We are updating the name for free listing conversion experiences in Merchant Center from conversions to key events.
Previously, important events marked as conversions in Google Analytics were measured differently from how conversions in Google Ads are measured, leading to discrepancies between Google Ads and Google Analytics. To address this, “conversion tracking” is being redefined to align with recent Google Analytics and Google Ads updates for unified conversion reporting. From now on, the term “conversion” is used only within the ads context to track ad campaign performance and optimize bidding.
Difference between key events and conversions
Key events: Events that measure actions that are important to the success of your business are now called key events instead of conversions. You can use the behavioral report from key events to improve the user experience across your websites and apps.
Conversions: A conversion would now refer to an important action that you want to use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns and optimize your bidding strategy. This means that conversions will only be used in ads context.
What’s changing in Merchant Center Analytics
- Key event setup: “Conversion tracking setup” becomes “Key event setup”. For now, you will only be able to report on which tracks your product purchases from Google in Merchant Center but more key events will be added in the near future.
- Purchases: Purchases have been added to the Products and Online store tabs in the Merchant Center Analytics section. A ‘purchase’ occurs when a customer, who clicked on a link to your site shown organically on Google Search, completes the buying process on your online store or app.
- Insight cards: The scorecards are separated from the page navigation, and all the insight cards are shown on the page in a single view.
- Metric selection: You can now select the metric you want to view (CTR, Clicks, Impressions, Purchases and more) within the content header, which can be updated for each card.
- Organic traffic to your website: The card now also displays Purchases that come from non-product website links (/blue links). However, image results are not yet covered (as they are for impression and clicks).
What you should do now
You don’t need to take any action on your existing setup in the Merchant Center. Key events are created and reported in the same way as conversions for Shopping ads, enabling you to continue to highlight the events that are important to your business.