Conversions with multiple data sources in Campaign Manager 360 help you recover conversion data that may be lost due to browser settings, ad blockers, or network interruptions. By combining data from your website tags with data from offline sources, you can achieve more complete and accurate measurement for your most important conversion events. This leads to more comprehensive reporting. You can enhance your bidding performance by learning how conversions with multiple data sources work, how to set them up, and following best practices when using them.
On this page- How multi-source conversions work
- Set up multi-source conversions
- Monitor your multi-source conversions setup
- Best practices
How multi-source conversions work
This approach involves sending the same conversion data to Google from two different sources, online and offline.- Online source: A Google tag, or legacy floodlight tag, on your website captures conversion events as they happen.
- Offline source: An offline data upload using the Data Manager API, in the future the interface will allow the importing of offline data.
To prevent counting conversions twice, Google uses a unique transaction ID to ensure that both sources don’t produce duplicate events. When the same transaction ID is received from both the online tag and the offline upload, the system recognizes it as a single conversion, merging the data to create the most complete record.
Benefits of using multi-source conversions
Some of the benefits of using multi-source conversions include:- Recovery of lost conversions: Recapture conversion events that aren’t collected by tags due to data collection challenges.
- Improve measurement accuracy: Gain a more complete view of your conversion data for comprehensive reporting and attribution.
- Enhance bidding performance: Provide more complete data to automated bidding.
Set up multi-source conversions
Before you begin
To use multi-source conversions, you must have the following:- An active Google tag: Your Floodlight conversion must have an active Google tag implemented on your website.
- A unique transaction ID: You must pass a unique transaction ID for each conversion through both your Google tag and your offline data uploads. This transaction ID is required for de-duplication.
- An offline data source: You must upload offline conversion data using either the Data Manager API. The Campaign Manager 360 API does not support multi-source conversions.
- Correct user permissions: To set up and manage offline data connections in the UI, you need the “insert offline conversions” permission in your profile.
Enable multi-source conversions
To enable this functionality for a Floodlight conversion, you need to send data from both an online tag and an offline source, with matching transaction IDs. The system will automatically detect this setup and begin the de-duplication process.If you currently use tag based conversions only
- Ensure your Google tag is configured to pass a unique transaction ID for each conversion. If it is not, you may need to retag your site.
- Set up a process to upload your offline conversion data using either the Data Manager API. Make sure to include the same unique transaction ID that is passed by your tag.
If you currently use offline only conversions
- If you are using the Campaign Manager 360 API to upload conversions, you must migrate to the Data Manager API. The Campaign Manager 360 API does not support multi-source conversions.
- Set up and deploy the Google tag for the corresponding Floodlight conversion on your website.
- Ensure that both your tag and your offline uploads via the Data Manager API are configured to pass the same unique transaction ID for each conversion.
Monitor your multi-source conversions setup
After you set up a Floodlight conversion for multi-source conversions, you can monitor its status in the “Data Source” section of the conversion’s settings. This section displays the status of both your Floodlight tag and your offline data sources.
Status you may see include:- Active sources: Data is being received successfully from your tag and offline sources.
- Needs attention / Urgent: There is an issue with one of your data sources that requires your attention. Hover over the status to see a diagnostic card with more details.
- Monitoring: The conversion is in a temporary monitoring period. See the section below for more details.
- No sources detected: No data has been received for this new conversion yet.
About the monitoring period for bidding
When you add an offline data source to an existing Floodlight conversion that is used for bidding, a 14 day monitoring period begins automatically. During this monitoring period, the additional offline conversion data will not be used for bidding. This trial period allows you to observe any changes in reported conversions without immediately impacting your bidding performance.Best practices
- Use recommended counting methods: For the best results, use Floodlight conversions with Count set to “Every”.
- Ensure transaction ID uniqueness: The transaction ID is the key to de-duplication. Using non-unique IDs, for example “1” or a random string for every conversion, will result in inaccurate data and prevent de-duplication against tag data from occurring. A unique transaction ID is required for multi-source conversions to work.
- Check diagnostics regularly: Monitor the “Data Source” section to quickly identify and resolve any setup issues.