Figure 14: Cross-Channel: Change in conversion rate associated with campaign over time

appear to favor one advertising platform over another. Figure 17 examines how the length simply in terms of number of characters of the search terms used for targeting campaigns over over time. It suggests that much like the example of the single-channel attribution technology, some of this improvement in conversions can be traced back to the use of more detailed criteria to target ads. The next question is whether this increase in conversion rates aects prices in these advertising markets. In particular, do these higher conversion rates come at a higher cost? I did not have access to direct pricing data, so I collected data using Googles Trac Predictor tool on the likely cost per click of each of the dierent paid search ads for this rm.6 In general, as shown by Figure 18, the price per click dropped somewhat for search ads. However, what was startling was how the eective cost per conversion fell far more rapidly, as shown
As noted in Goldfarb and Tucker (2011d), in expectation this predictor tool gives unbiased estimates of prices, though ex post the prices paid may dier depending on how the search engine rates that advertisers quality
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