Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Get richer insights by measuring Display ads across apps and the web

People are living their lives online, seamlessly moving between apps and websites to shop, communicate, and stay entertained. In order for marketers to understand how campaigns are performing, you need to measure activities that span apps and websites.

Starting today, you can use Estimated Total Conversions to measure conversions that started on the web and finished in an app,1 or vice versa — for Display campaigns. It works whether the click and conversion occur on the same device or across two different ones. Learn more.

For example, let’s say you’re a clothing retailer. Shoppers might click your Display ad for blue jeans on their smartphones while reading the news in a browser, then buy those jeans later in your app on the same device. You’ll now be able to measure these conversions that occur between web and apps as part of Estimated Total Conversions.

Similarly, let’s say you’re the marketing manager for a hotel whose ad for a summer getaway runs in a weather app. Potential customers may click on your ad while checking the weather on their smartphones in the morning and then book rooms later in the day on your website from their computers, or with your app on their tablets. You’ll now be able to measure these conversions that start on one device and finish on another, whether between web and app or between apps.

Cross-device conversions are based on aggregated, anonymized data from a sample set of users that have previously signed-in to Google services. This data is then extrapolated to represent the broader population and only reported if it reaches a strict, highly conservative confidence level. To learn more about how cross-device conversions work, visit our Help Center or watch this helpful video.

If you have an app, be sure to set up conversion tracking (Android and iOS) for in-app activities so these insights are included in Estimated Total Conversions.

As consumer purchase journeys get more complex, Google continues to invest in innovations that help marketers measure these new paths with more precision. From store visits to cross-device insights in AdWords and DoubleClick, we’re building tools to help you make the best advertising decisions possible. By including app activities in Estimated Total Conversions, Google gives marketers a more complete picture of the value that AdWords delivers across devices, spanning websites and apps.

Posted by Levent Besik, Product Manager, Google Display Network

Does not include app promotion campaigns