AdWords advertisers will no longer be able to track converted clicks

Among its many updates, Google announced that AdWords would be removing the converted clicks metric from reporting. Advertisers who use converted clicks to optimize campaigns would no longer be able to do so, as this metric has been replaced with “conversions” data.

What’s the difference between conversions and converted clicks?

In the past, AdWords was unable to track how many conversions, or which conversion actions an ad click drove. Converted clicks was introduced to convey this information to advertisers. In the years since, conversion tracking has become more sophisticated, and can now report all conversions that happened after an ad click, plus new features that allowed advertisers to customize how your conversions are counted.

Converted clicks is a click metric. It counts the number of clicks that lead to one or more conversions, so any tracking or reporting feature that accounts for multiple conversions can’t work with converted clicks.

Why does this matter?

As an advertiser, there are cases where only unique conversions matter. For B2B marketers and lead gen advertisers, tracking unique leads matters more than knowing the total number of times the same visitor filled out a web form. In many cases, these advertisers cannot make multiple sales from the same lead, so duplicate conversions are not counted towards ROI. Without converted clicks, or other sophisticated software like Marketo or Salesforce, it can be challenging for marketers to determine which campaigns/ad groups resulted in unique conversions, and how many unique conversions were generated from marketing efforts.

Why the change?

The converted clicks metric does not work with the new conversion tracking features. In order to simplify the platform, and reduce confusion for advertisers, Google decided to remove the “converted clicks” metric from AdWords. Compared to conversions, converted clicks are limited by the following:

• You can choose which conversion actions to include in “Conversions”
• The “Converted clicks” column can’t be segmented by conversion name or category
• You can choose to count multiple conversions generated from a click with “Conversions” tracking
• You can choose an attribution model for your conversions
• You can specify a value for conversions
• Converted clicks only measures conversions that happen on the same device as the click
• Converted clicks don’t reflect clicks that lead to store visits

What to do now

If you used the “converted clicks” metric to track unique conversions you’ll need to adjust your “conversions” in AdWords. First, fix your report view by adding a “conversions” column to be able to track conversions for your campaigns. You may want to change the “count” and “include in conversions” settings for your conversion actions. To access conversion settings, log into your AdWords account and select “conversions” from the tools menu.

Converted clicks counted up to one converted click after each ad click. To make your conversions count similarly to converted clicks, select one for the conversions “count” setting. This is most important for B2B and lead generation marketers. Those who sell products directly, can benefit from knowing the total sum of purchases that came from a single click.

 

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