Conversion tracking is a free service that Microsoft adCenter provides to help you measure the results of your advertising efforts.
After a customer views an ad, clicks it and goes to a web site, the customer can then purchase a product, fill out a registration or complete some other function—whatever you consider the best way to measure the success of the ad. The process of completing that function is the conversion process.
Conversion data enables you to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your advertising. By learning what percentage of those who click your ad end up completing a transaction on your web site, you can more easily optimize your campaigns.
Your Microsoft adCenter delivery reports can display conversion rates. For more information, see About Reports.
Microsoft adCenter reports show only the following conversions:
- Those that occur for customers with cookies enabled.
- Those that occur for ads that are shown by Bing.
- Those that occur within seven days of the last time the ad was clicked.
Conversion tracking works at the campaign level. The same tracking code applies to all campaigns within an account. When you turn on conversion tracking, adCenter tracks all ads and ad groups within all campaigns for the account.
Conversion Counting Options
In order to achieve the most meaningful conversion counts possible, adCenter allows you to specify how you count events. There are currently three conversion tracking options from which you can pick the method that works best for you:
- Count one conversion per click: adCenter will only count the first conversion to occur after a click. Any subsequent conversions from the same click will not be counted. This straightforward method is a great option if you want to improve conversion counts and are using smaller and complex web sites. Just switch it on and it will prevent double-counts from the same user revisiting the page.
- Count one conversion per unique URL: adCenter will count conversion events based on the URL and the query string on that conversion page. This option is more complex and you should use it if you have the ability to embed a unique code into your URLs, and want adCenter to count based on that unique information. Traditionally, these values could be session IDs, receipt numbers or any combination of values that you can use to singularly identify a visitor.
- Count all conversions: adCenter will count all conversion events. You should use this option if you have your own method for handling refreshes, or want to pick up the raw number of counts.
For more information about using and implementing conversion tracking options, check out the
adCenter Announces New Conversion Tracking Options blog post.
A conversion is reported when your customer completes the specified action on a page that includes a conversion tracking code snippet. Completed conversions are expressed as a percentage called a conversion rate. For example, if 100 people click your ad and 25 of those individuals make a purchase, the ad has a 25 percent conversion rate.
Hourly conversions are conversions that are completed less than one hour after a customer clicks an ad. The hourly data shows you which keywords and ads drive the fastest conversions so you can fine-tune your campaign.
Daily conversions, however, are those that are completed more than one hour but less than seven days after a customer clicks an ad. Daily conversions are not simply a collection of hourly conversions, so it’s possible that the results displayed in your conversion reports might not be as you expect. Daily conversion data provides a more global view of how your ad group is performing.
The data in your web server logs might differ from the data in your Microsoft adCenter reports. Every effort is made to provide accurate reporting to customers and to remove invalid clicks from data reports. Some discrepancies might occur between the data in your web server logs and the data in your adCenter reports for the following reasons:
- Differences in proxy servers and IP address filtering. Having many clicks from the same IP address does not necessarily mean the clicks are invalid. Some internet service providers route all service through a proxy server, a computer that presents a single network address to external sites. As a result, clicks from multiple, unique customers might appear to come from a single source. In this case, clicks from a single network address might be filtered differently by Microsoft adCenter and other web-tracking software.
- Differences among web-tracking software programs. Although some programs count only users, adCenter counts every click to your site. For example, if someone clicks your ad but your web site is unavailable, adCenter might count the click—even if your web server does not. A click might also be counted if someone clicks your ad and then stops his or her browser before your web site has loaded. Time settings and tracking formats can also differ among web-tracking programs.
To take advantage of this free service, follow these simple guidelines:
- Follow all instructions as described in Start or Stop Conversion Tracking.
- Display the search ad text link on your conversion web pages. Do not change or hide the text link.
- Your web site must support JavaScript.
