A Technical Issue Giving me $1 Conversions

If it is Google Problem why haven't they told me?

[JustGirl]

I've seen $1 conversions in my reports for over a year now. When I first started at the company I was told not to worry about it, that it was testing.

I became concerned when the $1 conversions were being traced back to my international campaigns. I wanted to know why our IT guys were clicking on my international campaigns to test things, and how they were doing it. My IT guys denied testing and said they didn't know what I was talking about.

So I went to my Google representative. He didn't have an answer. I thought it was an old conversion metric that was set up, so I turned it off. My google representative was positive that was the problem. BUT I continued to get the $1 conversions.

Eventually my representative contacted the Google tech team and I have been told that it is a known technical issue.

What does that mean? And why was I told earlier?

Is anyone else having this problem?

[edited by: JustGirl at 8:49 pm (utc) on Aug. 26, 2008]

[cyberandroid]

why are you freaking out

it appears that the conversions werent actually conversions but reporting errors
but you pay for clicks (not conversions)

never rely on adwords alone for conversion tracking
personally i like the combination of adwords conversion tracking and analytics goals

[tomasvdb]

cyberandroid: i think it is fair to expect that Google should be able to correctly track the conversion values.

if they get the values wrong, who says they're getting the number of conversions right?

i agree that it is a good idea to use multiple tracking options but that doesn't mean Google conversion tracking is allowed to be buggy.

if you can't trust your tracking provider, how do you manage your campaigns?

[cyberandroid]

this has been a known issue could stem from conversion tracking not being setup properly

that being said are you really suggesting that 99% of advertisers dont have a secondary method of traking conversions?

[JustGirl]

Well, we do have a second tracking system, but it is a pain in the ass to optimize the campaigns using that tracking system b/c you have to get the cost data from google.

I just don't understand how Google could know it was an issue and not tell us about it! AND it took weeks to even get Google to admit it was their problem. Our representative didn't know anything about it, until we kept pushing for an answer and he finally asked his tech support. Why aren't the people at Google communicating.