Here’s a truth in computer science: garbage in, garbage out.
Let me rephrase that in the Google Ads Smart Bidding context: incorrect or poor-quality conversion tracking will produce faulty bids.
Faulty bids tank results. Not good. Yet, this is what happened to one of my accounts recently. The number of tracked conversions was artificially inflated.
Here’s what happened:
1. We forgot to add unique transaction IDs to the tracking.
2. For some reason unknown to us, a large portion of people who finished the purchase visited the thank you page a second time.
3. So, the same transaction was being tracked twice.
4. The result: a repeat rate of 1.50 for transactions that in reality only happened once.
“Repeat rate” is the average number of conversions you receive based on interactions that led to at least one conversion. This is reported in the Conversion view in the Google Ads UI (note that you may need to add the ‘repeat rate’ column):
To avoid over-counting, add an order ID to your conversion tag.
Here’s more info on how to minimize duplicate conversions:
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6386790
– Nils
PS: A track I’m currently listening to, to point myself in the right direction for 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZ_vKWF8e8