Is there a unique id in Adwords API that I can use to solve for cost per customer & multi-channel attribution?

[Elizabeth Clark]

Hi, 

I'm trying to enrich my Adwords API data with my internal customer data. I want to do this for several reason: 

1. Calculate the cost per acquisition of a customer 
2. Tie clicks and impressions to a unique customer to be used for multi-channel attribution

A few years ago I pulled in the doubleclick campaign manager api data to solve for the above two use cases across display and we used the userid (not perfect since based on cookies, but better than nothing), however I don't see anything like this in the Adwords API. Any suggestions on what data I can use to solve for the above two use cases? 

Thanks! 

[Bharani Cherukuri (AdWords API Team)]

Hello, 

Please find my response below: 

Calculate the cost per acquisition of a customer 

Target CPA is an automated bid strategy that sets bids to help get as many conversions as possible at the target cost per acquisition (CPA) you set. You can use CampaignService.get() to retrieve the targetCpa bids or CampaignService.mutate() to override the existing bids. If your concern is different, could you please elaborate?

Tie clicks and impressions to a unique customer to be used for multi-channel attribution

The Click Performance Report aggregates statistics at each click level and includes both valid and invalid clicks for the client customer Id specified in the request header. The ClickType field is used to get the breakdown of how often the ad was served with that click type. Since ads can serve with multiple click types, impressions may be double counted and the totals may not be accurate. The clicks metrics on the other hand will match the total number of clicks. If a user clicks on a particular ad impression multiple times, those clicks will be associated with only one GCLID and the landing page visits for the exact same impression also will share the same GCLID. You may refer to this blog post for more information.

Let me know if you have any other questions. 

Regards,

Bharani, AdWords API Team