Google AdWords Goes from 'Converted Click' to 'Conversions' This Month
This month, advertisers will be saying goodbye to the “converted click” metric in Google AdWords. If you use converted clicks as your primary conversion metric, get ready to switch over to “conversions”! Both the columns that report converted click metrics and your historical data associated with converted clicks will be removed. Google has been making the “conversion” metric more sophisticated over the years so you’ll actually be able to bring over some of the functionality of “converted clicks” and perhaps even use the flexibility of the “conversion” metric to your advantage
Comparing “Converted Clicks” and “Conversions”
The “converted click” metric counts the unique click that results in one or more conversions.
On the other hand, “conversions” is a more fluid measure of how many conversions result from your AdWords efforts, whether the end conversion is an order, lead, or any other type of goal. You can apply several different settings and assign weights to the “conversions” metric to fit your business needs and measure outcomes. Furthermore, you can parse more information from “conversions”, including conversion source and clicks that led to a store visit conversion.
To illustrate the difference between the two: if a user clicked on your ad once and, upon arriving to your site, signed up for a newsletter and filled out a lead form (both of which could be considered conversions), “converted clicks” would report one converted click, whereas “conversions” would report two conversions.
In some cases, advertisers might intentionally look at converted clicks to get a better picture of how many unique users are interacting with their product and to group together multiple leads tied to one click. However, the converted clicks metric has some limitations, including the inability to assign different values to the conversion; the lack of cross-device measurement; and the failure to segment by conversion name, category, or source – since a single click can lead to multiple conversion actions. Additionally, you can set different attribution models to credit conversions based on your acquisition strategy, but attribution models do not assign credit to “converted clicks”.
With these limitations, it seems that “converted clicks” is no longer able to keep up with the ever-changing digital environment (whether it’s looking at different attribution models, the movement towards mobile and tablet now with device-level bidding, or efforts to use digital media to drive in-store traffic), whereas “conversions” can now accommodate these growing complexities.
Goodbye “Converted Clicks”, Hello “Conversions”: What This Means for You
If you do not utilize “converted clicks” in your AdWords account, you don’t need to do anything to prepare for this migration. Hooray!
If you use “converted clicks” as your primary conversion metric for reporting, keep in mind that all converted clicks reporting columns will be removed from the AdWords interface, along with the data associated. You’ll need to download reports now to preserve any data related to converted clicks.
If you use conversion-based automated bidding (Conversion Optimizer, Target CPA, or Enhanced CPCs) and your conversion bid metric is “converted clicks”, listen up: AdWords is providing a migration tool that will help change your conversion settings to make “conversions” resemble “converted clicks”. One of the switches to flip would be changing the Count setting for “conversions” from many-per-click to one-per-click (sound familiar?). To check this migration tool, click the Tools menu in your AdWords account and the alert that says “Converted clicks is going away” and review the changes that the migration tool proposes. Of course, don’t forget to monitor the “conversions” column for several weeks to assess the effects.
Google seems to have made this change to give advertisers a more holistic, value-based approach to looking at conversions and to fortify conversion data for the current mobile mindset with better cross-device conversion reporting. Here at Elite, we use the best industry tools to achieve your business goals and we will smoothly take your account through this transition process.
Want to learn more about successful data management? Read our case study on Mobile client Spring and learn how Elite’s Shopping Team helped optimize their campaign and increase Mobile conversion rate by 81%.
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