What to do when cost per conversions increase?

How do you go about cutting the fat & inefficiencies?

[RockSolidWes]

Working on a campaign, it was performing very well. Suddenly, the cost per conversions have increased a bit overnight, and continue to hold steady at the higher levels. There are about 100 ad groups, so it is a large campaign.

I’m thinking about doing a report and to lower bids on specific adgroups. I’m thinking about taking the stats for a weeks time, is that sufficient time to indicate a consistent trend for the adgroup?

Any other tips to go in and trim the fat? Tools, etc.?

Wes

[TMF_Melissa]

I personally manage my account on a CPL basis.

What I find is I beef up my lowest cost CPL keywords, while lowering my higher CPL keywords. I try never to kill a keyword simply because its not performing as well as some other keywords, only because while it might not be getting the lead it is driving people deeper keywords that are cheaper and are getting the leads.

I do tend to evaluate my CPL on an overall Campaign basis vs. keyword by keyword. The sum of the parts blah blah blah....

Hope this helps a bit. I'm crashing off my Halloween candy sugar rush.

M

[Hubie]

start using [] and ""

or break these keywords down to longer phrases. you might miss out on a lead here or there, but your ROI will JUMP.

Hubes

[RonnieG]

If your web site's stats allow you to see all search engine search terms used, monitor them daily and look for negative keywords that you can add at the campaign or ad group level. You may be getting impressions and clicks on terms that are not really related to your campaign's product/service. Eliminating spurrious impressions is a great way to improve CTR and conversion rates.

[edited by: RonnieG at 1:35 am (utc) on Nov. 2, 2006]

[sniffer]

^ yes, a lot of searches are post-purchase questions like "fitting keyword properly" and people will click on your ad looking for the information