Rollback to Manual CPC or stay with Max Conversions
Context for this, my small cleaning business started a Search campaign end of April with Manual CPC on $25 daily budget. Targeted to a single medium metro area. About 60 keywords, all phrase and exact match and strong list of negatives. Booking Completed was primary conversion action and Generate Lead (basically submit contact info for quote) was secondary action. In one month I generated 3 booking conversions and 11 lead conversions. Most keywords were bid at $6 to $7 max CPC. CTR was 4.66% and Conv rate 2.17%. There are three services (regular/recurring cleaning, deep cleaning, move-in/out cleaning) and ad groups for each service. Ads final URLs are landing pages tailored to service.
And then I switched to Max Conversions. At the time, I wasn't realizing that some of this stuff takes some time. I had booked three jobs in week 2 and then was getting disappointed that they weren't continuing in following weeks. I read that 30 conversions ideal before switching to max conversions, but didn't look at it hard and figured it was time to move up. When I switched to max conversions, I also swapped primary and secondary so primary was now generate lead and secondary was booking. Based on volume it seemed that was going to be the path most wanted.
And the next four weeks were good numbers. CTR 7.62% and Conv rate 25%. But no bookings.
But since then the CTR has gone down to 5% and conv rate dropped to 17% with one booking.
Last week I created new landing pages with much better performance, mobile-first, and good message match to RSAs. I'm reviewing terms and adding negatives leaky terms every week.
I guess my question is... I was excited with my initial three bookings under relatively cheap clicks when I was on Manual CPC. Going to Max Conversions has improved my CTR and Conv rate, but the bidding on the clicks is so high (one day google bid $90 for three clicks that didn't convert and then I had no impressions for like two days while the budget averaged out) I'm wondering if I switched to Max Conversions too early and was getting more ROAS in Manual CPC mode.
Go back? Stay the course? Love to hear your advice. Can't find a lot of resources for small fry/low volume campaigns like me.