Trouble with Adwords conversion tracking.

[martin001]

I have been pushing adwords a little lately, and although I am absolutely positive the conversion tracking code is exactly right on the receipt page, it seems to track very very few conversions, although an increase in online orders is almost certainly down to running adwords.

Cost per conversion according to adwords is not financially feasable, but an increase in orders must be down to running adwords.

I wondered if anyone else ever had a similar problem, and just let adwords run at an apparently unviable cost-per-conversion, yet had seen a distinct rise in online orders?

Regards

M

 

[AuctionMaster]

Hi Martin,

Me and my colleague also have noticed faulty AdWords conversion tracking on a number of occasions.

We certainly had all sales coming from AdWords at that time, but maybe only half of them showed up on AdWords tracking.

We had some glitches with the thank you page's coding, though, so maybe it's all down to the technical side - how you embed the code etc.

 

[Tom McClelland]

I think you have to be careful about interpreting that kind of data.

What happens if a person is first directed to your site via your superbly worded adwords ad, but they don't buy straight away. They talk with other people in their business, or with partners, or whatever depending on your product, then they return to your site and buy using a different PC...

I wouldn't mind betting that this kind of thing happens often enough to make conversion tracking dodgy at best. I know that I often don't buy on my first visit to a website because I'm still in the search phase. Then when I do return to buy I might well be on a different PC or in a different location.

 

[J-Wholesale]

There are a number of reasons why Adwords conversions might not be shown.

1. They use a different PC to make the purchase
2. They flush their cookies between when they clicked on the ad and when they bought
3. They never reach your 'conversion' page. This can happen if they pay using PayPal Standard and chose not to return to your site after completing the payment
4. They have javascript disabled in their web browser

There's no sure fire way of catching every Adwords conversion, as too much depends on the user doing exactly what you want, and for a percentage of customers, that's just not going to happen.

 

[martin001]

I guess common sense says if we are spending more on adwords and our sales appear to have substantially increased then that must be the reason, irrespective as to whether or not we can actally track it accurately.

M