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Hi! This is Kurokawa here.

Have you experienced an incident where your conversions suddenly stopped being displayed, and
you were left wondering if the conversions were not being measured?

The first thing you should suspect is that the changes made right before the incident might have
caused the conversions to decline drastically.

However, there are more causes by which your conversions stop being measured, which I am going
to discuss.

I would be delighted if you could use this article as a reference when you suspect any causes other
than operational ones when you encounter an incident like the above.

Six Causes to Suspect

1. The measurement tag is deleted or corrupted due to the changes or modifications made to
the website.

There are many cases where tag codes are erroneously deleted when you make changes or
modifications to your website.
In such cases, you may not be aware until you notice the abnormality in the conversion count.
It will be a great help if someone informs you that he or she made changes to the website so that you
can check on the tags.
I experience cases like this relatively often, so if you see an abnormal decrease in conversions, ask
your client if they made any changes to the website.

2. Duplicate tags are placed.

The measurement does not function properly when multiple tags of the same type are placed.
For that reason, make sure no duplicate Google Tag Manager (GMT) tags or conversion tags are on
the same page.
There are often cases where the tags that you did not issue are added.
For example, your client might have added a GMT tag for analytic measurement.

3. The tag is not in place on some part of the website.

This often happens when different websites are set up for different devices.
For example, the mobile website does not have tags in place where the PC website does.

Check each website for each device.
* This frequently happens when you just started running a website rather than after having run it for
quite some time.

4. The tags are in the "off or deleted" state on the tag management platform.

Turning a tag off disables the tag from making measurements. This does not often happen at my
company, but I sometimes see it on my client accounts.
Check the status of tags on the tag managing screen as follows:

The tag management screen on Yahoo! SS below.

The tag management screen on Google below.

5. Changes were made to the tag specs.

If you are one of those operators who are on the lookout for media information, you can predict an
incident to be attributed to the changes you may have caught.
If recent changes in specs occur, and if the changes will affect the measurements, have your clients
replace old tags with new ones.
In the recent past, there was the protocol change from http to https in conversion measurement tags
and website retargeting tags by Yahoo!.
Official Release Note: Sponsored Search YDN: About the Protocol Change from Http to Https in
Conversion Measurement Tags and Website Retargeting Tags.

6. Changes were made to the browser specs.

This does not frequently happen, but changes in browser specs sometimes cause the stoppage of
measurements.
You should be aware of this fact as an operator.
Because of a recent major change in the feature called “intelligent tracking prevention (ITP),” some
accounts may be affected by it.
My past article: How will ITP affect Web Advertisement

Supplementary Information: AdWords Conversion Tracking Status

You can see the conversion tracking status on AdWords.
When the measurement is not being normally processed, the following status is displayed.

・Unverified
This status is indicated when a tag is not in place yet or before AdWords validates a tag.

・Tag inactive
This status is indicated on occasions cited below.
I cannot validate a tag on AdWords at all, and no conversions were recorded in the past seven days.
Cited from the Official Help: Checking on Conversion Tracking Tags

When conversions are not measured in most cases shown in “Six Causes to Suspect” above, this
status will be indicated.

Check the status if your conversion measurement suddenly stops.

The status is indicated as the following image.

Summary

How was it?
If you are an operator, you must have encountered one of these cases.

This article will help those who are starting to operate websites as well as those who have not
encountered the conversion measurement stoppage.

One of the tasks you should manage is to identify the cause and immediately advise your client to
return the measurement status to normal.

This has been Kurokawa writing.