Google Ads View Through Conversions

Introduction

'View Through Conversions' is an exciting metric in AdWords that is unique to Display Ad Network and Remarketing campaigns and allows you to measure which converted visitors saw your remarketing ads (but did not click on them) and then went on to convert following that viewing. In this article, we discuss why this should matter to you!

Google Remarketing Basics

Google Remarketing allows you to segment specific groups of visitors (audiences) that have viewed your website that originated via AdWords ads. Ads targeted at these audiences run on the Display Ad network and display when that particular visitor/searcher matches those audience criteria.

As you can imagine, Remarketing ads (and their associated creative) are highly targeted and can help to reinforce your brand, for example, write my essay services by phdify.com, in the mind of your visitors or prompt them to purchase if they did not originally convert to a customer on their first visit via an AdWords search or display ad campaign.

It is known as Remarketing because you are marketing to visitors that:

Have come to your site previously via an AdWords ad
Already viewed your site and been exposed to your brand previously

How Does Google Do It?

The Remarketing system is one based on Cookies and Javascript Tags, much like AdWords and Google Analytics are. An AdWords account user that sets up a Remarketing campaign is provided with special 'Remarketing Codes' (Javascript Tags) that match their audience settings, and these are inserted into the appropriate pages on the site.

The Remarketing codes set unique cookies in a visitor's browser whenever they hit a page with these codes. These codes place them in the appropriate audience, and whenever they then hit a page where the appropriate Display ad should show for that audience, the cookie triggers that ad to display.

It is a very clever system but not without its pitfalls, which will be addressed in another article.

Typical Audiences

With Google Remarketing you can make your audiences as broad or specific as you like. You can set up a campaign for all visitors that came to your site via an AdWords ad. However, that would be pretty broad and craft a unique creative would be impossible.

A better one might be to create an audience that saw your checkout page but did not see the order success page. This might be called your 'abandoned cart' audience. You could then craft creative (Display Ads) targeted at this audience with a special discount coupon listed in the creative. If they clicked your ad, you would then land them on a (presumably hidden) special site page detailing the offer and associated coupon code that would incentivize them to convert into a customer on that visit.

You can also get more specific. Let's say you sell Teddy Bears online. Now let's say that you have the following main categories on site:

Famous Bears
Coloured Bears
Dressed Bears
Personalised Bears
Other Stuffed Animals

Now, you might have an audience set up where the criteria, will be like that they viewed your Coloured Bears page but did NOT view your Famous Bears page. You would then craft an ad, advertising the famous stuffed bears you offer like perhaps Yogi Bear.

The options and audience combinations are almost endless, and you can make them as generic (not recommended) or as targeted as you like.

Enable View-Through Conversion Tracking

This is not enabled by default but should be to see the full value of your Remarketing (and Display Network) ads. You find this setting by going through your AdWords account using the following tabs:
Tools and Analysis > Conversions > Purchase/Sale Conversion > Advanced
and it looks like this:

Highly Value Metric

Google defines a View Through Conversion (VTC) as:

"A View-through Conversion happens when a customer sees an image or rich media ad, then later completes a conversion on your site. This is different from a Click-through Conversion, which happens when a customer had previously clicked on an ad (such as on the Google Search or the Google Display Network) and then completed a conversion on your site.
The data you see in your reports can be affected by how you're tracking view-through conversions. Here's how depending on whether or not the feature is enabled or disabled in your account:
Disabled: If a customer views your display ad, doesn't click it, and then later clicks on a search campaign ad, we'll count one view-through conversion and one-click conversion.
Enable: If a customer views your display ad, doesn't click it, and then later clicks on a search ad, we'll count only the last conversion type (the click conversion, for example)."

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The VTC metric is a highly valuable one because it quantifies essentially 'free' conversions. They are not free in that they have clicked on an AdWords ad previously and not converted but the actual Remarketing ad that may have pushed them over the edge to convert has not been clicked (though it has been viewed) prior to the conversion.

To help quantify the value of this conversion, simply multiply the number by the average order value for your PPC conversions using Google Analytics or your analytics tool of choice.

Some argue that there is no way of guaranteeing that your Remarketing ad triggered the conversion, but if it happens within 30 days (the default tracking period in AdWords), then it is a good bet the ads at least helped.

This is what the VTC column looks like in AdWords admin:

remarketing

Conclusion

All in all, the VTC metric can help you quantify the value of your Remarketing campaigns beyond just the traditional 'click-through conversion' metric. Ideally, you'd have custom Remarketing landing pages too but simply tracking VTC's is a great start in helping you understand what ad methods are driving revenue for your website.