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You are unhappy with the results because you're optimizing towards clicks. You should always optimize towards whatever is important to you. So if you would like people to click through to a specific page, define that to be a conversion and then optimize towards conversions. Optimizing to clicks is not great even if you exclude mobile devices - it's just not what you want.

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Do you have any resources that talk about how to optimize for conversions?

In AdWords it's under Tools - Conversions

You have to setup conversion, and insert corresponding javascript into your conversion page.

Than make your AdWords campaigns to focus on conversions instead of clicks.

This, if you would like to do it yourself. However, the display advertising space is not currently as turnkey as search advertising, so in most cases you're better off handing off the trafficking of the campaign to an ad network. Quantcast and RocketFuel are two that focus specifically on delivering conversions, and both consistently beat Google on CPA (cost per action). Disclaimer: I currently work at Quantcast.

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