How much time is required on a page for adwords to count a conversion?

Can't figure out why conversions aren't counted for one campaign.

[brizad]

I've got one campaign where the person gets to my thank you page (where the conversion code is) and then is redirected to another website to complete their transaction. MSN and Yahoo track conversion accurately but not adwords--it usually doesn't register any.

The only reason I could think for this to occur is that maybe the person was not on the thank you page long enough and the adwords conversion code couldn't "catch it." I've put a 3 second delay on the redirection but adwords still isn't registering.

Is there a certain amount of time a person has to be on a page for adwords to count a conversion? Any other thoughts as to why adwords doesn't work but YSM and MSN do. (BTW, adwords tracking works in other campaigns where the thank you page is static.)

Thanks!

[chinara]

Make a purchase/sign up (from adwords ad within your account) and see if you see this “Google Site Stats – send feedback” on your conversion/redirect page. Also try different delay times just for a test put 10sec, 1min just to see if you give ample time for a java script to load, execute and report/pass google security features properly.

Just FYI what you are trying to do is probably against adwords TOS, because upon conversion user must clear see the google feedback text + be able to follow that link, in a redirect/bounce page you deprive user of that possibility. (So do it carefully).

I don’t know if it is feasible in your case or not, but what you can try is after the conversion takes place ask that other site/billing to redirect surfer to your static thank you page.

If you figure out how to make bounce page track CV’s please PM me, I will gladly implement it on my bounce pages too ;).

Good luck!

[brizad]

The conversion code is there but you can't see anything visually on the page. I know that theoretically you're supposed to be able to see the adwords image on your site, but I've never seen it on any of my sites over the years and they've always tracked fine.

I guess I can try increasing the delay before the redirect, but it's really going to be a negative customer experience and will probably cost me money. In all, with posting the form, getting an XML response, and redirecting, it can take up to 30 seconds for the person to get to the final page.

I hope adwords doesn't think this is against the TOS. I emailed support but haven't heard back from them. There's nothing deceptive in what I'm doing, it's just the way the conversion process works. It's lead generation and I have to forward the person to the company who buys the lead. I've put my thank you page in the middle so I can record conversions. There's no other way to do it unfortunately.

I considered maybe having a pop-under thank you page with the conversion code and redirecting the person directly to the other site. But I figured that then I'd have issues with pop-up blockers which would make the conversion data inaccurate.

Maybe adwords support will have an answer. I hope they don't tell me it's illegal.

If you figure out how to make bounce page track CV’s please PM me, I will gladly implement it on my bounce pages too ;).

Adwords is supposed to track conversions for 30 days so it should track any bounce-backs to your thank you page. In theory that is.

[brizad]

Maybe adwords support will have an answer. I hope they don't tell me it's illegal.

As per adwords usual crappy customer service, two weeks later I received a canned answer which did not address my actual questions. Yipee!

I think that if you emailed adwords support and told them you were going to blow up their building you'd still get a canned response telling you to read their help section. :P