How Do You Track Conversions for Google Ads?

After hours of planning and strategising, you’ve finally got your Google Ads campaign up and running. It’s generating a ton of clicks. Great! But are those clicks turning into sales? Without conversion tracking, you won’t be able to see if your ads campaigns are actually working or not. Clicks are great, but not if they don’t generate sales. In fact, clicks on your ad that don’t result in sales will hurt your bottom line and waste your ad spend.

AdWords conversion tracking will give you valuable insight into how well your ads are performing and where you can improve things. But on top of knowing if your clicks are turning into sales isn’t the end of it. Knowing the type of conversion you’re getting is also important. Where are those clicks coming from? When you know if a particular type of click is generating sales and conversions, you’ll have the information you need to double-down on your efforts and maximise your ROI. Here’s what you need to know about conversion tracking and conversion metrics for an effective AdWords campaign.

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How to Set Up Conversion Tracking in AdWords: The Basics

Setting up conversion tracking for your AdWords account will take a bit of HTML coding knowledge. What you’ll need to do is generate a piece of HTML code in Google Ads, which is then pasted onto the landing page that people go to immediately after they complete the conversion action that you want to track. This could be something like an order confirmation web page or a thank you page for subscribing to your company newsletter. Here’s how you get started measuring the conversion you want to track:

• Click on the “Tools and Analysis” tab in Google Ads
• Selection “Conversions” from the drop-down menu
• You’ll see the “Conversions” tab on the All Conversion page
• Click +Conversion to create the conversion action you want to track

Next, you’ll have to fill out a form that will prompt the Google Ads account to create the right piece of HTML code that you need to copy and paste onto the appropriate webpage. You can generate multiple pieces of code, which allows you to track numerous types of conversions.

For each conversion you want to track, you’ll want to give it a unique name. For example, “thank you page subscribers,” or “order confirmations.” Data is everything when it comes to PPC ads management. The more detailed and precise your conversion tracking capabilities, the better marketing decisions you’ll be able to make. Once you generate a code and name the conversion metric, you’ll need to select the source of the conversion. These are your choices:

• Mobile App Download for when you want people to download your company app
• Calls On-Site for when you want to track people who place phone calls to the phone number listed on your landing page
• The Webpage option allows you to track visitors who complete an action on your website like filling out a contact form or making a purchase

How do you analyse conversion tracking data?

So you’ve set up the conversion tracking in your analytics account, and you’ve got access to it. That’s wonderful, but having the information available doesn’t mean anything you if you can’t make sense of it.

You can access the data on your conversions in the “Campaigns” tab at the keywords, ads, and ad groups levels. Hit the “Columns” tab, then click “Conversions.” You’ll be able to customise the columns you see on the next page. Those customisable columns are:

• (1-per-click)

This conversion metric measures how many conversion you get from clicks to a particular ad. You can use the data you see in this column to figure out an approximate number of how many new customers the ad is netting for your business.

• Cost/conv. (1-per-click)

This column will show you how much you’ve spent on clicks for an ad, which is then divided by the total amount of conversions you’ve gotten for the ad. Here, you’ll have a good idea of what your ROI is for the particular ad. A good rule of thumb when it comes to ROI for Google ads is to spend less on clicks than what you make in conversions.

• rate (1-per-click)

In this column, you’ll see the percentage of clicks that have generated conversions. A larger percentage number indicates that your keywords or Google calls ad is doing well.

• View-through Conv.

Here, you’ll see the number of times a person looked at your ad, didn’t click on it but converted to a sale later.

What does it mean if your Google Ads are getting a lot of clicks, but no conversions?

The most effective digital marketing campaigns require continuous tweaking and optimising to get the best ROI for your AdWords campaigns. Google AdWords campaigns are dynamic and fluid. They will need you to pivot strategy or try something different to keep the campaigns generating a good ROI for your business.

Campaigns that get a lot of clicks but hardly any conversion indicate that your ads aren’t generating a decent ROI for your business. When ads cost more than they get in conversions, then your marketing is upside-down. But poor-performing Google ad campaigns can be turned around.

There are several options at your disposal if your Google Ads are getting clicks but not sales. You could comb through your Search Funnels data, and examine your keywords and ad copy. Exploring these different aspects of a Google Ads campaign may offer you some valuable insight into why the ads aren’t generating a good ROI.

Confusing, vague, or otherwise unappealing landing pages can also sink an AdWords campaign. Websites that are difficult to navigate or don’t efficiently get the visitor to the conversion page may also create unnecessary bottlenecks in the sales process. Ads that use keywords and copy that generate a certain expectation about a product, but the website doesn’t match up, can lead to a high volume of clicks and a low volume of sales. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes when you manage ads and test them.

Over To You

Still not sure how to make the most of conversion tracking for Google Ads? Reach out to us today at Australian Internet Advertising. We’ll be happy to offer you tailored solutions to get your ads to perform and generate a positive ROI for your business.