ICYMI: Google is rolling out enhanced conversions in beta to all eligible advertisers.
See https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/11192862.
WHAT IT IS
Enhanced Conversions is a feature that can improve the accuracy of your conversion measurement. It supplements your existing conversion tags by sending hashed first-party conversion data from your website to Google in a privacy-safe way. The feature uses a secure one-way hashing algorithm called SHA256 on your first-party customer data, such as email addresses, before sending them to Google. The hashed data is then matched with signed-in Google accounts to attribute your campaign conversions to ad events, such as clicks or views.
More details here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9888656?hl=en-GB
WHY YOU’D CARE
Enhanced conversions is a way for Google to help recover conversion data that is lost due to a decline in the available cookie data. This is especially valuable when you are using conversion-based smart bidding; by adding enhanced conversion tracking you are better educating the algorithm as to what audience will convert into a sale/lead.
MY TAKE
I’m not sure what to think yet. I can see some privacy concerns and how Google will match my first-party data is a complete black box, but in theory, it should recover some conversions. I’ve decided to implement it for a few of my clients and test it.
One interesting observation I had when reading the documentation:
“What you’ll see after you set up enhanced conversions
A few days after you set up enhanced conversions you’ll see “Recording (processing enhanced conversions)” in your “Status” column. This means we are currently processing your enhanced conversion data and will notify you once it’s integrated into your conversion action.
Enhanced conversions currently need up to 75 days to train before you’ll start to see impact to your reporting. In the meantime, your conversion tracking will still function as it normally would, and once the training is complete, you’ll also have enhanced conversion data included in your reports.
After your enhanced conversions learning period, they will be included in your reporting and the conversion “Status” column for that conversion action will say “Recording (enhanced conversions)” That means we have started using enhanced conversion data in the reporting for your conversion action. If you hover the status You’ll see the date enhanced conversions started being included in your reporting and the impact on reported conversions for this conversion action. We’ll tell you the campaign type and the percentage of reported conversions.
You’ll only see this card for 30 days after you are eligible to see the impact on your reported conversions. After that, the status will return to “Recording conversions” and if you hover over the status, you will see a card which explains that enhanced conversions are being recorded, but will no longer show the impact.“
How about you, have you already tried enhanced conversions?
– Nils