DV360 Floodlight Enhanced Conversions Setup Guide
To set up Display & Video 360 (DV360) Floodlight Enhanced Conversions, you must enable user-provided data collection in Campaign Manager 360 or DV360, configure your tags to capture first-party user identifiers, and pass those identifiers securely using SHA-256 hashing. This process matches encrypted first-party data, such as email addresses or phone numbers, with Google's logged-in user database to attribute conversions that third-party cookie restrictions would otherwise obscure. By aligning your client-side tagging setup with programmatic bidding configurations, ad operations teams can maintain precise performance measurement across all web environments.
Key Takeaways
- Attribution Recovery: Enhanced Conversions recover an average of 5% to 15% of lost conversion volume caused by Safari ITP, Firefox ETP, and cookie rejection.
- Data Privacy: All personally identifiable information (PII) is automatically normalized and hashed using the SHA-256 algorithm on the client side before transmission.
- Dual-Layer Activation: Successful deployment requires activation in both the ad server UI (CM360 or DV360) and the site's tag management container.
- Synergy with Identity Solutions: Enhanced Conversions work in tandem with advanced publisher-matching protocols like implementing Google PAIR in DV360 to form a privacy-compliant programmatic identity stack.
The Technical Mechanics of Enhanced Conversions
Standard Floodlight tags rely on third-party cookies to associate a conversion event with a previously served ad impression or click. When a user restricts cookie tracking or uses a browser that blocks third-party storage, the connection between the ad event and the conversion is severed. Enhanced Conversions bridge this gap by using secure first-party data as the common key.
When a user completes a conversion action, such as a purchase or lead submission, they typically enter identifiers like an email address, phone number, and physical address. The Enhanced Conversions protocol captures this data from the page, normalizes it, and hashes it using the SHA-256 algorithm. The resulting hashed string (a unique 64-character hexadecimal representation) is sent to Google's servers via the Floodlight tag. Google then matches this hashed value against its own database of hashed Google Account identifiers. When a match is found, DV360 attributes the conversion to the corresponding ad interaction, restoring attribution without relying on third-party cookies.
Step 1: UI Activation in CM360 or DV360
Before modifying any on-site tags, you must enable the collection of user-provided data within your ad serving platform. If your programmatic setup uses Campaign Manager 360 as the primary ad server, this configuration must be executed at the CM360 advertiser level. If you are running a pure DV360-only setup without a CM360 parent, you will configure it directly in DV360.
Configuration for CM360-Linked Advertisers
Log in to your Campaign Manager 360 instance and locate the correct advertiser. Navigate to Resources in the left-hand navigation panel and click on Floodlight configuration. Scroll down to find the Enhanced Conversions section. Toggle the checkbox to enable the feature. Read and accept the customer data terms and conditions. Accepting these terms is a legal requirement; if skipped, Google will discard the incoming hashed payloads at the server level. Save your changes.
Configuration for DV360-Only Advertisers
Log in to DV360 and navigate to your Advertiser. Click on Resources in the left-hand menu, then select Floodlight Group. Locate the basic settings panel and toggle the Enhanced Conversions switch to active. Accept the data policy agreement and click save. This step authorizes your DV360 advertiser to accept and parse incoming hashed user data variables from your tags.
Step 2: Tagging Implementation Methodologies
There are two primary methods to implement the required code on your website: using Google Tag Manager (GTM) or deploying the Google Tag (gtag.js) directly in your site's codebase.
Method A: Deployment via Google Tag Manager (Recommended)
Google Tag Manager is the most efficient deployment method because it manages the SHA-256 hashing client-side automatically. You do not need to write custom hashing scripts; GTM handles the conversion of raw text fields to SHA-256 before transmitting the data to Google.
First, create a user-provided data variable. Open your GTM container, navigate to Variables, and click New under User-Defined Variables. Select User-Provided Data as the variable type. Choose Manual Configuration from the dropdown menu. Map the fields (Email, Phone, First Name, Last Name, Street, City, State, Country, and Postal Code) to your existing dataLayer variables or custom JavaScript variables that extract user inputs on the conversion page.
Next, configure your Floodlight tag. Open your existing **Floodlight Counter** or **Floodlight Sales** tag. Under the tag configuration panel, check the box labeled Enable user-provided data from your website. In the dropdown menu, select the User-Provided Data variable you just created. Save your tag and publish the container workspace.
Method B: Direct Implementation via Google Tag (gtag.js)
If your website relies on a hardcoded Google Tag, you must modify your global tracking snippet and the event-specific Floodlight scripts to capture and format user-provided data. The global config snippet must explicitly allow enhanced conversions:
gtag('config', 'DC-XXXXXX', {
'allow_enhanced_conversions': true
});On your conversion page, you must structure your event snippet to pass the first-party variables within the user_data object. The following example demonstrates how to pass raw data strings. The gtag.js library will automatically normalize and hash these strings before making the network request:
gtag('event', 'purchase', {
'allow_enhanced_conversions': true,
'send_to': 'DC-XXXXXX/purchase_group/purchase_cat+sales',
'value': 249.99,
'transaction_id': 'TX-1002948',
'user_data': {
'email_address': 'user@example.com',
'phone_number': '+15555550199',
'address': {
'first_name': 'Jane',
'last_name': 'Doe',
'street': '100 Broadway',
'city': 'New York',
'region': 'NY',
'postal_code': '10005',
'country': 'US'
}
}
});If your compliance protocols mandate that no raw PII can touch the browser's memory, you can pre-hash the values using SHA-256 on your server before rendering the page. When passing pre-hashed values, do not use the standard keys. You must pass them using specialized properties, ensuring all strings are lowercase and stripped of leading or trailing spaces prior to hashing.
Step 3: Quality Assurance and Network Validation
Verifying the deployment is critical. Incorrectly formatted data will prevent Google's matching system from processing the conversions, resulting in zero attribution recovery.
To perform a manual network validation, open Google Chrome and navigate to your conversion page. Open Chrome Developer Tools by pressing F12 and switch to the Network tab. Trigger your conversion event (e.g., complete a test transaction or submit a contact form).
In the Network search filter, type doubleclick.net/activity to isolate the outgoing Floodlight pings. Click on the matching network request and inspect the query