Track Adwords Conversions Without Clicks

Google have unleashed a nifty feature for content network campaigns today and I’m pretty excited. You can now track conversions, without anyone actually clicking on your adverts.

What?

It’s called ‘View-Through Conversions’. Basically, Google will track not only when someone clicks your advert, but also when someone sees your advert. If that person visits your website in the next 30 days and performs an action you’re tracking, it counts as a view-through conversion. As far as I can tell, they don’t actually have to click on your ad at all.

Is this good?

Well, it’s good if you’re using the content network as a branding exercise and want to find out how effective it is. Text ads, being so easily overlooked, aren’t exactly good for branding so if you’re just using those you might not get a lot of useful info out of this new feature. Anyone using banner ads on the other hand – where the whole idea is to push your brand across – will be very interested to see how memorable those ads are.

It’s definitely a positive development by the Adwords folk. After all, people don’t always click the adverts on websites but they might remember them for later. Even if there’s no direct link between someone seeing your ad and a sale, you can still prove your ad was seen before that sale which is a great argument for pushing your brand.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the new report info, especially if it’s integrated with all the other reporting features like networks, demographics etc. Good work Adwords!

BY Zoe Piper AT 10:10am ON Thursday, 1 October 2009