If you’re attempting to engage customers and bring in business with a website and online ads, one of the most important things to understand is Google AdWords’ conversion tracking. A free tool included in AdWords, conversion tracking provides you with information about what happens after a customer clicks one of your ads. Did they purchase a product, fill out a form, or sign up for a newsletter? This information is crucial in determining ROI and analyzing the efficacy of your Google ads.
Conversions may seem intimidating or hard to understand, but they’re really quite simple. Conversions can be broken down into three subgroups: general conversion, estimated conversions, and other conversions. Each type can provide your business with unique and informative statistics, which you can then use to connect your ads and keywords to specific business goals.
General Conversions
General conversions include the most important numbers and stats, like converted clicks and phone call conversions. If set up properly, converted clicks are helpful for tracking leads and can help you approximate the amount of customers you’re receiving directly from your Google ads. Converted clicks can also help you identify repeat customers and determine if multiple actions have come from the same customer (for example, a single customer filling out the same form twice).
Phone call conversions are useful for tracking sales offline. In some cases, a click on your ad doesn’t lead to a sale online, but sets a customer down a path that leads to him or her calling your business. Phone call conversions track these offline actions, allowing you to continue measuring what happens even if the process crosses from online to offline.
Estimated Conversions
Estimated cross-device conversions are a kind of estimated conversion. Estimated cross-device conversions take place when a customer clicks an ad on one device (for example, on their mobile phone), but then converts on a separate device (their tablet or desktop). This conversion type is helpful in determining how to best reach your customers. Perhaps you’ll discover that it’s more beneficial to serve more ads on mobile devices, or that certain browsers tend to reach more customers.
Other Conversions
In addition to the types of conversions described above, there are a few more conversion types that don’t comfortably fit into the above categories. Click-assisted conversions are one such example. These conversions, available in search network only, provide information about how a keyword assisted with a conversion, even if that keyword wasn’t the last thing a user clicked prior to the conversion.
A view-through conversion is another example that is available for display network ads. These types of conversions occur when a customer views your image ads or media before converting, but never actually clicks on your ad. If this customer converts later, it counts as a view-through conversion. Often, this information is counted elsewhere in your SEO data.
Conversions can be overwhelming, especially for someone new to Google AdWords, but if used correctly, they can help businesses measure and attain their goals. Thanks to the various types of conversions, you can choose a model that’s ideal for your company’s unique goals and track customer interaction.
