Help Center For Advertisers Conversion

What is conversion tracking?

Advertisers want to know the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. It often takes many impressions/views to get a click. However, clicks are not the last action performed by your visitors. Visitors might purchase some items from the advertiser's website after they view or click on the ad. Conversion tracking answers the question of how many views or clicks result in an actual purchase, sign-up/registration, lead, viewing of a key page, or some other valuable actions.

Click-Through Conversion vs. View-Through Conversion

If a visitor views the ad, then clicks on it, and buys an item from the advertiser's store, it counts as one click-through conversion, or simply a conversion.

If a visitor views the ad but does NOT click on this ad. Then later he/she visits the advertiser's store directly and buys an item, it counts as one view-through conversion.

Setup

Advertisers can get the conversion code, define the conversion types and view conversion stats reports. Publishers can also generate/view the conversion code to assist their advertisers with the initial setup. For more details, please view the conversion tracking setup instructions.

How does conversion tracking work?

Assuming you, the advertiser, has placed our conversion tracking code at the end of the ordering process (for example: "Thank You" page), the process will follow these steps:

1. View Ad

A visitor views the ad. Our ad server records an impression on September 10.

2. Click on Ad

A visitor clicks on the ad and begins browsing the advertiser's store on September 10. Our ad server records a click on September 10. A cookie is created to track conversions and it could last up to 30 days after the click. See conversion vs. transaction

3. Purchase

This visitor eventually makes a purchase on September 15. She gets to the "Thank You" page that contains the conversion tracking code. Our ad server records this conversion and award it to the original click. A zone is also credited if the clicked ad was served via that zone.

View-Through Conversion

If a purchase was made but there was no recorded click, our ad server would record it as a view-through conversion.

Reporting

If the conversion is not unique within 24 hours (similar to Unique/Raw Impressions), the transaction count will still be incremented but the conversion count stays the same. The conversion report will show that on September 10, there is one click, one conversion, and one transaction.

Considerations

Placement: The conversion tracking code should be placed in the right page(s). For example: if the code is placed on the order form instead of the "Thank You" page, these conversions measure interests in the product and not actual purchases. Generally, it should not be easily accessible from the web unless you want to count conversions of key page-views.
Reload/Refresh: If the visitor refreshes/reloads the "Thank You" page, the transaction count (and its dollar value) will be incremented. To avoid this situation, you can have a middle page with the conversion tracking code that quickly redirects to the final Thank You page. For example, page A has the tracking code. After ordering, the shopping cart redirects to page A. In turn, page A records the conversion then quickly redirects to the Thank You page.
Flexibility: Our conversion tracking system is designed to be very flexible. You can have different definitions of a conversion and customize our system to track only what is beneficial to your business.