Grayed Out

A Google spokesperson reported to MarketingVOX that the breakage in the integration of conversion data between Google Analytics and Google Adwords has been fixed, but that the lost past data will be restored "in the coming days." This will not set aright the poor automated media choices and bids the data breakage caused while the system was down. That fix was first reported here at 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday.

The broken part was the data linkage for those advertisers that create a feedback loop from their analytics data back into Google Adwords, allowing Adwords to optimize bids based on conversion performance. Reportedly, campaigns that have bid prices set based on conversion data are finding that the lack of conversion information is causing havoc with bids.

Forum participants at WebmasterWorld indicated that conversations with Google reps indicated the search giant knew of the problem, but had not yet developed a fix.

It remains unknown how many accounts are affected, but at least one search marketing firm indicates that all of its accounts have suffered the loss. Because Google's cost-per-conversion system requires decent conversion performance for a campaign to be successful in the media auctions, the affected accounts have seen their daily spend throttle back to very low spend levels.

Search engine marketers expressed concern on the forum that by the time the issue is fixed, Google will have a few weeks of incorrect conversion data, which might affect their campaigns with either continued poor spending levels or an over-correction that causes a great deal of mistargeted, expensive bidding.