View through conversions for display ads - useful or not?

[DiscoStu]

Was contacted by a Google rep a while ago about my display ads. I had been running a display campaign but it didn't do very well so I stopped it. But the rep showed me the view through conversion statistics with it and showed that it had actually performed pretty good - if you took those in to account.

Problem is those aren't necessarily caused by the ad campaign just because the ad was triggered. People often visit several sites of the same kind before making a decision, so there's probably a high baseline number of view through conversion happening all the time. But they don't give you the view through conversions for text ads, only for display ads so how can I know if it does better than my text ad campagin (which has a higher direct conversion)?

I like the idea of where they are going with this, but right now I don't see how this metric is useful/reliable.

Has anyone done any experiments with view through conversions?

[PayMePerClick]

I don't buy it and think at times it's a way for display advertisers to justify themselves in a direct response environment. Often times these view through reports make display look more profitable than search and I doubt that is the case most of the time if ever. Also, the percentages and math used to get these view-through stats tend to be guesswork most of the time.

And there's a curve ball: if you use this theory for display why not use it for search? What about all of the impressions I get through Google, Yahoo, and MSN but not clicks? Surely they led to some conversions, right?

[DiscoStu]

if you use this theory for display why not use it for search?

I agree, hiding those numbers is suspicious. I get the feeling they are trying encourage spending by adding a number purposefully made intangible by not allowing anything to compare with.

[rustyzipper]

I think the bulk of view through impressions in our case are people who are searching for XYZ, hit upon an informational/blog page that happens to show our ad, but eventually find us through search, google products, etc.

I don't put any weight at all on view through conversions. 5 million impressions and 30 or so view through impressions? I don't think those 30 people purchased because they saw our ad & didn't click on it.. I think they purchased because they kept searching and found us another way.