Tracking your conversions tells you what happens after users interact with your ad. Conversion is the term used to describe all customer actions that you define as valuable to you. For example, you can track,
- Whether a user who clicked on your ad actually purchased your product.
- whether a user who clicked on your ad has signed up for your newsletter
- whether a user who clicked on your ad called your company
- Or whether a user who clicked on your ad downloaded your app.
How conversion tracking works?
In order for you to use your conversion tracking, create conversion actions in your Google Ads account. This allows you to determine what customer activity is valuable to you. The following actions can be set up and tracked:
- Website actions, such as e.g. Product purchases or newsletter signups
- Phone calls that come in either directly from your Google Ads ad or from a phone number on your website
- App installations and in-app actions, such as e.g. App installations or in-app purchases
- Import, such as.B. Customer activities that are started online and completed offline
- Local actions when e.g. a user interacts with one of your ads that relates to a physical store or location
What are the biggest challenges with conversion tracking and how do you overcome them?
Conversion tracking does not work the same for all conversion sources.
Classify your conversion tracking into one of two categories:
With a conversion tracking tag
The embedding of a conversion tracking tag requires,
- Having a website
- that you or your web developer has permission to edit your website
- That you know which landing page on your website (conversion page) should be tracked.
A conversion tracking tag or code snippet is included on your website or in your app. For example, when a user views your video ad in Google Search or on select Google Display Network sites, a temporary cookie is stored on their computer or mobile device. This cookie is recognized when an action is completed and captured as a conversion.
Errors or problems may occur during the conversion tracking setup process. You can use Google Assistant to determine if the tag is implemented correctly.
If you can’t or don’t want to add a conversion tracking tag manually, you can add the tag using Google Tag Manager. You will need the following information to do this:
Without a conversion tracking tag
Using a Google forwarding number, you can set e.g. Capture conversions (in this case, calls via call extensions or call-only ads) without using a tag. App downloads and in-app purchases via Google Play and local actions, for example, are automatically recorded as conversions without a tracking code.
When defining your conversion actions, your settings and specifications matter so that customer activities that are important to you can be properly recorded and analyzed later:
- If you want to make it easier to find your recorded conversions in the reports, you should assign a meaningful name for each conversion.
- Assign each conversion to a category and an associated description so you can segment your conversions in reports and group similar conversions together.
- Value your conversions so that it corresponds to the respective value for your business: the same value for each conversion, different values for your conversions or no value at all.
- Determine how long a conversion should be captured after an ad interacts so you don’t miss an important customer action. For search, shopping and display campaigns you can specify between 1 and 30 days.
- Activate the default setting Include in “Conversions” so that the data of the conversion actions can be included in the “Conversion” report column.
Security and data protection is a big issue, which is also a high priority for Google. Google ensures through strict standards that data is collected on websites and in apps in accordance with privacy protections. Only those who inform users in an understandable and comprehensive way about the data that is collected on the website and obtain their consent have the right to conversion tracking.
TILL.DE supports you!
Our experts offer years of Google Ads experience and know exactly how to set up and use conversion tracking successfully. We will be happy to assist you in this area at any time. Contact us directly now and get advice!