A couple of weeks ago, we announced the Conversion Champion Challenge, a contest challenging you to get your ROI in shape for the summer by using free AdWords conversion products & submitting a mini case study about your experience. It’s not too late to enter and compete to win the grand prize – an AdWords voucher and a trip to Google!

Whether you’re just getting started or are actively working to get your conversion rate in shape, here are some best practices for getting the most out of two of the free AdWords tool in the Conversion Champion Challenge: Conversion Optimiser & Search Funnel reports.

Tips for using Conversion Optimiser

• Save time by letting Conversion Optimiser manage your bids to reach your ROI goals (On average, campaigns that use Conversion Optimiser experience a 21% increase in conversions and a 14% decrease in cost-per-conversion ).* 
• Choose to bid using the metric that you’re most comfortable with: Target CPA or Max CPA
• Set different CPA bids for each Ad Group if conversions in one are of more or less value to you than conversions in another. 
• Let Conversion Optimiser run for a couple weeks to give it a chance to acclimate to your campaign’s performance.
• Test it on just one campaign if you’re not ready to make large scale changes to your account. If you ever choose to disable the product, you’ll be able to return to the Max CPC bids that you had previously set.
• Learn more and check out these success stories from advertisers who have used Conversion Optimiser.

*This analysis compares the performance of Conversion Optimiser campaigns over the course of a year with a control set of campaigns and represents the average impact of Conversion Optimiser. The actual impact will vary from campaign to campaign. 


Tips for using Search Funnel Reports

• Run Search Funnel Reports within your AdWords account to gain insight into which ads and keywords users clicked on leading up to a conversion.
• Identify keywords that play a key role in the conversion process and ensure that you’re bidding competitively
• Identify low value keywords, those that you're paying for but aren't leading to conversions, and decrease your bids accordingly.
• Use the Time Lag and Path Length reports to understand how long (time and number of searches) it takes before conversions typically happen on your site. This can help you determine how long to run your campaigns.
• Learn more about Search Funnels at this help centre article and also check out upcoming Conversion Room posts where we'll deep dive into how Search Funnels can help you gain further AdWords ROI insights

We can’t wait to hear about your experiences with these useful tools, so let us know how it goes by entering the Conversion Champion Challenge. 

Posted by Alan Wrafter, Google Analytics Team.

With the recent launch of Search Funnels, we wanted to host a webinar showing off these new reports and we also wanted to offer you a refresher on Conversion Optimiser. So this Thursday we'll give an overview of these features, showing how they work and how they can help you.

At the webinar, you’ll learn:

• How tracking conversions can take you beyond clickthrough rate and help you focus your spend on the ads and keywords that drive sales and leads
• How the data in Search Funnels can take you a step further and tell you which ads and keywords are assisting your conversions
• How Conversion Optimiser can use your conversion tracking data and cost-per-acquisition goals to help you focus your spend on the clicks most likely to convert

The webinar takes place this Thursday, June 10th at 5pm GMT. Register here if you’d like to attend, and please submit or vote on questions related to Conversion Tracking, Conversion Optimiser or Search Funnels that you'd like answered during the webinar by Wednesday, June 9.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Team.

The forecast for the weekend is heating up again and the UK is looking forward to highs of a whopping 27C!

Now that summer is really here, potential customers are thinking about how to get in shape as quickly as they can. Your conversion rate should be doing the same thing. It’s critical that your marketing efforts and website are in shape to attract these valuable visitors and convert them into customers.

Getting started is the hardest part, so to give you a push in the right direction, we’re launching the Conversion Champion Challenge.

The contest is simple:

1. Track conversions on your site using one of Google’s free measurement products:

• AdWords Conversion Tracking instructions
• Importing goals from Google Analytics instructions

2. Analyse and try to boost your performance using AdWords Search Funnels and/or Conversion Optimiser

3. Show us the results and tell us your story here!

We’ll select the advertiser with the most interesting, innovative and unique case study for:

• Inclusive trip (incl. flights, hotel & dinner for 2 people) to Google, Zurich

• You will meet the Google Conversion Team who will audit your website and give you a usability assessment with recommendations to further improve your conversion rate

• $500 in AdWords credit (or local equivalent)

• A blog post featuring your website and a big smiley photo of you with the Google team!  

So what are you waiting for? Take the Conversion Champion Challenge today! Entries due by 31 July, 2010.


Posted by Alan Wrafter, Google Analytics Team.