Does Conversion Tracking Affect Ad Position?

[wasatch27]

Just finished a debate with one of my engineers who claims that adding Adword's conversion tracker (not analytics) will affect our ad positions. Basically, his argument is this: regardless of CTR, if a KW doesn't convert Adwords will start to drop the position of the ad. I am almost positive that he is wrong, but want confirmation.

[Robert_Charlton]

Disregard.... I was answering a different question, but I'm sure he's wrong about the one you're asking too.

[Dar]

We have recently added Google's Analytics to our web site.

The next day or so... we were dropped by MSN, and have been in the dog house for 2 weeks hoping it would work its self out. We hide on page 10 with MSN, right along side Yahoo.

According to Google Analytics only 11% of our total traffic comes from Yahoo and MSN.

I now question my PPC allotment for that 11% traffic.

[MarketingMind]

As of now, Adwords doesn’t consider the conversion data for calculation of Quality Score (vital component of determining the Ad positions and CPC you pay).

It has been in news and under speculation that in times to come Adwords will include it as one of major factor of Quality Scoreactor. As recently Adwords has started considering landing page as one of the factor determining Quality Score.

So I perceive days are not far when we have to start managing PPC just on SEO lines.

[Nivik23]

I can't imagine conversions being counted twoard your quality score as what you define as a conversion is completely up to you. All I'd have to do is make every action a user takes on our website count as a conversion.

The notion is completely silly unless I'm missing something here.

Also the idea of it affecting other search engine rankings seems just slightly less silly. Say the MSN bot crawls your site, if it finds the Google conversion code snippet it gives you a penelty. Then MSN would be filtering out possibly extremely relevant sites based upon a critera that is totally irrelevant. All they'd end up doing is hurting the quality of their search engine.

NiV23

[andrewgoodman]

The notion isn't all that silly. If Google is able to send back info about time on page etc., and incorporate that expression of user interest into its Quality Score mechanism (and there is nothing to say they wouldn't do that)... well... there would be a fairly high correlation between users who got fairly far along the path towards converting to a sale, and those who actually did.

So, maybe just maybe, depending on the formula at any given time, it might look like ads & groups that have a particularly high conversion rate, are also getting high QS and rising up the page, or vice versa.

And wouldn't that be cool. If you optimize your ad for conversions, not just CTR, it actually benefits you. So instead of being penalized on ad position for doing that, the impact on ad position of optimizing ads for high conversion rate might be neutral, or even positive.

Am I dreaming here? :)

[Mel66]

If you optimize your ad for conversions, not just CTR, it actually benefits you. So instead of being penalized on ad position for doing that, the impact on ad position of optimizing ads for high conversion rate might be neutral, or even positive.

Am I dreaming here? :)
If you're dreaming, Andrew, you and I are having the same dream! :D Seriously -- I would love it if Google factored conversion into the equation. CTR doesn't always translate into conversions. I realize G makes money on clicks, but they make $0 if I pull my ad because it isn't converting and I can't afford their QS-based keyword minimums. Isn't there a happy medium where we can both make some money?

Melissa

[Robert_Charlton]

I think that there are so many definitions of conversion that this kind of tracking by Google's metrics would always be flawed. What about telephone conversions for retailers, eg? What about branding? What about lead generation in a very long buying cycle?

And what about companies who are using metrics other than Google's for measuring these things?

[Nivik23]

fairly far along the path towards converting to a sale

I think you're assuming a e-commerce site. There are many sites, like myself, that advertize with AdWords that are not e-commerce sites. Regardless, you can define a conversion as anything you want. I'll just count every single page on my site as a conversion and have my conversion rate sky rocket if Google is using the conversion rate as a measure of quality score.

Length of session and depth of session are totally different though, although usualy related to conversions (if conversions are actually conversions). Depth and length would be great in terms of computing your quality score.

Even more so, a minimum length of session would also be a great filter to weed out click fruad, ie < 3 sec. Yeah....that's gonna happen

NiV23

[AussieWebmaster]

If you're dreaming, Andrew, you and I are having the same dream! :D Seriously -- I would love it if Google factored conversion into the equation. CTR doesn't always translate into conversions. I realize G makes money on clicks, but they make $0 if I pull my ad because it isn't converting and I can't afford their QS-based keyword minimums. Isn't there a happy medium where we can both make some money?

Melissa

Come on both of you..... to factor conversion would mean only users of GA would get an advantage.... move over Microsoft Google wants an antitrust case pending against them too.............

Because that would be forcing people to use Google Analytics or risk falling off the SERPs....

[Mel66]

Good points, all -- but I can still dream, can't I? :D

Melissa

[AussieWebmaster]

Good points, all -- but I can still dream, can't I? :D

Melissa

God forbid we shatter your dreams.....

[Nivik23]

Central

We have a dreamer in sector Z tracking code: Mel66SEWFGAWT237102

This is not a drill

Initiate shatter sequence Alpha

In 5...4...3...2...1...0

"Your dreams were shattered today by the Central Office's of Reality. Have a nice day! And keep your head out of the clouds!"

NiV23