Conversions with cart data is an extension to conversion tracking on your website. Using conversions with cart data you can provide the details of products sold for each transaction. By providing this additional information, you can understand your ads performance better and drive further optimizations. You can unlock advanced sales, profit reporting and insights for your Google Ads account and campaigns, such as number of orders, average cart size, revenue and gross profit. Advanced reporting based on conversions with cart data is currently supported for Performance Max, Shopping ads, and Search campaigns that are linked with a Google Merchant Center account.
Key benefits
A click on an ad may lead to sale of products different than those actually featured. Implementing conversions with cart data enables you to view which items are purchased after your ads are clicked, and which items are your top sellers due to advertising. It also allows you to analyze cross-sell patterns and identify products that lead to bigger baskets or higher order values. Advertisers reporting conversions with cart data get:
- Clear measurement of revenue and profit generated by supported Google Ads campaigns
- Detailed reporting on items sold, cart size, and average order value
- Detailed reporting on cross-sell products (Shopping ads only)
Requirements
If you are already using Google Ads conversion tracking (GACT) or SA360 conversion tracking you can simply add the cart data to your existing conversions tag. If you don’t already have conversion tracking in place, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking first. Alternatively, if you have Google Analytics 4 conversions set up, you can import them into Google Ads to view conversions with cart data metrics.
The reporting and insights based on sold products include all conversions that meet the requirements below:
- The conversions are biddable purchase conversions.
- The conversions are using Google tag or Google Tag Manager.
- SA360 and Google Analytics 4 conversions that are imported to the Google Ads account.
To unlock profit reporting, you’ll need to provide a value for the cost_of_goods_sold (COGS) attribute under “Price & availability” in the data specification for your Merchant Center product feed. Learn more about Cost of goods (COGS) [cost_of_goods_sold].
Learn how to Set up and test reporting conversions with cart data.
Unlock additional reporting metrics
When you submit cart data for your purchase conversions, Google Ads uses it to generate additional metrics and reports about your sales and sold products. Moreover, Google Ads combines the revenue from the sold items with their respective cost of goods sold (COGS) data that you provided in your Merchant Center feed, and uses it to generate additional metrics based on gross profit.
Cart conversion reports tell you what a customer bought after interacting with your ads. For example, assume you’re advertising a pair of shoes. From your regular performance reports, you know that a purchase conversion has been attributed to advertising these shoes. However, you don’t know whether that customer bought the same shoes you were advertising or if they bought another product. Cart conversion reports give you this information so you know exactly what the customer went on to buy.
To summarize, by reporting your cart data, you can unlock advanced performance reports and insights to help you better understand your actual sales performance, such as:
- How different bidding dimensions (device or geographic location, for example) affect cart size and average order value
- Whether or not users bought items other than those featured in the ads they clicked
- Whether or not users bought the items featured in the ads they clicked
- Which bidding entities (campaigns, ad groups, product or listing groups) drive product sales
- Which bidding entities deliver the highest gross profit
With more data, you are able to better optimize your campaigns and make more informed business decisions. For example, based on your cart reporting insights, you may choose to bid more aggressively on products that lead to bigger baskets.
Key metrics available with cart data reporting
Reporting metrics are available in your statistics tables at Campaigns, Ad Groups, and Products levels. The metrics that use cart data can be found under the “Conversions“ group of columns.
Attributed sales metrics
Attributed sales metrics measure the impact of a product as a lead generator. These metrics indicate whether the ad that featured the product results in sales of the product itself and/or leads to sales of other products. These metrics are calculated for all orders that are attributed to a click on an ad for a specific product. You can find these metrics in the Product page, Ad groups page, Campaigns page, and the Report Editor. These metrics include the following:
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Orders |
Orders is the total number of purchase conversions you received attributed to your ads. How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. If a conversion is attributed to previous interactions with your ads (clicks for text or Shopping ads, views for video ads etc.) it’s counted as an order. Example: Someone clicked on a Shopping ad for a hat then bought the same hat and a shirt in an order on your website. Even though they bought 2 products, this would count as 1 order. |
| Revenue |
Revenue is the total amount you made from orders attributed to your ads. How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. Revenue is the total value of all the orders you received attributed to your ads, minus any discount. Example: Someone clicked on a Shopping ad for a hat then bought the same hat and a shirt in an order from your website. The hat is priced $10 and the shirt is priced $20. The entire order has a $5 discount. The revenue from this order is $25 = ($10 + $20) - $5. |
| Cost of goods sold (COGS) |
Cost of goods sold (COGS) is the total cost of the products you sold in orders attributed to your ads. How it works: You can add a cost of goods sold value to every product in Merchant Center. If you report conversions with cart data, the products you sold are matched with their cost of goods sold value and this can be used to calculate the gross profit you made on each order. Example: Someone clicked on a Shopping ad for a hat then bought the same hat and a shirt. The hat has a cost of goods sold value of $3, the shirt has a cost of goods sold value of $5. The cost of goods sold for this order is $8 = $3 + $5. |
| Gross profit |
Gross profit is the profit you made from orders attributed to your ads minus the cost of goods sold (COGS). How it works: Gross profit is the revenue you made from sales attributed to your ads minus cost of goods sold. Gross profit calculations only include products that have a cost of goods sold value in Merchant Center. Example: Someone clicked on a Shopping ad for a hat then bought the same hat and a shirt in an order from your website. The hat is priced $10 and the shirt is priced $20. The hat has a cost of goods sold value of $3, but the shirt has no cost of goods sold value. Gross profit for this order will only take into account the hat, so it’s $7 = $10 - $3. |
| Gross profit margin |
Gross profit margin is the percentage gross profit you made from orders attributed to your ads, after taking out the cost of goods sold (COGS). How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. Gross profit margin is the gross profit you made divided by your total revenue and multiplied by 100%. Gross profit margin calculations only include products that have a cost of goods sold value in Merchant Center. Example: Someone bought a hat and a shirt in an order on your website. The hat is priced $10 and has a cost of goods sold value of $3. The shirt is priced $20 but has no cost of goods sold value. Gross profit margin for this order will only take into account the hat because it has a cost of goods sold value, so it’s 70% = ($10 - $3)/$10 x 100%. |
| Average order value |
Average order value is the average revenue you made per order attributed to your ads. How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. Average order value is the total revenue from your orders divided by the total number of orders. Example: You received 3 orders which made $10, $15 and $20 worth of revenue. The average order value is $15 = ($10 + $15 + $20)/3. |
| Average cart size |
Average cart size is the average number of products in each order attributed to your ads. How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. Average cart size is the total number of products sold divided by the total number of orders you received. Example: You received 2 orders, the first included 3 products and the second included 2. The average cart size is 2.5 products = (3+2)/2. |
In addition, some metrics are available in both variants as lead (sale of the advertised product) and cross-sell (sale of advertising a different product):
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Lead revenue |
Lead revenue is the total amount you made from products sold as a result of advertising the same product.
|
| Cross-sell revenue |
Cross-sell revenue is the total amount you made from products sold as a result of advertising a different product.
|
| Lead gross profit |
Lead gross profit is the profit you made from products sold as a result of advertising the same product, minus cost of goods sold (COGS).
|
| Cross-sell gross profit |
Cross-sell gross profit is the profit you made from products sold as a result of advertising a different product, minus cost of goods sold (COGS).
|
| Lead units sold |
Lead units sold is the total number of products sold as a result of advertising the same product. How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. If the ad that was interacted with before the purchase has an associated product (Shopping Ads) then this product is considered the advertised product. Any product included in the order the customer places is a sold product. If the advertised and sold products match, then the total number of these products sold is shown under lead units sold.
|
| Cross-sell units sold |
Cross-sell units sold is the total number of products sold as a result of advertising a different product. How it works: You report conversions with cart data for completed purchases on your website. If the ad that was interacted with before the purchase has an associated product (Shopping Ads) then this product is considered the advertised product. Any product included in the order the customer places is a sold product. If these products don’t match then this is considered cross-sell. Cross-sell units sold is the total number of cross-sold products from all orders attributed to your ads.
|
| Lead cost of goods sold |
Lead cost of goods sold (COGS) is the total cost of products sold as a result of advertising the same product.
|
| Cross-sell cost of goods sold |
Cross-sell cost of goods sold (COGS) is the total cost of products sold as a result of advertising a different product.
|
Actual sales metrics
Actual sales metrics measure the actual products sold in orders. They can help you understand what people buy when they click on an ad. You can view these metrics in the Report Editor. In addition to all the metrics above, these metrics are available:
- Gross profit: The total amount of profit from a product. This metric is only available if you provide the
cost_of_goods_sold(COGS). Learn more about Cost of goods (COGS) [cost_of_goods_sold]. - Revenue: The total amount of revenue from a product.
- Units sold: The total count of sales of a product as a result of your advertising.
To save you time, CwCD offers several predefined reports that can answer specific questions about cart data.
Conversions with cart data for Search ads
Search ads aren’t associated with a specific product so you won’t find attributed sales metrics. However, actual sales metrics will be available for any products sold as a result of any clicks on your Search ads. The sold products are identified using the Merchant Center feed linked to the Google Ads account which ran the Search ads. You can link a Merchant Center feed to a Google Ads account even if it isn’t running Shopping or Performance Max ads.
Cross-device conversions support
To provide more complete reporting of metrics that use cart data, Google takes into account cross-device conversions. We use models based on aggregated and anonymous data from users who have previously signed into Google services. These models assign cross-device conversions that Google is unable to observe directly to metrics that use cart data. This approach allows us to provide reporting on cross-device behavior that combines observed and modeled conversions without compromising user privacy.
