Does Bing Ads provide insights into the customer journey that includes view-through conversions?

Yes, Bing Ads (Microsoft Advertising) provides insights into the customer journey, including view-through conversions, to help advertisers understand the full impact of their campaigns. These insights allow advertisers to analyze how users interact with ads and convert, even if they never clicked on the ad itself. Here's how Bing Ads provides insights into view-through conversions and the overall customer journey:

1. View-Through Conversion Reporting:
View-through conversion data is available in Bing Ads reports, showing how many conversions were triggered by users who saw ads but did not click on them.

This data can help advertisers understand the indirect impact of display or video ads and see how many users were influenced by an ad impression and later completed a desired action (e.g., making a purchase, signing up).

2. Customer Journey Insights:
Microsoft Advertising offers Attribution Insights to help advertisers understand how users interact with multiple ads or touchpoints across their journey. This includes information about both click-through and view-through conversions.

Advertisers can see how different campaigns and ad groups influence the customer journey, from the first impression to conversion, which helps in identifying the most effective channels and strategies.

3. Conversion Path Analysis:
With conversion path analysis, advertisers can view the sequence of touchpoints that led to a conversion. While this typically focuses on clicks, view-through conversions are also included, giving a more complete picture of how an ad view (not just a click) might have played a role in the conversion process.

By analyzing the paths users take before converting, advertisers can identify which ads or campaigns are most effective in creating awareness and prompting action, even when there was no immediate click.

4. Attribution Models:
Bing Ads allows advertisers to apply different attribution models (e.g., Last Click, First Click, Linear, Time Decay) to better understand how each ad impression or click contributed to a conversion. This can be useful in evaluating how view-through conversions fit into the overall customer journey and how different touchpoints (clicks, impressions, etc.) influence the final outcome.

The Last Click Attribution model typically credits the last interaction before conversion, while other models, such as Linear Attribution, distribute credit more equally across touchpoints, including view-through conversions.

5. Cross-Device Reporting:
With cross-device conversion tracking, Bing Ads provides insights into the customer journey across multiple devices. This is important because view-through conversions may happen on one device (e.g., a user sees an ad on mobile) and the conversion may occur on another device (e.g., desktop).

Cross-device reports allow advertisers to understand how users engage with ads on various devices and later convert, which is crucial in understanding how view-through conversions contribute to conversions across multiple touchpoints.

6. Customizable Reporting:
Advertisers can customize reports to include specific metrics related to view-through conversions, such as the number of impressions, view-through conversion rates, and conversion values. This gives advertisers a clear view of how their campaigns are performing in terms of generating indirect conversions through ad views.

You can also combine view-through conversion data with other metrics like click-through conversions, CTR (Click-Through Rate), and conversion rate to see how these different types of interactions contribute to your campaign's overall success.

7. Conversion Funnel Insights:
Bing Ads also provides insights into how users move through the conversion funnel. By examining where view-through conversions fit within the funnel (e.g., awareness, consideration, or purchase), advertisers can better optimize their campaigns to target users at different stages of the journey.

View-through conversions often come into play during the awareness or consideration stages of the funnel, when users see ads but may not yet be ready to click.

8. Audience Segmentation:
Through audience targeting and segmentation features, Bing Ads allows advertisers to analyze how specific audience segments (e.g., users who viewed an ad but did not click) respond to ads and whether they convert later.

Advertisers can segment audiences based on factors like demographics, interests, or previous interactions, allowing for more refined insights into how view-through conversions fit within broader customer behavior.

9. Insights for Optimization:
By analyzing the impact of view-through conversions, advertisers can adjust their bidding strategies, ad creatives, and targeting to better align with their audience's preferences and behaviors. For example, if view-through conversions are particularly high for certain ad creatives, this could suggest that the creative is effective in building awareness and prompting action, even without direct clicks.

This data can also help inform budget allocation by showing which campaigns or ad groups drive not only direct clicks but also significant indirect conversions from views.

Summary:
Bing Ads provides comprehensive insights into the customer journey, including the role of view-through conversions, through various reporting tools, attribution models, and cross-device tracking. By offering a complete picture of how users interact with ads and eventually convert, advertisers can refine their campaigns, optimize ad placements, and better understand how indirect ad exposures contribute to conversions. These insights help advertisers improve their strategies for both direct clicks and view-through conversions, driving more effective and targeted ad campaigns.