November 3, 2017
As we all know, the longer it takes to load a page, the lower the conversion rate will be. One of the bigger time sucks for a landing page load is the tracking redirects. The tracking loads before the page and if the tracking is loading slowly there is a much higher chance the customer bounces. This is a futuristic catch-22 where you need the tracking in place to gather audience data, but the tracking is often causing you to lose your audience. Thankfully, Google in their ever-improving quest to make pages faster, has now introduced parallel tracking!
Parallel tracking works by sending customers from your ad to the final URL while loading tracking in the background. So the customer clicks your ad and then immediately sees the landing page, then at the same time in the background the AdWords click tracking, the Tracking URL, and other redirects load. Previously, the customer would click on the ad then go through a series of invisible redirects before the landing page, causing the landing page to take longer to load and increasing the chance of losing the customer.
Via Google
Things to Consider
There are a few things you should check before turning on parallel tracking in your account. First off, check that the tracking template provider you use is compatible with the new parallel tracking. If you use third-party URL parameters or a dynamic landing page redirect that is incompatible with parallel tracking, it can cause your tracking or landing page to completely stop working.
Once you are sure your tracking template provider is compatible, you will next want to add a final URL tag in your tracking template, such as {lpurl}, to ensure you are not counting website visitors twice. After you have compatibility and the final URL tag you are ready to turn on parallel tracking.
Enabling Parallel Tracking
The parallel tracking is in the process of releasing to advertisers through the end of 2017 and is expected to be the default tracking method by 2018. The tracking method is only available in the new AdWords experience and can be found in the Navigation Menu under.
- Then, click All Campaigns
- Next, select Settings
- Then, choose Account Settings
- Finally, click on Tracking
After that, you hit the switch next to parallel tracking to turn it on.
Conclusion
The new parallel tracking is going to be a useful improvement to tracking by allowing landing pages to load faster while also allowing for tracking to load in the background. I expect conversions will increase with the use of the new tracking method as more people will end up getting to the landing page. As it is going to be the default tracking method going into next year, I expect third-party template providers will soon become compatible with the new method, if they aren’t already as well. Do you have access to the new parallel tracking? How do you think it is going to affect conversions? Let me know your thoughts by reaching out to me on Twitter!