About Floodlight instructions

A Floodlight instruction manages the way Search Ads 360 reports on a Floodlight activity or activity group without changing the actual activities. For example, you can convert revenue to a different currency, weight specific activities, exclude activities from Search Ads 360 reports, and so on. 

Floodlight instructions are not applied to Campaign Manager 360. You'll only see the results of a Floodlight instruction in Search Ads 360 reports.

Only an agency manager or advertiser manager can add, edit, or remove a Floodlight instruction. Learn more about agency managers and other user types in Search Ads 360.

We recommend a maximum of 100 Floodlight instructions per advertiser.

Types of Floodlight instructions

Floodlight instruction type	Description
Inclusion status	Excludes a Floodlight activity or activity group from appearing in Search Ads 360. For example, you may want to exclude Floodlight activities that are used only for tracking conversions from display advertising. Depending on the number of activities or groups you want to be available in Search Ads 360, you might choose to do the following: Create one instruction that excludes All Floodlight activities. For each activity or activity group you want to include, create one instruction that includes the activity or activity group. The include instructions take precedence over the exclude instruction. See an example. Note that if you create an instruction to include an activity that was previously excluded, Search Ads 360 only reports conversions that occur from the time you create the instruction going forward. Search Ads 360 does not report historical conversions that occured while the activity was excluded.
Toggle	Switch a transaction Floodlight activity to an action activity, or an action activity to a transaction activity. In this case, you can create an instruction to toggle the transaction activity to an action activity in Search Ads 360. When you view the total number of actions in Search Ads 360, the toggled activity will be included. When you view revenue in Campaign Manager 360, the activity's revenue will be reported.
Conversion ID source	In Search Ads 360, each conversion is identified by a conversion ID. You can see this ID when you download a Conversions and Visits report. Some advertisers use the conversion ID to reconcile transactions or check metrics in Search Ads 360 against customer orders. This Floodlight instruction tells Search Ads 360 which standard variable in the Floodlight tag or event snippet contains the conversion ID. For example: Your web developer sets up your shopping cart page to specify a unique order ID in the ORD variable of the Floodlight tag. In Search Ads 360, you create a Floodlight instruction that copies the value from the ORD variable into the Conversion ID for each conversion. When you download a Conversions and Visits report from Search Ads 360, you'll see the order ID that was specified for each conversion. If you don't create an instruction that specifies which variable contains the conversion ID, Search Ads 360 will generate a random conversion ID.
% revenue replacement	Changes the revenue reported by a transaction activity. Instead of the original amount reported by an activity, Search Ads 360 reports show only a percentage of revenue as specified in this instruction. For example: A travel agency charges 5% of the cost of each trip booked on its site. The agency creates a "% revenue replacement" Floodlight instruction and sets it to 5%. If a customer books a trip that cost $1,000, Search Ads 360 reports $50 of revenue instead of $1,000. Instead of creating a Floodlight instruction, you can create a formula column to report a percentage of revenue. This way, you'll still have the raw data reported by the Floodlight activity, and an additional column that reports the percentage of revenue.
Amount revenue replacement	Changes the revenue reported by a transaction activity. Instead of the original amount reported by an activity, Search Ads 360 reports a fixed amount specified in this instruction. For example, you may have credit card applications that are worth the same amount for each conversion. See an example. Instead of creating a Floodlight instruction, you can create a formula column to report a specific amount of revenue. This way, you'll still have the raw data reported by the Floodlight activity, and an additional column that reports the revenue.
Currency conversion	Converts revenue reported by a Floodlight activity from one currency to another. Note that this only changes the currency in Search Ads 360 reporting, and not in Campaign Manager 360. See an example, or learn more about currencies in Search Ads 360 and Campaign Manager 360.
Weighted action	Places more importance on an action by applying a priority, or weight, to it. The weighted results appear in a group of special reporting columns. Learn more.