Optimised Google Ads - Enhanced Conversions Set up!
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Shirin Sadr
We are hindered in our Google ad performance, as retailers, (Im going to assume most of us are using Google Ads, or have Citrus managing ads on your behalf) if we don't have enhanced conversions/user-provided data collection set up. Our Google ad accounts are simply misreporting data based on third-party data changes and losing cross-device tracking amongst other things, and they are not as optimised as they can be.
Having had this conversation with Citrus last year in relation to trying to get this setup, Citrus sent me final response from the developers on 17/04/2024 stating that they will not be implementing it on the basis that "Spending development time to make changes based on a beta product, which is subject to change, carries great risk."
As cookieless tracking is the direction that the advertising world is moving, I am not entirely sure why it wouldn't be deemed of use to work in the direction Google is headed and ultimately help us generate more revenue through our ad accounts. Keen to see the interest from other retailers in this area, and whether this can be considered in the roadmap for Citrus this year.
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Shirin Sadr
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime Was the test successful?
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
Shirin Sadr We've deployed this morning and we're logging orders that come from Shopping campaigns with the click ID but no PII, with no cookie involvement. I need to leave it for a few days to gather data and then do a manual import into Google Ads. It is however looking good.
I'm also just about to setup the enhanced conversions on Working Class Heroes site, but I don't expect that to move the game on a great deal as I believe Google still need consent accepted as the hashing of personal may count as PII. That's within Google's gift not ours. It would be affective in countries like the US where GDPR does not apply and they can use this data, but we might as well give it a whirl!
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
The code for this is complete and will now go to testing.
I would value your input Shirin Sadr but we'll role this out to a few test sites in the coming weeks. I've implemented enhanced conversions, in the UK and EU this requires consent, but there is a chance this will still help attribution. I have also implemented cookieless and PII free storage of the GCLID, which creates the possibility we can report this to Google Ads, initially we'll do some testing with Google Sheets import, if this enhances tracking we'll find a more elegant way of doing this.
Shirin Sadr
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime Yes, to use enhanced conversions, the site will need to have a CMP to manage consent. I am not sure on whether enhanced conversions, also requires enhanced consent mode to be set up https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10000067?hl=en&sjid=2512110173830322577-EU
Which, whilst on the topic of consent mode - Google also tells me that our CMP (CookieYes), although one of the googles CMP partners, is not feeding consent data to google properly in line with consent mode. Which mainly causes concerns with compliance which can result in our ads being stopped (major issue for us, and I'm sure a lot of other retailers). However, from all I can view in tag assist, consent is being recorded, perhaps just not fed? Google seem to say that this is not confirmation that it is working properly and requires code update, and that from their perspective it is not compliant. I was waiting for my Google account manager to send over further details on how they are measuring this from their side and what the resolution is before I sent it over to you to review. But, havent yet heard back from them. I did ask the Citrus support for clarity when "consent mode" was mentioned on a citrus release a few months back, but I'm not sure anyone was able to give any answers. I've chased my account manager on the consent mode point but it might be useful to get to grips with any sort of domino effect on the link between consent mode and enhanced conversions also.
Shirin Sadr
Added screenshots of consent in tag assist when I launched, and when I updated. So it is collecting..
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
Shirin Sadr I've done a stack of reading on this, and it looks like the instrumentation API we use to send order data to GA4 now supports the enhanced conversions you reference, its very exciting. I'm going to implement this as part of an upcoming hotpatch so we can configure it on and see if improves attribution. I'm ill so no bikes, hiking or climbing for me today so I'm going to work on this today (Saturday).
Shirin Sadr
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime Do you mean you use the Google API? https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/13261987?sjid=2512110173830322577-EU
My ad account says we have a tag and tag manager implemented on our site (attached image) that can be used to collect user-provided data - so as far as I understand Enhanced conversions should be able to be implemented by an update to our tag code. If for another reason you are using the Google API, that means that anyone one that whats to activate enhanced conversions will need to know that they need to select the Google API instead. This should also correct the issue where some of us no longer receive purchase event data in GA4 as a result of accepting the User-provided data collection policy early last year. Which again, those wanting to implement enhanced conversions will need to know that they have to now accept. It would be useful to check that this doesnt then create the same issue of no purchase events being reported. Funnily enough, I did notice from late Jan we started receiving purchase events in our GA4 again and I asked the helpdesk to enquire as to whether a change had been made to the tag or enhanced conversions but noone has yet to get back to me. Despite this, the purchase events reported are only being attributed as "unassigned" source however are being reported against products. So still only partially useful data.
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
in progress
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
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Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
Fancy a chat at some point?