To maximise profits from adwords I'm interested to know which metric people target? I used to just focus on cost per conversion to make sure sales are profitable but it doesn't necessarily maximise profits. Interested in advice on this?
I think you should use conversion optimizer for bidding and also need to check through which keywords you are getting conversions. So from that you can focus more on keywords through which you are getting more conversions and remove other keywords which are not driving conversion. You can also make the changes in ads for keywords which are not getting conversions. And you need to keep tracking on negative keywords so by adding negative keywords you will receive more relevant clicks and your conversion will increase.
Get your quality scores up to drive down CPC. Think about the info here: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2454010?hl=en-AU which specifically lists factors impacting quality scores.