anyone had success with this?
It's one of those things that you have to try as it can go either way.
It's worth giving a try, but keep a close eye on it and it does take a couple of weeks to settle after it's turned on.
the eligible campaign, has a $100 daily budget.
right now, i am at %16 CTR, Avg CPC $1.71, 22 (1 per click conversions) , 52 (many per click conversions) with an average Cost 1 per conversion of $90.32...and a Cost Many per conversion of $38.21
the conversion optimzer says i should set a max CPA of $560! now i know there are a bunch of "secret" factors that G takes into account, but seriously?
i can already see my alerts "You need to increase your daily budget" , "we need more money to make this worth your while..."
It worked really well with the majority of accounts, but has admittedly not fared so well on some. Set your CPA slightly above what you would want to be paying for the first 2 weeks - it takes 2 weeks to really bed in and then reduce your CPA down to what you want to pay.
they almost literally said "accept the recommended bid" becuase if you go lower, then your traffic is going to tank.
i dont want to pay more than $150.. and my recommneded bid is over $500? my traffic will fall like a hot rock.
i actually drafted up a proposal months ago before i started the campaign, that said with the money we spend, and a 2% conversion rate, we should be spending about $150 per targeted lead...
im actually doing better than i proposed, and i dont know if i want to mess with that...
I'm in the same position - doing very well, but I've seen some of the stats for accounts this has worked well on - and it's worked very well - but then that all depends on how good / bad the account was in the first place.
I think I'm probably going to try it on one of our campaigns and then post the results on here...
one. accept their recommended bid. and if the conversions start to skyrocket, and the cost per aquisition stays reasonable, im good.
if the stats start to drop. turn it off and go back to what i was doing before.
OR try a lower CPA bid and see what happens to my traffic if it stays the same, and nothing really happens, increase the CPA. If it falls like a hot rock, again, turn it off.
I've tried to follow all of the anecdotes out there on the Internet regarding people who've tried C.O. over the past 9-12 months, and aside from Google's own case studies, well over 50% of people who've tried C.O. have had negative results, and >75% of those who I would [subjectively] characterize as intermediate or advanced AdWords buyers.
i have been thinking... it seems like its a case of "let me take care of that for you."
and as soon as you think things are good, its poof "oh by the way i need more money"
im going to hold off on CO right now.
That's good advice in any case, but with C.O. it's imperative, in my experience.
EXAMPLE
I'm willing to pay $20 per conversion. When I use conversion optimizer I have to set CPA at $30 to get an actual cost per conversion of $20 for search and content. If I set it at $20 then the actual cost will be around $15 (with less traffic).
The problem is search-partners. If I set it at $30 then the actual cost per conversion for search-partners will be around $35. So $15 more then search and content. (note: I see the same problem with cpc bidding). So what you need is at least an option to make a seperate CPA bid for search-partners.
Anyway, I never use the bid recommended by the conversion optimizer. I always use a lower bid and most of the times I don't see a drop in my traffic. I think you should test it first with the actual bid you are willing to pay for a conversion and ignore the recommended bid.
That's what I was thinking - that the majority of the good things would happen to users whose accounts aren't that great. I would classify myself as an advanced buyer and I'm struggling to see how they're going to improve the account much...
during the webinar, i couldnt believe some of the questions that were getting attention ... basic ish like "what is the difference between CPA and Max CPC"...
Really? i thought we were past that.
