I got a call from an AdWords advertiser whose account was behaving strangely, and who was anxiously trying to find out what was wrong and how to fix it.
Impressions, clicks and conversions had flatlined, and cost per click was erratic and high.
The campaign had been set to CPA bidding (which we like) but no conversions were being recorded.
This meant that the bid management was out of control, causing
- hardly any impressions
- cost per click all over the map
- positions way too low
- hardly any clicks
We reverted to CPC bidding (rather than CPA) and impressions immediately recovered.
Once the client had managed to reinstate conversion tracking, his impressions, clicks and conversions started to behave normally again.
The root cause of the problem?
- CPA bidding had been in control of bids and positions (which we agree with)
- Conversion events suddenly ceased back in December when the website had been updated
- Unknown to the client, his original conversion tracking code had been lost
- Reverting to CPC bidding revived the impressions and clicks
- Reinstating the original conversion tracking restored conversion events