How to Move from Converted Clicks to Conversions: No More Converted Clicks Metric in Adwords

No More Converted Clicks metric in Adwords: Google says it’s outdated. Learn How to Move from Converted Clicks to Conversions.

Announced early this week in Google’s official blog on AdWords, the “Converted Clicks” metric in Adwords will be done away with. Officially, “Converted clicks” will not be supported starting October 2016, the last quarter of this year.

Adwords conversion tracking

What is the “Converted Clicks” metric?

On the Google Adwords dashboard, if Converted Clicks is one of the metrics you look at, you will find a “Converted Clicks” column and on top of a column, the name of the column and a question mark at the end of it (see image below).

Converted Clicks column in Adwords

When you hover on the question mark, a window would show providing information about this metric.

According to the information available in the Google Adwords dashboard, Converted Clicks is “the number of clicks that convert within your chosen conversion window (typically 30 days).” It is how many clicks produced one or more conversion actions which is usually counted under the “Conversions” metric. The Converted Clicks metric helps you in your Google Adwords advertising to approximate the number of unique customers are being acquired through the campaign.

Converted Clicks definition

What Does Google Recommend?

If You Are Using the Converions metric

If you’re already using “Conversions” for reporting and bidding, you do not have to do anything. But, if you are using Converted Clicks as your primary bid metric for Target CPA or Enhanced CPC you should plan on updating ro changing to “Conversions” by September 21st. You will find a step-by-step process on how to do this below.

If You Are Using the Converted Clicks metric

According to their blog:

“If you rely on the “Converted clicks” reporting column to make bidding and budgeting decisions then you should also move to “Conversions.” This column can be configured to report similar numbers to your “Converted clicks” column, though you should review your setup to make sure you are counting the actions that matter most to your business.”

How to Move from Converted Clicks to Conversions

Below is a very simple and easy step-by-step process on how to shift from using Converted Clicks metric to Conversions metric.

1. On the Google Adwords dashboard, click “Tools” on the menu bar (found on top of the page) and then “Conversions”.

Accessing Google Adwords conversions settings

2. After clicking, by default, you will be taken to the Conversion Actions page. On the left side of the screen (sidebar), loate and click “Settings”. You will see a the Conversion bid metric section where you can choose between Converted Clicks and Conversions. Just click the button before Conversions and then click “Save”.

Change Adwords Conversions Settings - Converted Clicks to Conversions

New Ad Extension: Google Adwords Testing Click to SMS – Is It True?

Is Google Adwords Testing Click to SMS, a New Ad Extension?

Search Engine Land, just recently, received an anonymous tip from one of their readers that Google Adwords may be testing a new ad extension called Click-to-SMS (CTS). Late last year, Google Adwords discontinued Social extensions. If you are not yet familiar with ad extensions, read about a previous article on ad extensions for text ads.

If this is true, then this click to SMS ad extension would go well with their existing call extensions. Call extensions allow advertisers to add a call button to their ads and target people with mobile devices that are capable of making calls. A sample Google Adwords text ad with a call extension can be seen below.

Call Extensions for Mobile and Desktop

Now, if the new ad extension click to SMS is added, it would add a button that directs not to a call but to a messaging application in the mobile phone to send an SMS. Continue reading

Maintaining Ad Positions 1 to 4 in Adwords Search Ads

Maintaining Ad Positions 1 to 4 is the Main Thing After Google’s New SERP Layout Update

A few months back, the PPC advertising community buzzed with the news about Google’s New SERP Layout. Bottom line, the ads on the right hand side of the search engine results page, which contained positions 4 to 11 on the paid results, have been removed. What used to be 3 ads on top, above the organic search results was changed to 4 paid text ads.

new SERP layout

There was a post by Search Engine Land about who really benefited or suffered because of Google’s updated SERP layout and some PPC data related to the SERP layout change were also provided by Word Stream.

How to Stay in Position 1 to 4 in Google Paid Ad Results

Inevitably, a PPC advertiser’s concern that need to be addressed is how to stay on positions 1 to 4 in the paid ads results. Google explains ad position – it is “determined by a formula called Ad Rank that gives your ad a score based on” three factors: Continue reading

Google Penguin Will Roll Out “As Soon As It Is Ready”

Google Penguin will be rolling out “As Soon As It Is Ready”

According to Google’s Zineb Ait, Google Penguin will be rolled out “as soon as it is ready”. At least that’s what they are aiming for, she said. This tweet came as a reply to a question about “the future update Google Penguin.”


Late in 2015, Google hinted on the next Penguin update and Gary Illyes confirmed through a tweet that the said Penguin roll-out will be in 2015. But this never took place and so, search engine marketers are expectant of an early 2016 Penguin update.

The Direction of SEO – Machine Learning and RankBrain

machine-learning-artificial-intelligence

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Google Favors HTTPS Pages in its Indexing Sytem

Google Favors HTTPS Pages over HTTP Pages In its Updated Indexing System

Google recently announced in the Google Webmaster Central Blog another update in its indexing system – it will prioritize indexing HTTPS pages over the regular HTTP ones. Although, Google has already started doing this last year when they started using HTTPS as a ranking signal, it was just recently that they announced the change to their indexing system.

HTTPS hypertext transfer protocol secure

Zineb Ait Bahajji of Google said, “we’ll start crawling HTTPS equivalents of HTTP pages, even when the former are not linked to from any page… When two URLs from the same domain appear to have the same content but are served over different protocol schemes, we’ll typically choose to index the HTTPS URL.”

Eight Conditions for HTTPS Priority Indexing

Google crawlers will choose to index HTTPS urls when a domain’s URLs have the same content but are served over different protocol schemes if the following criteria are met: Continue reading