Losing control to AdWords algos

Having more than one creative per search term leave the choise for goolge

[Booster]

While deeply reviewing stats of one of our campaigns, we found a strange behavioral in CTR, under one of the strong search terms.
since the CTR usually is pretty stable, and suddenly it moved dramatically up we had to find the answer.
It was obvious that there was an increase in the CTR after adding a new ad into the optional creative of this search term. Surprisingly the ad performed much better in terms of CTR and Google took the traffic almost 100% into the new one.
the sad thing about it, was that although CTR went UP, conversion started to go DOWN, leaving the advertiser with a bad result- more clicks, more cost, less sales.
of course Google did the right business move for them (as usual :-/) and picked the better CTR performing ad without taking into account the advertiser needs- conversions.

Conclusion- it is of course important to test different creative to find the best performing ad, but it's also very important to disable the ones which you don't want later on, otherwise google will be free to pick them and show them for their performances, rather for your own good, and without letting you make this decision.

I wonder if you have a different solution for this problem, or did you experience similar AdWords behavioral?

[BDuns]

Honestly, I have no idea what is going on with Google right now...yesterday, I found at least 4 searches on keywords we are not bidding on are triggering ads of ours. We are even getting ads to display when we search using our keywords, but translated into another language...not helpful when our site is in english.

I too have seen my number of clicks and impressions go up, with a decline in the conversion rate...and summer is our season. Start experimenting with searches that you are not bidding on(but are at least in the same zip code), and I think you will be unpleasantly surprised with what the algo is matching your ads to.

Back to your original post about which creative google uses....I am starting to fully believe that Google makes its decisions based on what gets them more money and more clicks...your success is #2 in priority.

IMO...

[koncept]

Change your ad serving settings in the 'edit campaign settings' panel. Change it to 'rotate' rather than 'optimize'.

This will show the ads more evenly which should give you time to evaluate the conversions for each version and act accordingly, rather than google ramping up the serving of ads based on CTR, not ROI.

[Booster]

BDuns- i see we're facing the same problems...
your opinion is right and expectable- google is optimizing for their needs, not ours.
I think the impressions you got on search terms you didn't bid for, are coming from broad match, which is a similar problem to what i stated in my initial post- leave minimal room for google to chose, and make sure you know what you want- use one creative, the one you want, avoid broad match where you know the term you are looking for etc.

[SanDiego Art]

Since Google has no control over your site's Conversion Rate, they are doing exactly what they said they would, display the best performing ad in front of their visitors that generates the most traffic for the advertiser. If it were to include Conversion Rates too, how would it know the difference in an email signup (lead conversion) vs. a revenue generating sale. How would it know? All advertisers don't even use the Conversion counter, so this further complicates it.

You wrote the ad, Google didn't. Obviously something in your new ad differs from the old in that it ENTICES people to click more often, yet it either converts at the same rate or less (a lower rate, doesn't however mean less TOTAL conversions) so they aren't buying as often. So really, the control lies with the copywriter.

Your ad copy needs to pre-screen potential visitors in order to keep conversion rates high WHILE at the same time be enticing enough to click on vs. the other advertisements. It is a delicate balanacing act.

Including things like the price of the item in the ad for example helps keep the casual browser from clicking more often, as they can get some of the information of what they are looking for in the ad. Of course, including the price (if too high for the customer) could reduce your CTR (because they know they can't afford it), but those who do click are more qualified and more likely to convert.