View Through Conversions

Can the number be trusted?

[300m]

So as we continue to work on this remarketing campaign we noticed that the view through conversions are significantly higher than our actual sales tracking from the campaign.

Google Definition

View-through conversions count a conversion when there is no Display Network ad click but a conversion did occur within 30 days of the last display ad impression. If there is an ad click preceding the conversion, the conversion is treated as a click-conversion.

1)Does anyone else have a high View through?
2)Is this normal?

Statistically this is a loser to us, but if we consider the view through, that could be a completely different result in the way we are looking at things. One, its free advertising because we pay a CPC, and we would be getting conversions based on impressions without clicks. Two, it’s a low cost branding tool if the view through definition is true.
Does anyone have some working knowledge of this? I would love to hear what experiences other have with this.

[after_hours]

Depends on your reach/coverage. Viewthrough conversions have to be taken with a grain of salt. Really loose connections being made.

[300m]

Maybe I can share a little more about this. We have had less than 10 conversions that we tracked out of X.XX dollars spent. With that said we see that we have close to 150 conversions that are not being tracked by normal reporting we do. Meaning, we have 10 confirmed conversions, and 150 view through.

In my worls thats = many many thosands of dollars. We would typically try not to blow ad spend over tracked rev, so as you can see, this is something that i would like to learn more about.

One thing I can say is that I am well aware that some (not sure of the % yet) might be counted a a conversion in Googles report, but there is a good chance like 20% are probably declined orders. Even still, thats 80% revenue, IF that number can be depended on. If I can depend on that to be true, that 80% tells me to spend more money, if I cant prove it, I will have to eventually dial everything down becasue I can not dump a lot of money in to a loser.

[Channel01]

I see the same thing in Remarketing campaigns that I manage. I completely ignore the numbers.

[alexsel]

If you're running on Google's display network, depending on your number of impressions, you will typically see view-through conversions 10x higher than actual conversions. Our company has years of experience running on display and we heavily discount the view through conversions.

Truth is, if you're campaign is well targeted, and you're getting a few million impressions every month, of course a few of those will end up on your site and convert either way. You have to try to find out what the incremental value is. If you're running paid search ads, you can change a setting that will improve attribution.

• Go to the 'Reporting and Tools' tab of your AdWords account and select 'Conversions' in the drop down.

• Select the type of conversion you'd like to de-dupe against. You will have labeled what you count as a conversion.

• Click on the 'Settings' tab and find the second option, 'View-through conversion search de-duplication' and hit 'Edit'

• Check the box next to 'Enabled' and hit Save

Going forward, your VTCs will only be attributed to people who see your ads, don't click, and end up converting later on without clicking on a Search ad. This is important because that removes the possibility of showing duplicate conversion.

To me a display campaign is successful if you can cover costs. Everything else is a bonus. It's a solid branding opportunity and there's definitely a spillover effect into other marketing channels. However, I would be very careful about assigning the same value to a VTC as a "real" conversion.

[300m]

alexsel - Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

"To me a display campaign is successful if you can cover costs. Everything else is a bonus. It's a solid branding opportunity and there's definitely a spillover effect into other marketing channels. However, I would be very careful about assigning the same value to a VTC as a "real" conversion."

I agree with you, but in my niche, phone calls, online sales, and lead gen are all things to consider too. So meaning if we lose a little online comapred to cost, we are likely picking that up on the phone, ot in the way of a lead. However, I do like it when web sales beat cost anyday of the week.