Google CPA: How to make sure it works for you

Google Adwords CPA (cost per acquisition), is where you bid per acquisition and leave Google to adjust your CPC accordingly. However a CPA campaign will only work well if it has enough consistent data to work with. Read how to assist Google to give you the best ROI.

At face value a Google Adwords CPA campaign is attractive to businesses who don’t wish to get involved with their adwords campaigns too much, rather concentrating on converting leads to sales, or visitor optimization. i.e. what happens after the click.

However although this model is open to all there are some conditions which need to be met to allow Google’s algorithm to perform.

Firstly, and most importantly, you need to have been supplying Google with consistent conversion tracking, from consistently running campaigns. The bare minimum sample is 50 conversions, and a similar spending pattern over at least two weeks of conversion data.

This is the minimum, seeing as you are handing Google licence to spend your money for you, it might be worth planning ahead to allow enough time for seasonal, or short time frame variance to play out. You’ll need to plan ahead anyway as the option to run a CPA campaign will not be available until enough data had been collected via conversion tracking.

It is important to be spending consistently, that is not turning the campaign on and off manually all the time. I know this is a temptation for start-ups who are using Adwords for lead generation, and once enough leads are in, switching off to save expenditure, but this will play havoc with the algorithm (I have that on good authority from a Google rep I spoke with today).

If your current advertising budget means that there is not enough to be spent all month long, then why not cut back with Google ad scheduling? This way you can reduce the hours that the ads are shown in an automated and consistent way, but leave the campaign on. In a previous contract I used to severely reduce advertising over the weekends as that particular industry browsed but didn’t bite from Friday evening to Sunday lunchtime.

Once enough data has been collected, the CPA option is clickable, and it is worth noting that CPA campaigns are available for Google Search as well as the display networks.

The two work slightly differently however. On the display network your ad will be shown more to websites which perform to your chosen acquisition bid price, and less (for less CPC) to those sites that don’t perform.

For search CPA its is more of a case of adjusting the bid price to meet the CPA. It’s a kind of automated bid monitor taking advantage of changing market conditions. (Not all advertisers advertise all the time creating moments when competition is less and therefore the bid cheaper). I don’t know this next bit for certain, but I suspect that your ads position on the page moves around as well to meet this cost adjustment.

I’m told that currently 70% of ad spend is on Search, and only 30% on the content network. However I wonder if that will change as marketers become more comfortable with CPA bidding? I will be looking for any avenue to get the overall CPA down regardless of traffic type. How about you?