Google announced a new AdWords feature to help advertisers automate their bids on their CPA (cost-per-acquisition) ads.

Conversion Optimizer is a tool that will look at your costs and conversion goals and automatically change your bid prices based on those metrics. All you need to do is define a maximum CPA bid and this tool will do the rest.

In order to work, the optimizer requires you set up AdWords Conversion Tracking and have at least 300 conversions in the last 30 days.

Google offers instructions on how to set up Conversion Optimizer. In short, go to a campaign, then click on an ad group, then go to your “Edit Campaign Settings” section and then finally click on “Bidding Options.” Personally, I see a grayed out version of the Conversion Optimizer because I do not have AdWords Conversion Tracking setup, so it looks like this:

It is important to note that, currently, the following features are not supported by Conversion Optimizer:

• Position Preference
• Budget Optimizer
• Site Targeting
• Advanced Ad Scheduling
• Preferred Cost Bidding

Related Topics: Google: AdWords

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz