How to track conversion in Google Ads?

So, your Google Ads campaign is up and running, and your ads and keywords are starting to generate an impressive amount of clicks. Perfectly! But if you haven’t set up ad conversion tracking, you won’t be able to see how many of those clicks actually lead to the actions you want users to take.

So, how do you track conversions in Google Ads? What is conversion?

Fortunately, we will answer this and many other questions in this article. Whether you want to reset the tracking settings for your current account or start over, this post will cover everything you need to know to become a Google Ads conversion tracking pro.

Why track conversions in Google Ads?

Google Ads conversion tracking can make or break your account. If you don’t know what works and what doesn’t, how can you develop anything? Conversion tracking lets you see which ads are getting the most conversions. Armed with this information, you can make adjustments to your keywords, budget, bids, etc. to further optimize these campaigns, and apply more successful strategies to those that need improvement.

In short, conversion tracking allows you to maximize your revenue and save money on Google Ads.

How to track conversions in Google Ads?

To track conversions in Google Ads, you need to define a conversion value, set an appropriate tracking tag, and select an attribution model. Of course, if it were that simple, we wouldn’t need a whole post. We’ll get to step-by-step instructions on all of this shortly, but before we do, let’s break down what each of these terms means.

Conversions are any meaningful actions members of your audience take on your site after viewing your ad. What defines a conversion will look different for each organization. For example, chat interactions, calls to your organization, landing on certain pages, watching videos, filling out forms, and more can be considered conversion actions.

• Conversion tracking is a count of all the completed conversion actions you define for your account and the ads responsible for them.
• Attribution modeling is a required setting in your conversion tracking settings that affects how conversions are counted. If a user interacts (but doesn’t convert) with more than one of your ads before taking a conversion action, the attribution model decides which ad should receive the conversion score.
• Conversion value is a setting in some conversion actions that allows you to assign a specific value to them. This can affect your account’s bidding strategies, such as increasing your conversion value.
• A Google tag is a piece of code you add to your site that acts as an “intermediary” between your website and your Google Ads account. Later, we will fully explain the process of installing the Google tag and its purpose. For now, keep in mind that this is what allows your website to accurately report actions taken to your Google Ads account.

What types of conversions can I track with Google Ads?

When setting up conversion tracking in your account, Google identifies five main types of conversion actions:

Actions on the website

These are the most basic or well-known types of Google Ads conversions. An action on a website can be registering to attend an event, filling out a form, clicking a button, etc.

Phone calls

This type of conversion is also very popular because it is simply a call to your organization that comes from your Google Ads.

App installs and in-app conversions

This only applies to organizations promoting their app. Their purpose is to count app downloads or other in-app interactions.

Imported or offline conversions

These are actions that occur offline, but may originate from an ad. These tracked offline activities, such as a phone interaction or event, need to be imported using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. This only applies to organizations promoting their app. Their purpose is to count app downloads or other in-app interactions.

Local conversions

Any time someone takes an action related to the advertiser’s physical location during or after interacting with an ad, it’s considered a local conversion action. Google Ads detects them automatically because they only occur in Google products or services like Google Maps. Some examples of local actions are clicking to call, viewing an organization’s projects, or getting directions.

Conversion categories

You will also need to select a conversion category for your actions. The point of this is to make it easier to segment your PPC reporting later by separating the data into categories. There are over 12 conversion categories in Google Ads, but Google divides them into three types:

• Sales Categories: Making a purchase, adding an item to a cart, initiating an order, or subscribing to a regular service are all examples of sale categories.
• Lead categories: Other actions on the website, as well as local actions such as filling out and submitting a form, booking an appointment, requesting a consultation, calling your organization or getting directions.
• Other categories. You can choose other categories for unique Google Ads conversion tracking situations, such as page views.

How to set up Google Ads conversion tracking in 3 steps

Now that you know what to expect during the process, let’s walk through the basic setup of a website conversion action. To set up conversion tracking, you’ll need:

• Website to host your Google tag.
• Ability to edit site code. You or your web developer should insert a short piece of code into your website.

There are two main steps you need to take to start tracking Google Ads conversions: create a conversion action and install a Google tag.

Step #1. Create a conversion action

The first step for a standard Google Ads conversion tracking setup is to create a conversion action. Here are the quick and easy steps to do it:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. In the upper right corner, click the tools menu and select the “Conversions” option located under the “Measurement” segment.
3. You will be taken to the summary section of the conversion view, where you need to click +New conversion action.
4. Select a website.
5. Follow the prompts to enter your domain and scan the website. This is to check if your site is tagged with Google. If not, you’ll receive a code snippet that you’ll be prompted to post on your website.
6. Choose how you want to set up the conversion action.

At this stage you will get two options:

• setup via URL or
• manual settings.

Step #2.Set up a Google tag

The next step for setting up Google Ads conversion tracking will depend on whether your Google Tag is set up:

If you’ve got your Google tag set up and you’ve created a conversion action with a URL, you’re good to go and can start viewing data about that conversion.

If you don’t have your Google Tag set up and you’ve created a conversion action using a URL, you’ll get a screen with instructions on how to set up your Google Tag.

If your Google Tag is set up and you’ve created a conversion action manually, you’ll receive instructions on how to add a unique code snippet for the conversion action.

If your Google Tag is NOT set up and you’ve created a conversion action manually, you’ll receive instructions on how to add the Google Tag to each page of your site, as well as a code snippet for your conversion action.

Step #3. Check the Google tag

To make sure your Google tag is set up correctly and is running conversion tracking correctly, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account and return to the “Conversions” section via the menu in the upper right corner.
2. In the table of conversion actions, you can see the effectiveness of any individual conversion action in the “Status” column.

Analysis of Google Ads conversion data

Once your Google Ads conversion tracking is set up correctly, you’ll start seeing conversion data in your account! Make sure that columns such as conversions (known as “conv” in the platform’s column view), conversion rate (conversion rate), and cost per conversion (cost/conv) are added to your view. So, you can use these PPC metrics to know you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

Troubleshooting Google Ads conversion tracking

If you’re having trouble tracking Google Ads conversions, consider the tips below.

Conversion columns do not display any data

It can take up to 24 hours for conversion data to start appearing in Google Ads. If you’re still not seeing conversions after 24 hours, it’s possible that no customers have taken action yet. One way to test this is to go through the conversion process yourself by clicking on the ad when it appears and taking whatever action is necessary to trigger the conversion on your site. If you still don’t see the data after 24 hours, double check that the code is set correctly. You may need to install additional plugins or move the code to another part of the page.

The campaign gets a lot of clicks, but few conversions

Campaigns that receive many clicks and few conversions result in a higher cost per conversion, which lowers your return on investment (ROI). To understand why this might happen, ask yourself:

• Are you using a custom landing page? Sending users to your home page can result in low conversion rates.
• Is the landing page optimized for conversion? Is there a prominent call to action, a simple form, and is the main information available at the top of the page?
• Is the landing page relevant to the ad? Does it contain the same keywords so that a person can be sure that when he clicks on the ad, he will get what you promised him?

Set up Google Ads conversion tracking now

Conversion tracking is essential to any successful media strategy, so spending time setting up conversion tracking is really worth it.