This article describes configuring YouTube line items to report and optimize based on YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities. You also have the option to use Floodlight data for conversion reporting and optimization. Learn more
Conversions tracked and reported by YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities do not not take into account any other type of media beyond YouTube. When Floodlight optimization for YouTube is not enabled, the YouTube Conversions metric in the YouTube conversions report is based on this YouTube-enabled Floodlight methodology.
Set up conversion tracking for YouTube using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities
When Floodlight optimization for YouTube is not enabled, YouTube & partners line items use dynamic Floodlight activities for conversion tracking. You’ll create these dynamic Floodlight activities differently depending on whether you use Display & Video 360 or Campaign Manager 360 to manage Floodlight. YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities only support web Floodlight tags. To track and optimize towards in-app or offline conversions, use Floodlight optimization for YouTube.
Steps for Display & Video 360 users
- Enable dynamic Floodlight activities for your Display & Video 360 advertiser:
- From your advertiser, expand Resources in the left menu and click Floodlight Group.
- Click Basic details.
- In the Web tag settings section, toggle Dynamic tag to "on."
- Save your changes.
- Follow the instructions to create a new web Floodlight activity with the following settings:
- Set the Format to Iframe tag or Google tag based on how you’re implementing tags on your site.
- In the YouTube settings section, toggle YouTube-enabled Floodlight to "on."
- Save the Floodlight activity.
- (Recommended) Enable YouTube auto-tagging: This ensures that conversions driven by clicks from YouTube ads are accurately counted. See Conversion tracking in YouTube campaigns for details.
Deploy the code on your site to track conversions and your setup is complete.
Additional steps for Campaign Manager 360 users
If you use Campaign Manager 360 to manage your Floodlight activities, follow the steps below to create dynamic Floodlight tags for your YouTube conversions.
- From Display & Video 360:
- Scroll to the YouTube-enabled Floodlight section of your YouTube-enabled Floodlight activity.
- You’ll see a snippet of code in this section. This code needs to be added in Campaign Manager 360 to the Floodlight activity you want to use for YouTube conversion tracking. You can click on the link to open the Floodlight activities tab of your linked Campaign Manager 360 advertiser.
- From Campaign Manager 360:
- Make sure you have dynamic tags enabled for your Floodlight configuration.
- Navigate to the Floodlight activity that you’re using for YouTube conversion tracking. If you don’t already have one created, follow these steps to create a new Floodlight activity in Campaign Manager 360.
- Scroll to the Dynamic tag section of the Floodlight activity.
- Click New tag in the Default tags section.
- Enter a unique name for the tag.
- Paste the code from your YouTube-enabled Floodlight activity in Display & Video 360.
- Save the Floodlight activity.
Create a YouTube video action campaign optimized using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities
YouTube video action campaigns are a simple and cost-effective way to drive conversions across YouTube. To use YouTube video action campaigns optimized using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities, ensure you have at least one YouTube-enabled Floodlight activity set up.
Set up your line item
- Start in an existing insertion order or create a new one.
- Click New line item.
- Click YouTube & partners video.
- Enter the following information for your line item:
- Name for your line item.
- Select Drive conversions as the objective.
- Click Next.
Configure your line item's settings
- In the Targeting section, you'll see that the inventory source and device targeting are set automatically. You can click Add targeting to set other line-item level targeting options. Additional types of targeting are available in the line item's ad groups.
- Configure your line item's settings:
- Pick custom flight dates or use the same dates as the line item's insertion order.
- Enter the line item's budget and pacing settings. After you save the line item, you can't change between daily and flight, but you can update the budget amount.
- In the Bid strategy section, choose either maximize conversions or target CPA as your bid strategy. If you choose target CPA, set your target bid.
- (Optional) Select the line item's frequency cap. Learn more about frequency caps in Display & Video 360.
- (Optional) Add a lead form to generate leads for your business. Lead forms can serve on mobile and tablet devices running Android. The lead form option is visible during line item creation if you’ve enabled this feature for your advertiser. Learn more about lead forms.
- (Optional) Add a product feed to your line item to show browsable product imagery below your video ads. The product feed option is visible during line item creation if you have linked a Google Merchant Center account to your advertiser. Learn more about product feeds.
- (Optional) After you have configured and saved your line item, add sitelinks to it to enhance your ads on mobile devices with more links, taking people to specific pages on your site. Sitelinks are a best practice for all video action campaigns. Learn more about sitelinks.
- In the Conversion tracking section, select the YouTube-enabled Floodlight activity that represents a successful conversion and which should be tracked in standard reporting.
Check Use the selected Floodlight activities to drive this line item's performance to enable line item-specific conversion goals and avoid bidding based on all YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities within your advertiser. This allows more granular control over which YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities are used for bidding, and also allows you to specify which YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities you’d like to track in your YouTube conversion reporting.
Note: By default, YouTube video action campaigns using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities are optimized based on all the YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities in your advertiser, not just the activity you select to use with the line item.
If Use the selected Floodlight activities to drive this line item's performance remains unchecked:
- The selected conversion actions will only control which conversion actions are populated in the Conversions metric in standard reports.
- The YouTube conversions report will include all the YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities in your advertiser.
- The campaign will optimize based on all YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities within your advertiser.
- (Optional) Choose any additional settings for your line item, including Third-party vendors to enable third-party measurement for your line item.
Create your ad group and ads
- Click Create new ad group to set up an ad group for your line item:
- Enter a name for your ad group.
- Click Add targeting to configure ad-group level targeting. Learn more about targeting options for YouTube & partners line items.
- If using audience targeting, choose one Audience type per ad group for best control and visibility into performance.
- Enable Optimized targeting to use Google’s machine learning to discover new and relevant customers likely to convert within your campaign goals.
To prevent narrowing eligible inventory, positive targeting of keywords, categories or placements is not available for YouTube video action line items. Exclusions are supported.
- If you're using target CPA bidding, enter a target CPA for your ad group in the "Bid strategy" section. Leave this section blank to use the bid value you set for the entire line item.
- Click Create new ad to pick a YouTube video to use as a creative, set the landing page, and add a CTA and headline:
- Enter a name for your ad.
- Search for a YouTube video or paste a YouTube URL in the “Video” field. Videos must be 10 seconds or longer. The ad format is automatically determined and is displayed in “Preview”.
- (Optional) Perform any of the following to preview your ad in the “Preview” section:
- Click the All formats dropdown to change the preview by ad format.
- Select a network to view how ad formats are shown on different channels.
- Select a device icon to show a preview of your ad on different devices.
- Click Preview ad on YouTube to see a live preview of your ad on YouTube.com.
- Click Copy link to copy the URL of your ad that will appear on YouTube. Clicking the arrow beside this link opens a panel where you can set a video to play after the ad you’ve created.
- Under “Companion banner”, choose between Use auto generated image from your channel banner or Upload my own image option. Companion banners appear on computers only.
- Enter the landing page URL for your ad. You can customize the display URL for your ad by providing up to two descriptive terms that will be appended to your landing page domain.
- Enter the text for your call to action, which can contain up to 10 characters including spaces. The CTA should be a compelling action that directs users to the website specified in your final URL.
- In the “Headline” field, enter a 15-character headline (including spaces) that promotes your product or service.
- Add a long headline and description. Long headlines can be up to 90 characters and descriptions can be up to 70 characters.
- (Optional) Under “Click tracker URL”, add a tracking template, final URL suffix, or custom parameters to the final URL. If you’re using Campaign Manager 360, you can select an existing tracking ad you'd like to use to see enhanced metrics in Campaign Manager 360.
- Click Create ad.
- (Optional) If you'd like to use multiple ads, click Create new ad again and repeat the steps above. For best results run at least 5 ads per ad group, with a different call-to-action button and headline for each ad.
- Click Create ad group.
- Click Create to save your new line item.
When starting a new line item or making changes to bids, targeting, or ads, allow for 7 to 10 days before evaluating performance and making optimizations.
Reporting when using YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities
Due to the nature of the conversion-based bidding options for action line items, some metrics are measured differently for YouTube video action campaigns than other types of YouTube & partners line items in YouTube reports:
- Engagements:
- For YouTube video action campaigns: The number of clicks on the ad or 10 seconds of viewing time. If both happen, only the click is counted.
- For all other YouTube ads: The number of clicks on interactive video elements, such as teasers or expanding cards, that don't take users to an external site.
- YouTube Conversions:
- The number of times users converted after clicking your ad based on a 30-day conversion window. Viewing at least 10 seconds of a video ad also counts as leading to a website conversion if the conversion happens within 3 days of the engagement.
- This count is likely to be higher than the conversions for other types of line items in Display & Video 360 because with YouTube & partners buys, a "conversion" is counted each time a user converts, rather than just once per user per line item. For instance, if a user viewed your ad once and then made 3 purchases, 3 Conversions would be counted.
- View-through conversions are not included in the YouTube Conversions metric and are not used for optimization. You can use the separate View-through conversions metric to see this data.
Set up conversion tracking on your website and make sure the Google tag is working properly. Optimize for lightweight conversion events (such as “add to cart” or “site visit”).
Reporting for conversions
Attribution data for YouTube & partners line items is available in two reports in Display & Video 360: the YouTube conversion report and standard reports. When optimizing using YouTube-enabled Floodlights, there are different dimensions and metrics used in each report that reflect different attribution models. It’s important to keep this in mind when you view data from each report.
Standard reports
About these reports: Standard reports are your source for cross-media measurement in Display & Video 360 based on the Floodlight attribution model.
Popular metrics: Conversions
Tips for using this report:
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You can use the standard reports to see consistent cross-channel measurement based on Floodlight attribution.
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If no attribution model is selected in the report, or Biddable Conversions is chosen, the report will be based on the Floodlight activities selected for reporting at the line item level. Attribution model is based on the Primary model, or the model set at the line item level.
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You can also choose any attribution model you would like to use for reporting. This report will be based on all Floodlight activities, irrespective of which are selected for reporting at each line item. You may limit your reporting to selected pixels by using the Floodlight Activity dimension.
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The Total Conversions metric includes:
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Post-click Conversions or CTC
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Post-view Conversions, which, depending on the attribution model used: includes all Post-View Conversions, or only conversions meeting the Engaged-View Criteria set at the Floodlight Configuration level.
YouTube conversion report
About this report: The YouTube conversion report shows metrics that are unique to YouTube & partners line items, such as YouTube Conversions. These metrics are not available in other report types in Display & Video 360. If optimizing using YouTube-enabled Floodlights, the YouTube-specific metrics in this report do not take into account any other type of media you’re purchasing through Display & Video 360.
Popular metrics: YouTube Conversions
Tips for using this report:
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The conversion data from this report is used to optimize YouTube video action campaigns. We recommend using this report to look at performance data for YouTube video action campaigns in order to optimize your bidding strategy.
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If you enable line item-specific conversions goals, the YouTube Conversions metric will only include the selected YouTube-enabled Floodlight activity. View-through conversions in the YouTube conversion report will show all YouTube-enabled Floodlight activities at the advertiser level.
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Use the Conversion Type dimension to break out reporting by specific YouTube-enabled Floodlight (note: dimension is not compatible with revenue metrics)
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Conversions metric includes Click-through Conversions and Engaged View Conversions. Use the Conversion Ad Event Type dimension to break out Conversions metric by Clicks and Engaged Views.
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The View-through Conversions metric, even with Use the selected Floodlight activities to drive this line item's performance checkbox enabled, is based on all YouTube-enabled Floodlights.
We provide an inventory source breakdown between Google video partners and YouTube inventory by adding an Inventory Source dimension.