What I had in mind is a system where an advertiser could input the maximum cost per conversion their ROI can tolerate. Then Adwords could automatically increase/decrease the maximum bid based on the actual cost per conversion statistics.
It's something we already do ourselves but something like this would save advertisers a significant amount of time. Am I just dreaming or does this sound like a feasible option?
I'm interested in Webmaster World's feedback on the topics:
1) What are the best 3rd party applications?
2) What's missing from the best apps?
3) Are there any areas where most/all of the applications are falling short?
4) Are there areas where you spend too much time, and that should be automated?
[edited by: skibum at 6:19 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2005]
[edit reason] please don't solicit in the forums [/edit]
"We're in the process of developing a suite of testing and optimization tools for search advertisers, of which CPA optimization will be a part. [There are 20 companies or more already offering that, the VC $$ are already being splattered left & right] The initial focus will help to optimize not only against a defined CPA, but also on how to optimally allocate a fixed budget [4-6 firms already doing that, 1-2 of them doing it well, the rest are doing it by hand] among the different options & networks based on ROI [many firms doing this, with varying levels of automation. Success is the goal, automation a design goal not easily achieved], automated tools for running tests, doing day-parting [day-parting isn't always a good thing, I'll leave it to you to find out where you *don't* want to try it], and a number of other neat items.
I'm interested in Webmaster World's feedback on the topics:
1) What are the best 3rd party applications?
2) What's missing from the best apps?
3) Are there any areas where most/all of the applications are falling short?
4) Are there areas where you spend too much time, and that should be automated?
[You should go to SES SJ next week if you're not dissuaded by the following statement: you are very late to the search mgmt game, close to $100M has been invested by VC's into this, and by the time you finish what you're building and scale it in the real-world, others will be several steps ahead. That's another way of saying, unless your company has a larger strategic reason to be in keyword mgmt, I wouldn't focus your efforts there.]
[edited by: skibum at 6:20 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2005]
We can, and therefore expect to be able to show beta testers a very significant ROI improvement.
Thanks also for your comments on the state of the industry. While I agree that there's a lot of money being thrown at the sector, I think that the existing "best solutions" aren't good enough.
