Trying Out Google Adwords Conversion Optimizer

Last week I logged into my Google Adwords account and saw a new option called conversion optimizer. I had tried something similar with Yahoo Search Marketing a while back and the results were less than stellar but I figured hey maybe Google can do a better job so I will give it a shot.

Here are some screen shots showing the results

10/14 to 10/16 (from the week before turning conversion optimizer on)


10/21 to 10/23 (results of turning conversion optimizer on)


At first it looks good with double the clicks (190) at almost the same click through rate. The real problem is that more clicks and paying more per click does not translate into more conversions. During the 2+ days I had conversion optimizer turned on I paid an extra $38.13 for one more conversion and my cost per conversion went from $2.50 to $7.59.

The one bright side is that unlike Yahoo where I had to manually edit all my bids after turning their optimizer off turning off the Google optimizer restored all my old bids and my campaign was back to normal with a single click of the mouse.