AdWords Advertisers Can Now Optimize By Conversions

Optimizing based on click-through data? That’s so 2010. Google is now letting AdWords advertisers automatically optimize what ads display most based on conversion rates.

“We’ve always encouraged you to test multiple ads in each ad group, and we’ve offered our help by showing ads with the highest clickthrough rates more often,” the company wrote in a blog post. “However, some of you have told us that the ad with the highest clickthrough rate isn’t always the ad with the highest conversion rate and that you’d like to be able to optimize for conversions rather than clicks.”

To take advantage of conversion optimization, advertisers must have conversion tracking activated in their AdWords accounts, as data from that tool will be used to determine what ads drive the most conversions. When Google doesn’t have enough conversion data — such as when a new campaign launches — it will default to click-through optimization.

Advertisers with conversion tracking can find the new settings under Advanced settings on the Settings tab of any campaign. If it’s enabled, it will apply to all ads on Google, as well as on the search and display networks.