So, you just started your first AdWords campaign and are generating a lot of clicks and traffic to your website. Awesome! Now you’re ready to find out what happens after those clicks take place. That’s where conversion tracking comes in.
What is Conversion Tracking?
Conversion tracking is a tool that allows you to see what happens after someone clicks on your PPC ad. You can get valuable information, like the number of conversions or leads, sales, and other valuable actions performed by visitors on your site.
Why Conversion Tracking?
Simply put, conversion tracking in Google Adwords helps you see which areas of your PPC campaigns are working, and which are not.
For example, if one of your campaigns has spent $500 and produced no conversions, you may want to pause the campaign and re-think your strategy. If you find some of your campaigns are producing substantial conversions at reasonable costs, you’ll definitely want to pour as much money as you can into those campaigns.
Make More Money
Since there is no limit to how much you can spend on a campaign, there’s also no limit to how much money you can make. Here are a few other ways conversion tracking can help you make more money:
- Discover which keywords are profitable for you so you can adjust the bids accordingly
- See which products are lucrative and which products need to be discontinued
- Test new ad copies and landing pages quicker
- Find out how much each lead is costing you
How to Track PPC Conversions
Here’s a step by step guide on how to track your PPC conversions.
Where to Add Conversion Tracking
Before installing conversion tracking, you’ll need to think about what actions you want people to take when they land on your website. Typically, eCommerce will want to track sales and service providers will track submission forms. Other types of pages you may want to track are event sign up pages, contact us forms, and requests to download info.
Once you know the pages you like to track, you are ready to install the conversion tag.
How to Set Up AdWords Conversion Tracking
1. Sign into your Google AdWords Account
2. Navigate to Tools > Conversions at the top of the screen
3. Click on the red +Conversion button on the top left
4. The next page lets you choose a conversion source (website, app, phone calls and import) depending on the type of business. Typically, businesses will choose the website option if they want to track sales, form submissions or other similar actions.
5. Next, you’ll choose the conversion name, value, count etc.
6. Finally, you are ready to incorporate the conversion code onto your website. This is usually a simple task, but if you are not comfortable doing this yourself, your web developer should be able to take care of it.
Make sure the code is installed on correct page you want to track. For instance, if you are an eCommerce company tracking sales, the code would be pasted on the order confirmation or thank page on the last step of the checkout process.
Check Your Conversion Tracking
That’s all you need to get started with the most basic form of PPC conversion tracking!
From this point on, you will be able to pinpoint which areas of your PPC account are working. To test your conversion tracking, go directly to your website to complete a conversion, whether it be purchasing a product or filling out a lead form. If the conversion shows up on your AdWords dashboard within 2 days, you’ll know your conversion tracking is set up properly.
Here is what you should see once the conversion tag is set up properly. Make sure the message under tracking status shows “Recording conversions.”
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Kai enjoys innovating marketing strategies and staring endlessly at spreadsheets of complex data. In his free time, he enjoys movies, eating raw organic foods, and reading tech news.