Google Ads – Setting up Web Conversions

Setting up Web Conversions in Google Ads

There are two ways to set up web conversions on Google Ads:

  1. Setting up Conversions with Code – GTM, manual implementation, etc.
  2. Goal Importing from Google Analtyics

There are positive and negatives with each

  • Setting Up Conversions with Code: This code directly connects Google ads with the conversion action you wanted. Regardless if there was actions between the conversion and the ad click, Google Ads registeres the conversion. Google Ads doesn’t need to be the last click / last non direct click interaction in order to get confirmation that it contributed to the conversion
  • Goal Importing from Google Analtyics: Google Analytics is the party here who decides where to attribute the goal to. Google Analytics gives attribution to the last non direct hit. So even if a Google ad was clicked preivously, if the user did something after that and then converted, Google Analytics won’t send data and give the conversion to Google Ads
User first clicks Google Ad, then checks it out on FB, then goes to Organic and Converts. This conversion is recorded differently on Google Ads according to how its set up. If goal was imported, Conversion data from Google Analytics would not be attributed and therefore sent to Google Ads. If goal was set up from Google Ads as a tag, Google Ads would get the conversion for this. You can set up conversions both ways and have one of the two conversions set up as “don’t count as conversion” in Google analytics, so you get best of both worlds. Question is, if you put the Google Ads code in, would Google Analytics still see the conversion? I’m not sure, since the goal then wouldn’t be counted as conversions. maybe if you linked the accounts we would be able to see the conversions in Google Analytics, but maybe it wouldn’t be part of Goals? not sure, need to figure this out

Sean’s Google Ads Mistake!

I set up a goal on Google Analytics and imported it as a conversion to Google Ads.

The conversion was being counted for a while in Google Ads, but then one day it just fell off… wtf?

Well, it turns out, it’s because I changed the event that the Goal was based off of, that the conversion was based off of!

Event -> Goal -> Conversion

The Goal was event based, and the goal was to fire when the event was tracked. I changed the event name, so the Goal in the end never fired since it was tracking an event that wasn’t being recorded anymore. This in turn meant that the goal would never be completed, and thus the conversion would never be completed!