPC


Posted by Wilfred Yeung, Product Manager

Migrating Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC campaigns to “Optimize for conversions”

If you’re focused on conversions and CPA (cost-per-acquisition), you may already be using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC to optimize your campaigns to get you more conversions at a lower cost. To ensure that your campaign settings are also in line with your conversion goals, we plan to migrate existing campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC with “Optimize for clicks” ad rotation to “Optimize for conversions” ad rotation. Our studies have shown that campaigns moving from “Optimize for clicks” to “Optimize for conversions” see a 5% increase in conversions on average. This migration is scheduled for February 2012.

Update: The migration is now expected to begin rolling out in May.

If you would prefer not to have your campaigns migrated to “Optimize for conversions” ad rotation, please fill out this form by January 31, 2012.

Update: The new deadline to opt out your campaigns from this migration is February 14th, 2012.

Not currently using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC?

Please watch the videos below to learn more about the Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC. You also can visit the AdWords Help Center to learn more about ad rotation options.

Conversion Optimizer

Enhanced CPC

Posted by Andrew Truong, Product Marketing Manager

New case study: How Enhanced CPC drives success with third-party bidding tools

Since we launched Enhanced CPC last year, many of you have used it to increase your conversions and ROI. In fact, approximately $3 billion in annual spend is now being managed through Enhanced CPC and Conversion Optimizer.

With Enhanced CPC, you can get more conversions at or below your current CPA by simply checking a box on your Settings tab. The feature uses your Conversion Tracking data to determine the likelihood that a user will convert and dynamically raises or lowers your bid for each auction based on this information. Since Enhanced CPC is designed to work with max CPC bids, you can continue to manage your bids as you always have—even if you use a third-party bidding tool.

W3i, a company that distributes and monetizes desktop and mobile apps, found success in using Enhanced CPC to complement their third-party bid optimization tool. Enhanced CPC incorporated Google’s unique knowledge of the user and auction to automatically adjust bids that were set by the third-party tool, thereby “enhancing” its performance.

By using Enhanced CPC with their third-party bid optimization tool, W3i increased their conversions by 19.7% and decreased their CPA by 9.7%. It also reduced the amount of time that they had been spending on manually adjusting bids based on factors such as time of day and allowed them to focus on their business. You can download the full case study here.

To learn more about how Enhanced CPC works with third-party bidding tools, visit our Help Center. There, you’ll also find instructions for enabling the feature in your account. Maybe the next Enhanced CPC success story will be yours!

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew