A customer's typical conversion path ends after they convert, but this isn't always the case. Customers return retail purchases, cancel reservations or perform actions that increase their value to your business. To account for these changes in conversion value, you can adjust the value of a conversion after it's reported in Google Ads.
This article explains how conversion adjustment works and when to use it.
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When to use conversion adjustments
Conversion adjustments can be useful if you need to:
- Retract conversions that should no longer be counted in your conversion columns, such as cancelled reservations or returned purchases.
- Reduce (restate) the value of conversions when you receive partial returns for an order. For example, if a customer is shopping for shoes, he might order shoes in different sizes and return the ones that don't fit, which brings down the total value of the purchase.
- Change the value of conversions based on customer lifetime value, that is, when customers (and, consequently, their conversions) become more valuable or less valuable to your business based on their purchase history.
How conversion adjustment works
You can adjust conversions in two ways.
- Restate: Allows you to change the conversion value, but not the count of conversions. Only the Conv. value and All conv. value columns and ROAS bid strategies will be affected.
- Retract: Allows you to permanently remove a conversion, change its conversion value to 0.00 and remove it from the conversion count. Conversions, Conv value and All conv value columns will be updated, and CPA and ROAS bid strategies will be affected.
When a conversion is retracted (or restated with a value to 0), it can't be adjusted further. Any subsequent attempts to adjust the conversion will be ignored (without an error message).
If you'd like to 'undo' conversion retractions, you can re-upload the conversion data as a new event.
- If your conversions include an order ID or transaction ID: Provide a new, unique order ID (for example, by appending a suffix such as '-1' or '-reupload') in addition to slightly adjusting the conversion timestamp. Re-uploading with the same order ID will be rejected as a duplicate, even if the timestamp is changed.
- If your conversions don’t use an order ID: Re-upload the conversion data with a slightly different conversion timestamp. For example, add a few seconds so that it’s treated as a new conversion.
- When adjusting conversions, you have up to 7 days after the conversion is first recorded to make any adjustments for autobidding readability. If conversions are adjusted after the 7 day time frame, the adjustment will be ignored by autobidding.
- Outside of the autobidding readability, overall, conversion adjustments for hotel ads can be made within 55 days.
To restate or retract a conversion, you'll need to place your transaction data in a spreadsheet and specify which conversions you'd like to adjust in your Google Ads reports. Learn more about how to adjust your conversions.
- For conversions that you'd like to retract, you'll need to provide the order ID and the name of the conversion action associated with the conversion. Then, you'll upload the spreadsheet in the same way you import offline conversions into Google Ads.
- For conversions that you'd like to restate, you'll need to provide a new value for these conversions. You'll also have to provide the order ID and the name of the conversion action associated with the conversion. Then, you'll upload the spreadsheet in the same way that you import offline conversions into Google Ads.
You'll start seeing your changes in your Conversions, All conversions, Conversion value and All conv value columns in about the same amount of time it takes regular conversion data to surface in your reports.
