Today the majority of consumers use multiple devices to shop online. They often start their journey on a mobile phone and end up completing that purchase on another device. In fact, 90% of consumers say they use more than one device to complete an action. If you’re not looking at the influence mobile advertising is having on desktop transactions, you’re probably undervaluing and underinvesting in mobile.

Here are two ways to optimize mobile for cross-device transactions: 1. Use Google’s Estimated Cross-Device Conversions

In an ideal world, shoppers would login to your store on every device and you could track cross-device transactions with ease. Unfortunately, most shoppers don’t do this, especially if they’ve never purchased from you before. That’s where Google comes in. Many shoppers are logged into a Google property (Google, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, etc.) on all of their devices the majority of the time. This gives Google the ability to track if the same user clicked on an ad via a smartphone and then converted on another device.

Wouldn’t these conversions occur anyway? Or be double counted?

No, estimated cross-device conversions are incremental. A common misperception is that these conversions would be captured by or double counted with desktop or tablet conversions. That’s not the case. Like all other Adwords conversions, cross-device conversions use last paid click attribution. Therefore, if an ad were clicked on another device after the mobile click, it would not be included in these cross-device estimates.

Estimated incremental cross-device conversions Analyzed across 16 retail partners

2. Optimize Bids and Budgets Based on Your Cross-Device Estimates

Adlucent recently analyzed cross-device data for 16 retailers and found that on average 30% more conversions could be attributed to smartphones. That’s a significant amount. We also noticed that this data varied by retailer, campaign segmentation, ad type (text vs. product listing ads) and time of year. We recommend using this data to optimize mobile bid modifiers and budgets at the most granular level possible and make adjustments frequently. Without taking cross-device conversions into consideration, you could be losing new customers, revenue and market  share.

Why are they called “estimated” conversions?

100% of users are not logged into Google properties at all times, so Google estimates total cross-device conversions by measuring the effect on logged in users and scaling that data appropriately. If there is insufficient data to make a sound estimate, Adwords displays a dash in the appropriate column. It is worth noting that it will be years, if ever, before you will get perfect cross-device data and this is likely one of the more accurate estimates you’ll find. Consumer behavior is complex and your customers are frequently using multiple devices and multiple channels before converting. It’s critical to get comfortable with imperfect data in this new world.

Cheat Sheet:

OPTIMIZE MOBILE FOR CROSS-DEVICE CONVERSIONS

© Adlucent | 2015

Directions for Finding Your Estimated Cross-Device Conversions

1. Make sure you have Google Conversion Tracking installed.

2. Login to Adwords.

3. Add performance columns “converted clicks” and “cross device conversions” to your report view.

4. Choose to segment by device at the top of the screen. At the bottom of your screen select the “+” to see performance segmented by smartphones, tablets, and computers.

5. In the row showing performance for smartphones within your filtered campaign, compare est. cross-device conversions and converted clicks to compute the delta between orders being completed on the smartphone and orders where the smartphone plays a role, but the conversion is completed on another device.

6. We suggest using this number to set bid modifiers and make investment decisions in mobile. It’s a more accurate representation of the value that your mobile advertising is providing.

About Adlucent

Innovative retailers choose Adlucent as their search and digital advertising partner to deliver profitable customer acquisition solutions through a unique data-driven approach. Through a combination of shopping, product, customer, and third party data—backed by its Deep Search™ technology platform and 14+ years of digital advertising expertise—Adlucent finds the right buyers for each retailer and delivers a personalized advertising experience that converts. Learn more at www.adlucent.com.

© Adlucent | 2015