When you use Floodlight activities to track sales on your site, at a minimum Search Ads 360 reports display the total value of your sales and the total advertising cost. While this level of reporting shows the impact of advertising on total revenue, it doesn't provide insight into which products in your inventory are driving sales. Likewise, while you can advertise products in many formats, basic reports do not show which of your ads actually lead to the sales of those products.
If you have a Merchant Center feed connected to your account, you can set up your Floodlight transaction activities to provide Search Ads 360 with the data it needs to report on revenue, cost, and profit for individual products in your inventory feed. Search Ads 360 reports can also show which campaigns and ad groups contributed to the sales of those products. You can report on products sold at the ad group level or higher.
Once you're able to report on the sales, cost, and revenue for specific products, you can:
-
Look for opportunities to cross-sell.
If you see products that are selling well, you can adjust ad copy to cross-sell compatible products. Conversely, if you need to sell specific products, you can find compatible products that are selling well and suggest a cross-sell in the ad. For example, instead of ad copy that says “Nice shirts,” you could write “Nice shirts and ties.” -
Refine campaign structure to more precisely bid and track.
By seeing which campaigns contribute to sales of products, you can discover which type of campaign (Shopping campaign with Shopping ads or inventory keyword campaign with text ads) is best at driving sales of a particular product. You can also add negative keywords and product group exclusions to specific campaigns to tune the marketing funnel. -
Provide general information about the effectiveness of advertising.
You can use use sales or other metrics of specific products to gauge the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts. A significant deviation could provide a clue that something needs attention, such as errors on your site.
If you include profit data in your feed, you can set bids so that the CPA is less than or equal to the average profit per transaction. You can also see which products or product categories are not selling as well as you expect, and improve product descriptions and ad copy, add more keywords, or increase bids for more visibility.
Here's a typical page on a web site that acknowledges a purchase:
Before adding purchase details
Here's a Google tag on the thank-you page. It includes a Floodlight event snippet that records transactions on the site:
<!--
Start of global snippet: Please do not remove
Place this snippet between the <head> and </head> tags on every page of your site.
-->
<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) - DoubleClick -->
<script async src="https://googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=DC-1234567"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments)};
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'DC-1234567');
</script>
<!-- End of global snippet: Please do not remove -->
<!--
Event snippet for Thank You on http://example.com/thanks: Please do not remove.
Place this snippet on pages with events you’re tracking.
Creation date: 11/01/2017
-->
<script>
gtag('event', 'conversion', {
'allow_custom_scripts': true,
'send_to': 'DC-1234567/group1/thank123+transactions',
'transaction_id': '012345',
'value': 129.97,
});
</script>
<noscript>
<img src="https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/activity/src=1234567;type=group1;
cat=thank123;qty=1;cost=129.97;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;
tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;npa=;
ord=012345?" width="1" height="1" alt="">
</noscript>
<!-- End of event snippet: Please do not remove -->
Note: Event snippets generated by Search Ads 360 include an optional <noscript> tag that contains a Floodlight image tag. This tag is used to report conversions in browsers that don't support JavaScript.
Here's the same data formatted as a Floodlight tag:
<iframe height="0" width="0" src="http://0.fls.doubleclick.net/activityi;src=0;type=fake_tag;cat=fake_tag;u=4771963;qty=3;cost=129.97;ord=4771963;~oref=http%3A//mysite.com/checkout?" style="display: none; visibility: hidden;"></iframe>
When the event snippet or Floodlight tag sends data to its associated Floodlight activity, Search Ads 360 increments the Revenue column by $129.97. You can then navigate to an ad group and segment the reporting table by Floodlight activity. The reporting table displays the total revenue the Floodlight activity has recorded for each ad group, along with the total number of transactions and advertising cost.
| Ad group | Floodlight activity group | Floodlight activity | Trans | Cost | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T-Shirts | Sales Confirmation | Thank you page | 613 | 308.79 | $1,115.00 |
| Shoes | Sales Confirmation | Thank you page | 393 | 150.33 | $985.72 |
This basic level of reporting tells you the total revenue in a transaction, but doesn't give any insight into which products were purchased, and how much revenue is being generated by specific products in your inventory.
Adding purchase details
The following Floodlight event snippet includes an items array, plus the country and language fields for reporting purchase details:
<!--
Event snippet for Thank You on http://example.com/thanks: Please do not remove.
Place this snippet on pages with events you’re tracking.
Creation date: 11/01/2017
-->
<script>
gtag('event', 'purchase',
{
'allow_custom_scripts': true,
'send_to': 'DC-1234567/group1/thank123+transactions',
'transaction_id': '012345',
'value': 129.97,
'items': [
{ 'id': '123456755559',
'price': '19.99',
'quantity': 1
},
{ 'id': '123456788889',
'price': '54.00',
'quantity': 2
}
],
'country': 'us',
'language': 'en'
}
);
</script>
<noscript>
<img src="https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/activity/src=1234567;type=group1;cat=thank123;
qty=1;cost=129.97;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;npa=;
ord=012345;prd=i1:123456755559|p1:19.99|q1:1|i2:123456788889|p2:54.0|q2:2|c:us|l:en?" width="1" height="1" alt="">
</noscript>
<!-- End of event snippet: Please do not remove -->
Note: Event snippets generated by Search Ads 360 include an optional <noscript> tag that contains a Floodlight image tag. This tag is used to report conversions in browsers that don't support JavaScript. If your site supports browsers that haven't enabled JavaScript, it's recommended that you update the Floodlight image tag to include purchase details as shown in the example.
Here's the same data formatted as a Floodlight iframe tag:
<iframe height="0" width="0" src="http://0.fls.doubleclick.net/activityi;src=0;type=fake_tag;cat=fake_tag;u=4771963;qty=3;cost=129.97;ord=4771963;prd=i1:m-dress-orange-xl|p1:54.99|q1:2|i2:m-polo-green-l|p2:19.99|q2:1;~oref=http%3A//mysite.com/checkout?" style="display: none; visibility: hidden;"></iframe>
When this event snippet or Floodlight tag sends data to its associated Floodlight activity, Search Ads 360 still reports on total revenue, cost, and total transactions as before. However, additional reporting columns in Search Ads 360 display the total units sold for each product, the revenue for each product, and—if you've enabled your Merchant Center account to report profit—the profit and profit margin for each product.
| Product ID | Units sold | Revenue from units sold | Gross profit from units sold | Average unit price | Gross profit margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m-dress-orange-xl | 2 | 109.98 | 90.00 | 54.99 | 81% |
| m-polo-green-l | 1 | 19.99 | 8 | 19.99 | 40% |
View metrics across campaigns and by product category
Once you set up purchase detail reporting, you can see how specific products perform across all types of retail campaigns, such as keyword campaigns and Shopping campaigns. For example, if the same product appears in a keyword campaign and a Shopping campaign, you can see how many sales and how much revenue comes from each campaign.
In addition to viewing metrics for specific products, you can also organize metrics by the product category, type, or brand attributes that you have specified in your Merchant Center feed. For example, if you assign products in your Merchant Center feed to the Cameras, Binoculars, and Telescopes categories, you can view and compare the performance of each category.
Historical values versus current values
The revenue and cost data in Search Ads 360 reflect the values at the time that the Floodlight tag reports the sale. If you change the price or cost of a product later, Search Ads 360 does not retroactively apply the new values to previous sales.
For example:
-
Your Floodlight tag or event snippet reports the sale of a shirt for $19.99, and your Merchant Center feed specifies a cost of $11 for each shirt.
The Gross profit from units sold column reports a gross profit of $8.99. -
Later, you update your Merchant Center feed to specify a cost of $10 for each shirt.
-
Your Floodlight tag or event snippet reports the sale of another shirt for $19.99. Because your Merchant Center feed now specifies a cost of $10, the gross profit for this sale is $9.99.
-
The Gross profit from units sold column adds the profit of $8.99 from the previous sale to the $9.99 profit from the current sale and reports $18.98.
Use purchase details with other Search Ads 360 features
You can use purchase details with the following Search Ads 360 features:
-
Formula columns: A formula column is a column you create to apply spreadsheet-like functions to data from existing Search Ads 360 columns. You can add any of the purchase detail columns to a formula column and then perform adjustments on the data. For example, to view the daily average profit, you can create this formula:
Gross profit from units sold / Num_days() -
Automated rules: You can use any of the purchase detail columns in automated rules. For example, you can add a rule to a keyword report that increases bids for any keyword that generates more than X dollars in cross-sell revenue.
Bid strategies do not use data from purchase detail reports to optimize bids.
Can I use purchase details and custom Floodlight variables at the same time?
Custom Floodlight variables enable you to track and report on data that is tailored to your unique business needs. These variables pass data to Campaign Manager 360 and Search Ads 360 through attributes named u1, u2 , and so on in your Floodlight tags or event snippets. Custom Floodlight variables can pass data about both sales and non-sales activities, such as whether a customer is new or has purchased from the site before, or the names of newsletters that customers signed up for.
You can use custom Floodlight variables and the purchase-details variable in the same tag or event snippet. (The order in which you specify the variables doesn't matter.)
Here's an event snippet with purchase-details and custom Floodlight variables:
<!--
Event snippet for Thank You on http://example.com/thanks: Please do not remove.
Place this snippet on pages with events you’re tracking.
Creation date: 11/01/2017
-->
<script>
gtag('event', 'conversion', {
'allow_custom_scripts': true,
'send_to': 'DC-1234567/group1/thank123+transactions',
'transaction_id': '012345',
'value': 129.97,
'items': [
{ 'id': '123456755559',
'price': '19.99',
'quantity': 1
},
{ 'id': '123456788889',
'price': '54.00',
'quantity': 2
}
],
'country': 'us',
'language': 'en',
'u1': $customer_loyalty,
'u2': $shipping_cost
});
</script>
<noscript>
<img src="https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/activity/src=1234567;type=group1;cat=thank123;
qty=1;cost=129.97;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;npa=;
ord=012345;prd=i1:123456755559|p1:19.99|q1:1|i2:123456788889|p2:54.0|q2:2|c:us|l:en;
u1=$customer_loyalty;u2=$shipping_cost?" width="1" height="1" alt="">
</noscript>
<!-- End of event snippet: Please do not remove -->
Note the following:
-
Purchase detail reports in Search Ads 360 does not use data reported by custom Floodlight variables. If you want to attribute revenue from online sales of specific products to your marketing efforts within Search Ads 360, you'll need to include the purchase-details variable in your Floodlight tags.
-
Event snippets generated by Search Ads 360 include an optional
<noscript>tag that contains a Floodlight image tag. This tag is used to report conversions in browsers that don't support JavaScript.If your site supports browsers that haven't enabled JavaScript, it's recommended that you update the Floodlight image tag to include purchase details as shown in the example. -
If you use Floodlight Iframe or image tags, make sure the tag's URL does not exceed the total length that is supported by your customers' browsers. For example, some browsers limit URLs to 2,048 characters. If a Floodlight tag's URL exceeds the limit in one of these browsers, the data will not be reported to Search Ads 360.
Purchase details with Floodlight compared with Google Analytics
While Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking can also report the quantity and revenue of specific products that have been purchased on your site, Search Ads 360 reports do not include the purchase details from Google Analytics.
Search Ads 360 only displays purchase details that have been recorded by Floodlight tags or event snippets that include purchase details.
Technical detail: If you use Google Tag Manager to manage tagging for Floodlight, you can make purchase details available to Floodlight by pushing the data to the Google Tag Manager data layer.
When you push purchase details to the data layer, you'll actually be storing the data in the same object that Google Analytics can use to report the products that have been purchased on your site. That is, if you're using both Search Ads 360 and Google Analytics to report purchase details, your web developer can use the same object to store the data for both products.
Next steps
Before you start, set up your campaigns:
- Link your Merchant Center account to Search Ads 360.
- Create a manual campaign, inventory keyword campaign or Shopping campaign.
Once you set up your campaigns, you can:
- Update existing tags or create new tags for purchase detail reporting through Floodlight.
- Optionally enable your Merchant Center account to report on profit.
- View reports on purchased products.