Conversion Tracking Metric Updates | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

Fall ‘23 Updates

In the Fall ‘23 release, we are introducing a couple of changes to Conversion Tracking.

1. Legacy conversion metrics will be removed from the platform and the API on Dec 13, 2023.
2. All Conversion Tracking screens will be removed from the platform on Dec 13, 2023.

These changes will not affect any conversion actions that have already been set up.

Legacy metrics will be removed

The legacy conversion metrics that were impacted by the incident on Jul 10, 2023 no longer return any data when queried, since more than 90 days have passed.

We will remove these metrics from Report Builder and Dashboards in the platform, and the Reports API on Dec 13, 2023.

As a reminder, they are:

• Conversion Tracking > Clicks
• Conversion Tracking > Conv. Rate
• Conversion Tracking > Conv. Value
• Conversion Tracking > Conversions
• Conversion Tracking > Searches
• Conversion Tracking > Sessions
• Conversion Tracking > Value / Conv.

We released a set of four new metrics on Aug 16, 2023 that will now be widely available to all users.

These metrics can now query all-time conversion data, removing the previous restriction of only being able to view data from the last 90 days.

To learn about these new metrics, how they are calculated, and which legacy metrics the new ones map to, visit the Metric Mapping section below.

Conversion Tracking screens will be removed

The Conversion Tracking platform screens are going to be removed from the platform on Dec 13, 2023. There are three screens:

• Conversion Tracking > Home > Conversion Tracking
• Conversion Tracking > Configuration > Conversion Actions
• Conversion Tracking > Configuration > Conversion Setup

Home Screen

The home screen can be replaced with a new “Conversions” analytics dashboard that can be installed via the App Directory.

Conversion Actions

Customers won’t be able to use the Conversion Actions screen to edit or create new conversion actions anymore. Customers that would like to record new conversion actions can do so using the new Events API and a variety of integration methods:

• By implementing directly on top of the Analytics SDK
• By fetching a code sample from the new Analytics > Integrations screen
• By leveraging the Yext Analytics Browser SDK tag template in Google Tag Manager

Conversion Setup

With the changes we are introducing to Conversion Tracking, the Conversion Setup screen is no longer needed. Customers that would like to record new conversion actions can use one of the aforementioned methods described in the previous section instead.

Summer ‘23 Release Updates

On August 16, 2023, we introduced a set of new conversion metrics that use a simpler data model than the legacy Conversion Tracking metrics and allow users to query for all-time data. In December 2023, the legacy metrics are going to be completely removed from the platform.

On July 10, 2023, Yext’s primary data center suffered an incident and as a result, the legacy metrics are unable to receive new data past that date. The legacy metrics are limited to a 90-day lookback window, meaning that by October 9, 2023 they will no longer return any data. Users who want to continue querying conversion data should use the new conversion metrics in their reports going forward.

We want to emphasize that the ability to track the conversions themselves are not changing, or going away. The main change that happened is around the metrics through which that conversion data is accessed.

New Metrics

The new conversion metrics released in the August ‘23 monthly are:

Metric Mapping

The new metrics can be mapped to the legacy metrics according to the table below:

Calculation Method

Key Differences

There are two key differences between the new and legacy metrics – new metrics can query a full history of conversion data, and new metrics only consider tag-based conversion data.

All Historical Data

New metrics can query for all-time conversion data, dating back to 2020 (when the feature was first launched). This includes the period between Jul 10, 2023 and Aug 16, 2023 during which the legacy metrics were not ingesting any new data. This represents a significant improvement over the 90-day lookback period offered by the legacy metrics.

Tag-based Conversions Only

The new conversion metrics only account for tag-based conversion data. Specifically, these are Conversion Count, Total Conversion Value, and Average Conversion Value. (Click Count measures all click events across all products).

By removing click-based conversion data, the new conversion metrics should reflect a much more accurate representation of conversion performance than before.

While click-based conversion tracking data is not included in the new metrics, if you are a heavy user of click-based conversion tracking and would like to view analytics for those conversions, you may be able to accomplish this outside of the platform by exporting Click Count data into a spreadsheet and multiplying it by a static conversion value and a completion rate.

Currency

Conversion Tracking does not allow users to set the currency for conversion values during the configuration – currency is derived from the account locale. Because of this, the Average Conversion Value and Total Conversion Value metrics only reflect conversions that have the default currency of the account locale, e.g. a conversion for an account in the ‘en-us’ locale would only count towards the metrics if the currency attached to the event is USD.

Comparing Metric Values

The new metrics and the legacy metrics are calculated differently so there will be some degree of difference between the metric values, depending on your Conversion Tracking configuration.

If you are a heavy user of click-based conversions, we generally expect your new metrics to decrease, the degree to which depends on how many live click-based actions you are using. If you only used click-based conversions, that data would disappear from the Average Conversion Value, Conversion Count, and Total Conversion Value metrics and you would need to use the Click Count metric to re-create that data.

If you split usage between click and tag-based conversions, or primarily use tag-based conversions, we generally expect the new conversion count and value metrics to increase, because the new metrics no longer require a conversion event to be attributed to at least one click event earlier in the journey.

The legacy metrics previously only counted a conversion in the metrics if the conversion could be attributed to a prior click event. With the new metrics, as long as the conversion event was fired, it will be counted in the metric.

Changes to the Average Conversion Value metric are harder to predict and depend on the conversion values of the tag-based conversions relative to those of the click-based events. If the tag-based conversions are worth a lot and the click-based conversions aren’t, then the average value should increase, and vice versa. In other cases the average value should be somewhat similar to before.

Legacy Metrics

As of July 10, 2023, the legacy Conversion Tracking metrics are deprecated and do not contain any new data past that date. These metrics are:

The legacy metrics are still available to use in the platform UI and API, but will only show data from April 13, 2023 at the earliest to July 10, 2023.

Automatic Metric Swapping

As a result of the above, you should update all of your reporting to use the new metrics. Yext Engineering will aim to swap out the legacy metrics with new metrics on any saved insights or dashboards, unless you opt out of the “Automatically Swap Legacy Conversion Tracking Metrics (August ’23 Monthly)” Early Access setting.

To opt out, contact your Client Solutions Manager. You will have three weeks from August 16, 2023 to opt out, so this must be done by September 6, 2023. Metrics will be automatically swapped on the September Monthly release, September 13, 2023.

The new metrics aren’t compatible with all of the dimensions of the legacy metrics, so if there are dimension incompatibilities Engineering won’t be able to automatically swap the metrics. In that case, they will flag them for you to manually update using visual indicators in the UI.

Legacy Naming

Legacy naming has been added to the platform. The descriptions for legacy metrics in the Report Builder UI have been updated to reflect their status:

“Note: This is a legacy metric and Conversion Tracking data past 7/10/23 is unavailable. Please use the corresponding new conversion metrics instead.”

The name of the Search Value standard dashboard has been updated to “Search Value (LEGACY)”.