If you use Google’s conversion code on your thank-you pages to track actions, leads, opt-ins or sales, Google Conversion Optimizer allows you to bid on the cost of the lead instead of the cost of the click.

You set your target Cost Per Action and Google’s bots go out and look for more traffic that converts at that price.

So let’s say you normally pay $1.00 per click and 10% of your clicks fill in a form, download your white paper and produce a sales lead. Then your Cost Per Action is $10.00. You can bid $10 per opt-in and let Google look for more keywords and / or Content sites that convert at that price.

By the way, Google Conversion Optimizer is proof positive that Google is not inherently “against” opt-in pages! Normally GCO works MUCH better with a small step like a $10 sales lead than with a large step like a $300 product sale.

Better to collect a lead than go straight for the sale. What Google is “against” is anonymous people hiding behind Squeeze pages and making it impossible to find anything on their site. Also – to some extent, GCO bypasses Quality Score.

Google Conversion Optimizer then looks for patterns in the data that would be very hard for a human to identify. Google looks for:

• Related keywords that work for similar types of advertisers
• Geographical patterns – i.e. people in big cities convert better than people in small towns; people in Texas convert better than people in Louisiana
• Time patterns – Google figures out, say, that people convert better on weekends than weekdays and adjusts delivery accordingly
• Sites on the Content Network that have worked well for similar advertisers

Google runs all kinds of tests for you and seeks to optimize your conversions based on the bids you set.

Two things you need to know about this:

1) This does not absolve you of understanding how to set up an AdWords campaign properly! The autopilot setting in a jet doesn’t relief the pilot of knowing how to take off and land his plane.

2) Because you have to give Google the freedom to make new discoveries, there are any number of campaign settings you may change. For example instead of “Show ads evenly over time” you should use “Show ads as quickly as possible.” This gives the bots more latitude in testing ads.

Over time, Google will figure out which ads work best in which places. Your mission is to help the bots do their job.

WHO STANDS TO MAKE BIG $ USING GCO:

If your sales funnel isn’t quite ironed out yet and you’re still trying to find a sales formula that works, I don’t think you’re ready for Google Conversion Optimizer.

But if your sales funnel does work and you’d happily pay 2X as much money for 2X as much traffic, GCO could be a godsend.

Perry Marshall