I’ve been getting lots of emails from Google Ads urging me to incorporate Enhanced Conversions for our clients’ accounts. I normally ignore most Google emails as they have no bearing on what we do.
But, the Enhanced Conversions emails keep coming, to me and to my clients. “ACTION RECOMMENDED!” “Set up Enhanced Conversions now!” “Unlock more powerful bidding!”
What they are: “Enhanced conversions help the Google tag capture more conversion data in a privacy-centric way, improving the accuracy of your measurement.”
Why they’re important: “It enables you to measure online conversions and build a strong foundation of first-party data.” (Source: Ditto)
How it works: When a customer completes a conversion on your website, you may receive first-party customer data such as an email address, name, home address, and/or phone number. This data can be captured in your conversion tracking tags, hashed, sent to Google in its hashed form, and then used to enhance your conversion measurement.
Read the full Google Ads Help File.
“First party data” is the key word here
As the graphic above demonstrates, when someone converts on your website (aka: completes a form), your website will then send this info to Google.
But wait, it gets better. When the person becomes a customer, **you then send that info to Google — and they’ll let you know which ad prompted the conversion.**
Wow. Thank you so much, Google!
Our clients know which ads convert, thank you very much
Thankfully, our clients already know which ads convert at the time of conversion — without having to send any info to Google — because we track this stuff weekly and list it in our custom Weekly Conversion reports.
What’s our “secret”? None. Since we use Matomo Analytics, I add tracking parameters to the URLs in Ads. The parameters lets us know which ads, and even site links, converted.
So, when someone fills out an RFQ form, the client’s sales team gets that info immediately. A week later, our report shows the name / company name of the lead and where the lead came from.
I know. Scary simple.
The Conversion Report also shows spend, clicks, conversions, and cost per conversion for current month and year-to-date. Clients *always* know where they stand.
Caveat: We only do search ads. None of that P-Max or display ads stuff — so maybe those campaigns are harder to track.
If you’re a smaller manufacturer with a small spend and every dollar counts, don’t be bamboozled by Google and their TAKE ACTION NOW recommendations.
Always read the help files before making any changes to your account. Google’s recommended changes will almost always benefit Google ($$$$), not you.
Filed under: Behind the Scenes
Rocky Update
So, I have the best neighbors on the planet. One of them, Jim, who all the dogs in the neighborhood love, now has a scheduled play date with Rocky every Monday after work.
Rocky even knows when it’s Monday and starts whining around 4:30. “Come on, Mom!” If I could do it safely, I’d open the door and let him dash to Jim’s house on his own — but we have too much traffic on the road.
So, he pulls me to Jim’s. All the training I’ve done goes right out the window because he’s so excited! “Come on!!!!”
Jim has tested different toys to see which work — the frisbee won hands-down. The image above shows Rocky playing frisbee. It was really hard to capture his mid-air catches — I managed (barely) to get one.
You should see him after an hour of this play. He can barely walk home he’s so worn out. 😀
