In online advertising, a conversion occurs when a click on your ad leads directly to user behavior you deem valuable, such as a purchase, signup, pageview, or lead. Google provides two sets of metrics in your reports to help you better understand how many conversions resulted from clicks on your ads.
Definitions
- Conversions (1-per-click)
Conversions (1-per-click) count a conversion for every AdWords ad click resulting in a conversion within 30 days. This means if more than one conversion happens following a single ad click, conversions after the first will not count.
Another way to say this is that conversions (1-per-click) will count at most one conversion per click. These metrics are useful for measuring conversions approximating unique customer acquisitions (e.g. leads).
Other metrics related to Conversions (1-per-click) are:
- Conversion Rate (1-per-click): Conversions (1-per-click) divided by total clicks.
- Cost/Conv. (1-per-click): Total cost divided by conversions (1-per-click)
- Conversions (many-per-click)
Conversions (many-per-click) count a conversion every time a conversion is made within 30 days following an AdWords ad click. Conversions (many-per-click) will count multiple conversions per click.
These metrics are useful for measuring conversions that are valuable every time they happen (e.g. ecommerce transactions).
Other metrics related to conversions (many-per-click) are:
- Conversion rate (many-per-click): Conversions (many-per-click) divided by total clicks. Note that because you may receive more than one conversion per click, this conversion rate may be over 100%.
- Cost / Conv. (many-per-click): Total cost divided by conversions (many-per-click).
Examples
Suppose you have a conversion tag on a newsletter sign-up page and another conversion tag on a shopping cart 'Thank you' page. If a user clicks on one of your ads, signs up for your newsletter, then purchases a product and hits the thank you page, you will receive:
- Conversions (1-per-click): 1
- Conversions (many-per-click): 2
Both sets of conversion metrics are potentially useful ways to measure and understand ROI. If you would like to view only a subset of these metrics, use the Column Chooser to customize your view.
