If you have recently checked your Adwords conversions you may have noticed a new set of conversion results
. On the face of it they seem to suggest that you now have twice as many conversions as you'd normally expect. Have you just hit Adwords gold?
Unfortunately no you haven't. However the new numbers are very useful as I'll explain now.
The new conversion statistic I am referring to is the one called the Many Per Click conversions. If you haven't seen it yet, then take a look at your customise columns view under your Filter and views options.
Before I explain this new number, lets make sure that we all understand the original 1 Per Click Conversions number.
1 Per Click Conversion tells you how many people have been converted. If you are measuring sales using conversion tracking then 1 Per Click is telling you how many people bought something from you.
For example, if someone comes to your site through an Ad and buys from you then the 1 Per Click conversion number will be one. If that same person comes back to your site the following day and buys from you again the 1 Per Click Conversion number will still be 1. So this statistic is really telling you how many people have been converted and NOT how many conversions you've had in total.
For ages, this has been the only conversion count you could get from Adwords. However now they have introduced the Many Per Click statistic and this tells you how many conversions you've had (eg: how many sales not just how many people you've sold to).
In the example of the returning buyer the Many Per Click number would be 2. Personally if I'm tracking sales from Adwords then the Many Per Click number is far more interesting to me as it tells me how successful a keyword or Ad is at making sales.
Where this possibly gets confusing and not so helpful is where you are measuring conversions to sales and conversion to your mailing list at the same time. However I doubt that the 1 Per Click Conversion statistic is completely useful in that scenario.
As with the 1 Per Click Conversion statistic, the Many Per Click statistic also has results for Many Per Click conversion rates and conversion costs. All equally as useful in establishing which of your keywords are giving you the best return on investment.