To enable you to better assess bid strategy performance, click-date aligned (or click-aligned) metrics are now reported for Search Ads 360 bid strategies and budget bid strategies. The conversions are attributed to the date a click occurs rather than the date a conversion occurs. Formerly, bid strategy metrics were conversion-date-aligned .
Click-aligned metrics provide better insight into a bid strategy's performance, especially when there's a significant conversion delay . A conversion delay indicates how long it takes customers who see and click your ad to complete the conversion. Sometimes conversions happen within a day of the click, or several days after the click. Consider shoppers who leave items in their carts and actually purchase days or weeks later, or customers who shop for big-ticket items. They may click on an ad on Saturday, but not buy until weeks later, after they've done more research.
If there's a significant conversion delay, it's better to evaluate bid strategy performance beyond the conversion delay that occurs in the campaigns. Otherwise, the conversions reported are incomplete.
Click-aligned conversions enable you to evaluate your return on investment because you can see how many conversions result from your spend on a given day.
Example: click-aligned reporting versus conversion-aligned reporting
- A $25 CPA is set for a bid strategy that manages bids and bid adjustments for campaigns that advertise appliances.
- From November 1 to November 10, the bid strategy spends $1000 and 10 appliances are purchased.
- From November 11 to November 20, 40 more conversions occur because of November 1 ad clicks.
- Because a bid strategy examines current and past performance when setting bids (and bid adjustments), the bid strategy knows that the conversion delay for the campaigns is about 8 days.
- A conversion-aligned report (on November 11 or later) for the time period would show a $100 CPA for the bid strategy.
- A click-aligned report (on December 1 or later) for the time period, would show a $25 on target CPA for the bid strategy.
Click-date aligned bid strategy performance columns
Bid strategy click-date aligned columns are available to provide more information to help compare and analyze performance. The columns are available in the following reports and tabs:
- Bid strategies reporting table
- Bid Strategy Overview tab
- Any Keywords tab
- Any Dynamic Search Ads tab
Displays the number of conversions attributed to the bid strategy for a selected date range. The number doesn't include the estimated conversions due.
Note that if the bid strategy's conversion source is a formula column, the weights are applied when calculating the number of conversions.
Displays the total number of click-aligned conversions that occurred and are expected to occur during the time the bid strategy is applied to the campaigns and other items. The number is a combination of Bid strategy conversions due and Bid strategy conversions.
Note that if the bid strategy's conversion source is a formula column, the weights are applied when calculating the number of conversions.
Displays the number of raw conversions. That is, the conversions are counted without the weighting applied by a formula column.
The column doesn't include the estimated raw conversions due.
Indicates whether a bid strategy was on target for a selected time range. The number is based on bid strategy conversions or revenue. 100% means the bid strategy is on target.
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A value less than 100% indicates that the bid strategy is over-performing.
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A value greater than 100% indicates that the bid strategy is under-performing.
Displays the number of days (80th percentile) that occur between a click and the conversion for the campaigns managed by the bid strategy.
