3 Ways to Measure More Conversions Using Estimated Total Conversions

In October, Google announced Estimated Total Conversions as a first step to providing you with a more holistic view of the conversions driven by AdWords. It is available to all advertisers who use AdWords conversion tracking. Estimated Total Conversions includes conversions you see today, such as online sales, as well as new conversion types like cross-device conversions and calls.

These insights are particularly important to understand because consumers are now constantly connected, using multiple devices throughout the day. In the next few weeks, this will be even more pronounced as people shop for holiday gifts. A recent holiday study shows that 84% of consumers who are likely to use a mobile or tablet device while shopping this holiday season, will start shopping on one device and finish on another.

Google making it easier for advertisers to understand these consumer behaviors with new insights that are part of Estimated Total Conversions, a new column in AdWords.

Estimated Total Conversions includes cross-device conversions, which are also shown in a separate column to highlight their importance.

3 ways to use Estimated Total Conversions to improve business results

1. Take another look at your desktop/tablet bid. Once you see more conversions that can be attributed to AdWords, your total ROI from AdWords will change. Re-calculate your desktop/tablet cost-per-acquisition (CPA) based on these cross-device conversions. If your CPA has improved using this measure, you might want to look for opportunities where you may be able to increase position and volume by increasing your bids.

2. Capture the full value of mobile.  Many experienced search marketers are already using this data to make business decisions, by starting a test on campaigns that previously did not show on mobile.  Within a few weeks of showing ads on mobile devices, these advertisers started to see conversions they could not before -- those that started on a mobile phone and ended on another device. These insights led to important business decisions like adjusting mobile bids or shifting budget to reflect the new ROI of their keywords.

Amber Yeray, Digital Marketing Manager at EXPRESS, a national fashion retailer, has been working with her agency partner, RKG, to understand the new insights offered by Estimated Total Conversions.

“Cross-device conversions have shown that total estimated conversions are up 7%, with a 17% lift from mobile-initiated conversions. EXPRESS and search marketing agency partner, RKG, are now able to increase mobile bids for areas of the account that show the most impact from mobile -- driving more volume while remaining efficient.”

3. Spend only the most profitable dollar. The total value of your AdWords investment might change once you’re able to see more conversions. Whether it’s AdWords, other digital channels or offline media, think about investing your dollar into the most profitable channel possible.

Estimated Total Conversions provides new insights that may help you optimize bids and budgets to improve performance. Amit Shah, Vice President of Online, Mobile & Social at 1-800-Flowers, used the new insights that he gained to make more informed budget allocation decisions.

“After measuring cross-device conversions that began on a mobile device, we saw a 4% increase in total conversions measured in AdWords. With the full view offered by Estimated Total Conversions, we can correctly understand attribution across channels and make better decisions on achieving marginal spend optimization.”

These are just a few of the tips that we will continue to share as we hear feedback from you

Understanding Impact with Earned Actions in AdWords for video

For many video advertisers, the benefit of TrueView only begins with the first view. Just as an Honest Trailers link pinged to a friend can lead to several other video views, we see this viewership pattern with paid ad views as well – the initial view can catalyze a long chain of engagement with a brand.

Since these earned views are a major benefit of advertising on YouTube and the Google Display Network, we’re bringing new capabilities to AdWords for video to help you better measure viewer actions following your video ads. Formerly known as Follow-on Actions, these new reporting columns will show your Earned views, Earned view rate, Earned subscribers, Earned playlist additions, Earned likes and Earned shares, with additional columns rolling out over the next few weeks. So if you're an advertiser, you can see how many people stayed on your channel to watch more videos, subscribed to your channel, added your video to a playlist, or shared your video with a friend after watching a TrueView ad.

From looking at the last six months, we’ve seen over 6,000 campaigns generate at least one earned view as a result of every two paid views. And we know the YouTube audience isn’t shy about sharing brand content: 3 in 4 YouTube users agree “If there is a brand I love, I tend to tell everyone about it.” (Source: YouTube Insights Oct 2013)

Check out this video to see how Earned Action reporting helps you better understand the impact of your video advertising:


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  Google have also simplified the Account Linking flow to make it easier to join an AdWords for video account with a YouTube channel and see the effect of TrueView advertising on growing your audience, through Earned subscribers and Earned shares.

Paid Search Spend Surges 27%, Mobile Grabs 40% Thanksgiving, Black Friday Spend

Amid reports that brick and mortar sales were lackluster over the Thanksgiving weekend, ecommerce is looking like a bright spot this holiday season, with mobile devices playing an increasingly important role.
Mercent, which powers major retailer campaigns online for brands including Brookstone, Office Depot and HSN reports same seller online sales increased 40 percent on Thanksgiving Day compared to 2012. Black Friday same seller sales hit a record high, increasing 35 percent

Paid search saw big increases in click volume and retailer spend. Retailers spent 27 percent more on paid search campaigns this Thanksgiving and Black Friday than in 2012, according to a new report from Kenshoo. Thanksgiving saw a 33 percent increase in paid search spend year-over-year, and Black Friday spend rose 21 percent from 2012.

“Kenshoo saw dramatic increases in paid search ad spend and online sales revenue on these two days signifying the peak shopping season is off to a hot start. With the 2013 calendar condensing the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we expect the torrid pace to continue,” said Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo CMO.
Smartphone and tablet activity grabbed significant spend share this season. Spending on Computers fell 24.1 percent from last year to 60.3 percent for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Smartphone budgets shot up 79.1 percent to 21.2 percent of total paid search spend. Tablets saw search spend share skyrocket 113.6 percent to 18.5 percent of total search spend.

“It’s clear that the story of the shopping season to date is the mobile migration,” added Goldman. “In fact, this isn’t just a migration we’re seeing, it’s a full on revolution. With phones and tablets accounting for nearly 40% of all paid search ad spend on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, it’s clear marketers have multi-device strategies in place to lure consumers wherever and whenever they’re shopping.”

Mobile devices accounted for 44.2 percent of all paid search clicks in 2013, with 27 percent going to phones and 17.2 percent of clicks going to tablets. That’s up from just 27.7 percent of paid search clicks in all of November 2012, and 14.5 percent during the 2011 holiday shopping season.

Computers still dominate paid search revenue, though even that hold is slipping. Computer revenue share fell from 90.4 percent in November 2012 to 73.2 percent on Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year. The share of revenue coming through mobile devices increased 176 percent this year, with 22.4 percent from tablets and 4.4 percent from phones. Phone revenue is still relatively paltry. This year, though, tablets may have reached the tipping point as consumers are becoming more accustomed to settling in on the couch and shopping on their tablets in the evening hours.

Mercent saw Google Shopping growing faster than Amazon.com as a source of orders for their clients over the two-day period. Google’s efforts to provide more engaging shopping tools for consumers appear to be paying dividends.  Mercent reports that while Amazon grew 26 percent year-over-year on Thanksgiving, Google Shopping grew almost 70 percent.  The channels posted similar results on Black Friday.