adCenter Conversion Tracking: Helping advertisers improve their campaigns

Someone recently asked me why adCenter conversion tracking should matter to advertisers. Could it help advertisers get better results at a lower cost? I was intrigued, so I did some digging. We found some pretty exciting results: Not only did advertisers utilizing adCenter conversion tracking data have higher click-through rates (CTRs) than their competitors not using conversion tracking, but they also had lower CPCs - up to 29 cents lower.

Conversion tracking study

We took a look across the entire adCenter marketplace for a set period of time. It is important to note that adoption and coverage rates were balanced and evenly distributed across all advertisers and levels of sophistication, and mapped closely to dynamics in the auction. Here are a few specifics about our advertisers' performance in key verticals:

Vertical	Increase in Click-through Rate (CTR) for customers tracking conversions	Decrease in Cost Per Click (CPC) for customers tracking conversions
Entertainment	1.4%	$ .09
Food Services	.4%	$ .15
Government, Non-profit & Political	1.7%	$ .27
Technology	1.6%	$ .25
Telecommunications	3.7%	$ .29

The bottom line: These advertisers are getting more clicks at a lower cost, which means more exposure to new customers at a lower CPC. Now that's good marketing! Conversion tracking helps advertisers focus on what really matters - getting new customers and purchases ("conversions").

For advertisers looking to increase their exposure and lower their advertising costs, adCenter conversion tracking is worth trying. Here's what we suggest:

After you've enabled your site with the conversion tracking code (see the Learning Center to get started) and turned on conversion tracking reports in the adCenter user interface.
Identify the elements of your campaign that you want to test - you might want to test ad copy, or keywords. Come up with 2 or more options that you want to test (for example, you want to test the performance of 2 different keywords, and how often they lead to a customer conversion).
In your adCenter account, set up 2 different campaigns - one for each of the attributes you want to test and compare (for example, if you are testing ad copy, then set up one campaign for each set of ad copy you want to test).
Let the campaigns run for some time, and then run a report for any of the attributes you want to test. adCenter reports enable you to look at everything from click-through rate (CTR), to cost per click (CPC), to cost per acquisition (CPA).
Make some decisions about which campaigns are performing best for you and helping you accomplish your goals, and then change your campaigns to reflect this.

Before I sign off, I'd like to let you know that we recently made some improvements to the conversion tracking code. The changes are intended to make life easier for advertisers. If you use the code snippet that's available in adCenter today, you'll automatically be set up to count only 1 conversion per user click. This means that we've reduced the "double counting" of conversions that you may have seen in the past, and your reports should be accurate. We are pleased to offer two additional methods for conversion tracking as well: count 1 conversion per unique url and track all conversions associated to a single click.

After you've experimented with your campaigns and conversion tracking, let us know how things are working for you. Good luck!

Mary Berk

Sr. Product Manager

Some Helpful Links

- Conversion Tracking How-To Guide PDF

- Tracking Your Conversions

- How Conversion Tracking Works

- Modifying Conversion Tracking

- Conversion Tracking Reporting

- Conversion Tracking FAQs

- How Conversions are Measured

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