Now that advertising in the digital world is no longer a complicated affair, throughout 2021 Google Ads rolled out a fair number of new features for marketers to try, making life easier for digital marketers. This naturally included an update to the Conversions system, which Google has given a new name: Google Enhanced Conversions. So in this article, Relevant Audience will walk you through this new measurement system for advertising on Google Ads.
What Are Conversions and Why Do They Matter in the Digital Market?
Have you ever wondered what data Google uses to measure how it should act when you run an ad? We call this a “Conversion.” Google defines a Conversion as “an action that’s counted when someone interacts with your ad and then takes an action that you’ve defined as valuable to your business, such as an online purchase, signing up for a membership, or downloading an app. When such an action occurs, it’s called a Conversion.” As you can see, the meaning of Conversions as defined by Google is extremely important for advertisers, whether for the purpose of analysis, measurement, or adjusting a marketing plan according to each situation.
Enhanced Conversions: Measurement Taken to the Next Level
While a major competitor like Facebook released Advanced Matching back in 2016, complete with features that help your business learn customer behavior and measure advertising results in a way that was considered a step up in the digital advertising industry, Google was certainly not to be outdone. In 2022 it launched Enhanced Conversions as a Beta version for users to try out, working on a similar principle: learning the behavior of customers who interact with ads, but also including the collection of email and phone-number data, then attempting to match that data with the ad. And when a purchase takes place through that ad, it immediately becomes the job of Google Enhanced Conversions. For example:
- You’re looking for a bicycle helmet. While you’re at work and using your email on your company computer, you click on a bicycle-shop ad that pops up in your browser, but you don’t decide to buy it right then and there.
- When you get home and use your mobile phone and personal email to decide to purchase the helmet, this is exactly where the Enhanced Conversions process kicks in. In other words, when you enter your email address, shipping address, and phone number during the checkout process, this information is sent back to Google. Even if you use 2-Factor Authentication (a two-step login using your phone number — in this case, if you use both your work phone number and your personal number, this information will also be sent to Google).
What About Data Privacy?
In 2022, the trend of ending the collection of user data via Third-Party Cookies was replaced by collecting First-Party Data, giving many online advertisers quite a headache as they adapted to collecting user data in new ways. Google therefore pushed developers to create Google Enhanced Conversions to meet the needs of Next Gen advertising — to analyze marketing plans while maintaining a high level of security for users, allowing advertisers to gain high efficiency in putting data to use. At this point, many people may raise questions about the privacy policy for the personal data that Google pulls in for use in Google Enhanced Conversions. Google states that customers can control their own data, and that the data is encrypted using a standard encryption that Google calls “Hashed Form Encrypting with The SHA-256,” ensuring that only Google can access this information.
The arrival of Enhanced Conversions gives advertisers the data they need to create more effective advertising campaigns, in order to drive sales through ad campaigns and achieve the most effective results possible for your business. And don’t forget that this is only a Beta version — in the future Google may or may not turn it into a standard feature. If Google Ads introduces any additional features down the road, Relevant Audience will certainly be back to share that knowledge with you.
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Relevant Audience is a company that provides Digital Performance Marketing Agency services, with the main goal of delivering digital marketing services that help businesses reach the target audiences who are looking for their products or services at the right time, place, and device, through various online channels. Our services cover Search Marketing, Social Media Ads, Search Ads, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), all the way to Influencer Marketing, and we are also part of the Google Partners program.
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