In this SearchForce white paper, you’ll learn how various providers track conversions and exactly how they use cookies to store information. And part 3 includes a summary chart so you can choose the approach that works best for your business, improves campaign efficiency, and minimizes conversion tracking discrepancies.

1. Conversion Tracking:
Evaluating Your Options
Moving Beyond the “Last Click”
SearchForce
A SearchForce White
Paper
2012
SearchForce

2. Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03
Counting Conversions: More complex than at first glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04
Using Cookies: Platform-by-platform difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07
Making the Best Choice: Comparing three solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09
About SearchForce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3. Executive Summary
You can’t measure what you can’t track. And – missing out on the opportunity to lower
if you’re tracking conversions from leads costs and increase sales.
to sales, measuring clicks alone won’t give
you a clear picture on the best approaches But setting up a conversion tracking
for boosting sales and ROI – and limits the methodology requires making some
potential of your optimization strategies. choices. Various publishers and third-party
solutions use different techniques to identify
It’s clear that PPC conversions – especially and track conversions.
those with long-term purchase funnels – are
heavily influenced by an intricate sequence In this white paper, you’ll learn how various
of clicks and offline searches that span providers track conversions and exactly
hours, days, or even weeks. how they use cookies to store information.
And part 3 includes a summary chart so
In fact, according to a March 2012 report by you can choose the approach that works
Slingshot SEO, consumers took an average best for your business, improves campaign
of 2.79 interactions before conversion. The efficiency, and minimizes conversion
report also noted that too many marketers tracking discrepancies.
are emphasizing first clicks and last clicks

4. 1) Counting Conversions:
More complex than at first glance
Google, Microsoft, and Third- But keep in mind that AdWords credits a
conversion to a click date, also known as a
Patty Providers landing date. That’s the date the user clicked on
an ad and landed at your site. The user might
Most online advertising tracking solutions use
complete the transaction that same day, or may
a small code snippet that you place on your
come back after few days.
confirmation/thank you page. When a user
completes a specific tracked event and reaches
In either case, the conversion is mapped to the
a conversion page, the code records that as a
click date. AdWords will look back 30 days for
conversion.
a landing date to credit the conversion to. So
the number of conversions that are ultimately
But tracking solutions vary based on how many
credited accumulate and update over that 30-
different conversion events can be tracked on
day window.
your site and how the conversion data is reported
Microsoft adCenter
Google AdWords
Microsoft adCenter operates differently than
AdWords allows you track multiple events on
AdWords. In AdWords, conversions are attributed
the same website. You can define custom action
to a click date. In adCenter, conversions are
names for each conversion event and map those
attributed to the date the conversion occurred.
events to a predefined conversion type, such as
That means it’s not necessary to look back over
lead, sale, page view, sign-up or other action.
a specific timeframe to obtain the correct number
Once the tracking codes are in place, you can of conversions.
view the conversions under the ‘Conv (1-per-
But adCenter does not allow for tracking revenue
click)’ and ‘Conv (many-per-click)’ columns. You
and different event types. Microsoft adCenter
can also view conversion-per-action data in the
does, however, provide an analytics solution so
‘Reporting & Tools ->Conversions’ tab.

5. Advanced PPC Converstion Tracking
Techniques
Knowing the best conversion tracking methods to use is
essential to maintaining your competitive edge.
You can’t measure what you can’t track. So you might ask, just
what is a “conversion”?
It depends. Tracking conversions differs based on specific search engines and
your tracking technology. So it’s essential to understand how different platforms
report results so you can best use your data to boost ROI and improve campaign
performance.
In this white paper you’ll learn:
1. Three ways publishers and solution providers use cookies and account for
clicks on the path to conversion
2. Major differences between Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter that
could impact your conversion data
3. Key techniques for optimizing metrics so you can track more clicks and
benchmark results against your specific goals
Click here to download the rest of this white paper.

6. About
The industry-leading PPC and online marketing platform
With SearchForce, you eliminate tedious manual processes through one customizable bid
optimization, campaign management, and reporting platform that offers:
• Centralized user dashboard to manage multiple campaigns
• A set of flexible bidding strategies to meet virtually any goal, with complete
synchronization
across all major search engines
• Customized and consolidated reporting plus cross-channel conversion tracking
across all
channels
• Social media tools to make the most of advertising opportunities on Facebook
• Advanced reporting and analytics to streamline campaign management
Contact SearchForce today to find out more about how our platform can suit your needs:
3 Waters Park Dr. San Mateo, CA
Phone (650) 235-8777
Fax (650) 312-8661
www.SearchForce.com