Comments on: Google AdWords enhancements Summer 2013 https://www.smartinsights.com/paid-search-marketing-ppc/paid-search-targeting/google-adwords-enhancements-summer-2013/ Digital Marketing > The Marketing Strategy Blog Tue, 23 Jul 2013 15:49:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: Joel Chudleigh https://www.smartinsights.com/paid-search-marketing-ppc/paid-search-targeting/google-adwords-enhancements-summer-2013/#comment-13468 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 15:49:00 +0000 http://www.smartinsights.com/?p=27638#comment-13468 In reply to jamesgurd.

Hi James

Yes it could be but in the majority of cases I think not.

If you look at the time lag in conversions in Google analytics for most of your clients you will see that the vast majority of conversions happen within 1 day. Of course if you have an industrial supplier of expensive machinery then this may not be the case.

But for the average B2C or even B2B business conversions happen relatively quickly.

I am not discounting the importance of looking at the conversion funnel as definitely many people visit a number of times before a purchase but amongst our clients around 60% on average convert within 1 click and that is across multiple industries of B2C and B2B.

In your example – if you know that visits on a Wednesday cause conversions the following week then of course optimise for it – you can see this data on the time lag in Google analytics, but in my experience this is not the reality of what happens on average, or to be more accurate, most of the time.

Typically we set bidding rules in Adwords using conversions (many per click) rather than (1 per click) so that we account for keywords that contribute but do not get the final conversion.

How much you can do the joined up analysis between Adwords and analytics depends very much on the type of business we are talking about, the technology they use, the inclination towards data driven decisions in the business etc. we have clients where we can see the real value of each keyword on the bottom line but that is rare. For most clients we push for more reliable data but often there are obstacles to get to this point.

In most cases we have to settle for last click and in my experience, last click is a pretty good guideline.

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By: jamesgurd https://www.smartinsights.com/paid-search-marketing-ppc/paid-search-targeting/google-adwords-enhancements-summer-2013/#comment-13458 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 13:57:00 +0000 http://www.smartinsights.com/?p=27638#comment-13458 Hi Joel,

Thanks for the post.

One question – isn’t is misleading to base bidding decisions purely on last click attribution?

When you say:

“Bid adjustments can go both ways, so in this example Monday has the best cost per conversion so we have increased our bids by 20%. On Wednesday and Thursday performance tends to be worse so we have reduced bids by 20%.”

What if Wednesday visits actually drive more return traffic on a Monday that then coverts? Dropping bids could compromise net results.

How do you advise people use AdWords and analytics to do the joined up analysis?

Thanks
james

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