Cheaper clicks but my conversions are way more expensive...

Discussion in 'Pay Per Click Advertising' started by LearningPPC, Jul 11, 2008.

  1. #1
    I have a general PPC theory question I'd really appreciate feedback on:

    My company was running a single Ad Group with about 50-80 terms. We set each term to broad, exact, and phrase match and bid fairly high (from 4-8 dollars max CPC) on the terms. This group had a single text ad.

    We then paused this campaign. We pulled a number of more specific variations of the terms, and then broke up the Ad Group into several smaller groups that were better targeted and more closely related. We set all these terms to broad match. We created specific text ads for each of these more specific Ad Groups. We bid very low (from .50 cents to 1.50) on these terms. We've also monitored incoming traffic and set several negative keywords.

    The result has been that impressions and clicks have spiked dramatically (roughly 10 fold), costs per click have dropped dramatically (from almost 5 dollars to about 90 cents), click through rate and average ad position have held (slight increase in average ad position, slight decrease in click through).

    The big issue is that we've taken a huge hit on conversions. Our conversions are costing almost twice as much per conversion even though the clicks are so much cheaper.

    Why would these clicks be so much less valuable from a conversion standpoint? Also setting all three matching options was done by a search consultant; what's the overall impact of that practice?

    Thanks in advance to anyone with any ideas or feedback.
     
    LearningPPC, Jul 11, 2008 IP