Despite having revenue tracking fully set up, and having had verified conversion actions, the platform still reports zero conversions for Microsoft Advertising creatives. The problem occurs when using creative-level revenue tracking.
What Causes The Issue?
This issue is commonly caused by the following reasons:
- The revenue tracking parameters inserted into your Destination URLs to track conversions are incorrect or mis-typed.
- You have no tracking on the Microsoft Advertising creative URLs.
- A problem at the publisher's end, despite you properly inserting either {param1} or the Destination URL field (depending on your implementation).
If either of the above reasons applies, conversions will not be attributed properly, and the count within the platform will remain at zero.
How To Diagnose The Issue
In order to check whether or not your tracking parameters are causing the issue, in the Navigation Bar, click Accounts > Ads.
Then look at the Destination URLs column. Look at each of the URLs and double-check that you’re using the correct tracking parameters for Microsoft Advertising.
It’s possible that you may be using Google’s tracking parameters instead, or the parameters have been entered incorrectly. You can find out more about Microsoft Advertising’s tracking parameters in this article: Marin URL Parameters.
How To Fix The Issue
To Fix Issue 1
- First you’ll need to alter your URL Builder settings so that the correct parameters are inserted. Go to Settings, then click the Revenue & Tracking, then click on URL Templates. Here you’ll be able to correct your tracking parameters.
- Next you should re-download all of the affected creatives via bulk sheet by using the Export link above the grid in Accounts > Ads.
- Finally, re-upload your bulk sheet making sure that you include the creative_id column. This will trigger the URL Builder which will correct all of the tracking parameters.
Once all of your revenue tracking parameters have been corrected and the creatives re-trafficked, you should start to see conversions tracking normally for Microsoft Advertising.
For more information on how to set up the URL Builder, click here.
To Fix Issue 2
Microsoft Advertising defaults to use creative-level tracking, so you need to take either step:
- Update all Microsoft Advertising creative URLs with tracking parameters with "keyword" and "matchtype" included.
- Make sure that the Tracking IDs setting is set to parse out the correct "keyword" and "matchtype" values in the URL.
- You can read more information on this in the following article: How to Set Up Individual Tracking Parameters (Tracking IDs).
- Make sure that the Tracking IDs setting is set to parse out the correct "keyword" and "matchtype" values in the URL.
- Update Microsoft Advertising creative URLs to {param1} in order to use keyword-level tracking.
- Go to the Accounts > Ads to view those Microsoft Advertising creative URLs that have the wrong destination URL (or is missing one completely), and update these to have a Destination URL of {param1}.
- You can read more information on this in the following article: Setting up {param1} for Keyword-Level URL Tracking.
- Make sure that all Microsoft Advertising keywords have a URL with tracking parameters. Go to Accounts > Keywords to view those Microsoft Advertising keywords missing tracking parameters (i.e. missing "mkwid" tracking parameter) in the Destination URL, and reload a landing page to all those keywords via bulk upload, in which URL builder will tag on the tracking parameters.
- You can read more information on how to tag URLs with tracking via bulk upload in the following article: How to Tag URLs via Bulk Upload.
- Go to the Accounts > Ads to view those Microsoft Advertising creative URLs that have the wrong destination URL (or is missing one completely), and update these to have a Destination URL of {param1}.
To Fix Issue 3
The platform synced its Destination URL column with Microsoft Ads' Placeholder {param1} column. That means if there is any value within the Destination URL column (at the keyword level of the Microsoft Advertising Ads center), this will override the Param 1 column and will not sync with the platform.
So what you need to do is:
- Log into your Microsoft Advertising Ads account, and remove all values under the Destination URL column for keywords.
- Make sure that the correct URL with tracking is put under the Param 1 column.
