Google Ads conversions settings - why is this needed?

Google Ads conversions settings - why is this needed?

First, let's understand what conversion tracking is.

Conversion tracking is a tool for monitoring advertising performance. Allows you to determine whether the user performs targeted actions on the site after interacting with ads.

For example, they call, fill out a form, sign up for a newsletter, add a product to the cart, download a file, etc. User actions that have value for you are conversions.

If you don't track conversions, you won't be able to:

• carry out optimization;
• analyze which campaigns, audiences, ads, and keywords are most effective and lead to conversions;
• it is appropriate to distribute the budget;
• scale effective advertising campaigns;
• use intelligent bidding strategies;

There are two ways to set up conversion tracking:

Setting up conversions in Google Analytics and importing them into Google Ads or directly setting up conversions in Google Ads.

The most popular is the first option. But Svitsoft specialists use both methods of setting, and we highly recommend paying attention to the possibility of transferring conversions directly to Google Ads.

What are the advantages of setting up conversions in Google Ads?

One of the key advantages is that data transfer is many times faster than in Google Analytics. With the help of Google Ads, information about conversion actions is received after the user moves on to the advertisement.

This data usually appears in the Google Ads account within 3 hours, and for imported goals and transactions from Google Analytics - from 9 hours.

Let's go to the technical part.

To set up a conversion tag, you need:

1. Access to Google Ads

2. Access to Google Tag Manager

Setting up conversions in Google Ads.

Sign in to your Google Ads account.

In the upper right corner, click the tools icon, then under “Measurement,” select “Conversions.”

Click the “+ New conversion action” button

Select “Website”

Insert the URL of the site on which you are going to set up the conversion and click the “Scan” button

Click the “+ Add a conversion action manually” button

In the "Goal and action optimization" field, select the appropriate description of the action - conversion; if you do not find the appropriate one, select "Other."

In the "Conversion name" field, enter an understandable name by which it is easy to find the conversion in the reports.

If you use the value of conversions, then specify its size in the "Value" field by choosing the principle of tracking the value of this conversion, or do not assign a value selecting the last item "Don't use a value for this conversion action (not recommend)."

In the "Count" field, select the appropriate conversion counting mode for you.

Specify the accounting period for clicks (Click-through conversion window) and the conversion window for views (Engaged-view conversion window). We have 90 and 30 days, respectively.

We select the “Data-driven” attribution model. We mainly use this model because conversion data calculates the true value of each ad interaction along the conversion path. You can choose the one that suits your project better. (Learn more about attribution models here.)

We confirm the settings and see our conversion. Then we have two options: create another conversion by clicking the button "+ Add a conversion action manually" (if you have several of them, it is better to create all the necessary ones to simplify work with Google Tag Manager later). Or save by pressing the “Save and continue” button

Select "Use Google Tag Manager."

We will need the "Conversion ID" and "Conversion labels" values to set the tracking tag in GTM.

Tag settings in Google Tag Manager

In the workspace, select "Tags," then click "New."

Add the name of the tag and proceed to its configuration.

Select the tag type "Google Ads" -> "Google Ads Conversion Tracking".

In "Conversion ID" and "Conversion label," we add data from Google Ads.

Next, go to the "Triggers" window click on the "New" button in the open window.

We create a trigger. Enter the name at the top and go to its settings.

Next, select the type of trigger to actuation this action and name the event (the name is given, for example).

Add a conversion linking tag. The tag is necessary for the correct registration of conversions based on click data. It does not require any additional settings.

We check the functioning of the tag through the preview mode and publish the changes.

After that, Google Ads will display the conversions that were configured.

After the setup, the conversion status will be "Recently created." It will change after verification, usually up to 3 hours after visiting any tagged page.

In our article, we looked at setting up conversions in Google Ads. The advertising results depend on the number of conversions, so it is important to track them.

We wish you successful advertising campaigns! 🙂