Conversion tracking in YouTube campaigns

You can measure de-duplicated conversions across TrueView in-stream, bumpers, and cross-exchange inventory with enhanced tracking for YouTube. 

Due to differences in cookie and device ID settings, advertisers may see fluctuations in delivery and performance when cookies or device ID are unavailable. In some situations, Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360, and the new Search Ads 360 use machine learning and historical data to model conversions.

About conversion tracking for YouTube

Floodlight conversion tracking

YouTube & partners line items use Floodlight activities to count conversions. Unlike other types of line items, Floodlight conversions only impact optimization when the Floodlight optimization for YouTube feature is enabled.

YouTube-enabled conversion tracking

YouTube & partners line items automatically use any of the YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities that exist for your advertiser to count conversions. For information on enabling your Floodlight activities to count YouTube conversions, see Set up conversion tracking for YouTube using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities. View-through-conversion (VTC) reporting is not available for desktop but is supported for mobile.

YouTube in-feed video ads attribute a conversion when the billable event (a view/click) is reached and a conversion occurs on the advertiser’s website. 

YouTube auto-tagging

Enable YouTube auto-tagging for your advertiser in Display & Video 360 Partner Settings to improve attribution signals for conversion measurement. This is recommended for all customers to accurately account for conversions driven by ads shown on YouTube.

How it works

When YouTube auto-tagging is enable a Google Click Identifier (GCLID) parameter is added to the landing page URL when someone clicks your ad. For example, if someone clicks on your ad for www.example.com, the final URL will look like www.example.com/?gclid=123xyz. GCLID offers similar functionality to the DCLID parameter set by the Enhanced Attribution feature in Campaign Manager 360, but is used specifically for YouTube. On the landing page, the Google tag contains your Floodlight activities and reads the GCLID to attribute conversions to clicks on your ads.

Set up auto-tagging

Auto-tagging is turned off by default. To turn it on:

1. From your Display & Video 360 partner, click Partner Settings > Advertiser Configurations.
2. Check the box to Accept the Terms & Conditions for accessing YouTube & Partners, then click Select advertisers to choose which advertisers you want to enable access to YouTube & partners line items.
3. In the YouTube auto-tagging section, click Select advertisers to choose which advertisers you want to enable auto-tagging for.

A small percentage of websites don't allow arbitrary URL parameters and serve an error page when auto-tagging is turned on. Check with your web developer to see if this applies to you, or turn on auto-tagging and do a test by clicking your ad. If the link to your site works, then you can use auto-tagging. If you get an error, you'll need to turn auto-tagging off. Then, ask your web developer to allow arbitrary URL parameters before turning it back on. If your website uses redirects, it’s also important to make sure the GCLID is passed to the final landing page in order to track conversions.

Reporting on conversion events for YouTube & partners line items

Reporting on conversion events varies based on which conversion and measurement scenarios your advertiser is configured to optimize toward:

• Learn more about reporting for line items using Floodlight optimization for YouTube
• Learn more about reporting for line items optimized using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities