In pay per click advertising, all campaigns have the objective of getting conversions from their PPC traffic. However, in PPC, there are many different types of conversions that could occur in a campaign. For this reason, here is a guide to the most used types of conversions in PPC.

Conversions from Clicks

This type of conversion is the type which advertisers commonly associate advertising with. To get a conversion from a click or a ‘converted click’, all your campaign has to do is get the web user to click onto your PPC advert and perform the conversion on your landing page. For this reason, you will usually find that the highest number of conversions from the different types of conversions out there are from converted clicks.

Phone Conversion

As we all know, PPC keeps improving and Google now offer ad extensions for web users to take advantage of. I have looked at campaigns in the past with ad extensions such as extra links, Google + and reviews. Another type of ad extension advertisers can use, though, is the phone number extension. This extension enables web users to see a phone number by the advert so they can choose to ring a number instead of clicking onto the advert (for this reason, it is used mostly on mobile targeted PPC campaigns). This does mean that conversions can still take place for campaigns that use the phone number extension and the web user doesn’t even have to visit the landing page for it to happen.

View-Through Conversions

This type of conversion occurs when web users see your advert but do not click on it. However, from seeing your advert, it made them visit your web page another way and perform a conversion. It does seem a bit strange for a web user to look at an advert, be interested in it enough to open up another tab and go to the website than to simply click on the advert. However, people do do this. The reason for counting these conversions is because it can be seen that your advert has played a role in gaining you an advert still.

Estimated Conversions

This is the name for conversions that happen when a web user sees and clicks on one of your adverts on one devices but completes the conversion on another device. This is happening more frequently since many people now have 2-3 electronic devices ranging from mobiles to tablets to computers/laptops. The only problem with estimated conversions is in recording data from them since it is very difficult to determine a web user who has clicked on your advert with one device and finished the conversion with another.

I think from looking at the different types of conversions you can have in PPC makes clear that a web user dose not have to click on your advert to gain you the conversion. The CTR is important. However, it is not the end of the world if it low because web users can still convert for you in other ways.