Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 4 - Conversion tracking

What is the best way to track conversions in Google Ads? I get this question all the time. Let's go Inside Google Ads to answer your burning questions about Conversion Tracking.

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales, bringing you more than a decade of Google Ads experience. I worked at Google for six years and now I'm a marketing coach, consultant, teacher, content creator, speaker, author and podcast host. I've worked with more than 10,000 Google Ads accounts, showing business owners and marketers how to make more money from paid ads, and now I'm here to do the same for you every week for free.

The way each episode works is this. I pick three of your burning questions to answer in detail from the hundreds of comments I receive on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Threads. You can find all those links in the show description, and if you want a chance to get your problem solved in a future episode, drop a comment on any of my social media.

Now to our first Google Ads question about Conversion Tracking, Zeeshan on TikTok asks, what do you recommend for Conversion Tracking, GA4 or GTM?

For those who don't know, GA4 stands for Google Analytics 4. That's the current version of Google Analytics, and GTM stands for Google Tag Manager. 

Okay, so here's the answer. Google Analytics is faster to set up for Conversion Tracking, easier to set up Conversion Tracking, and you can DIY it with a few YouTube tutorials if you're not sure how. Google Tag Manager is going to be more accurate with its Conversion Tracking. It lets you do a lot more things, track a lot of different things as conversions, and pass a lot more data to Google Ads. You're not going to have a conversion delay with Google Tag Manager, the way you do with Google Analytics - but in order to use Google Tag Manager, you need to become an expert or hire an expert.

And I will even admit, I tried - when I would manage Google Ads accounts for people, of course, the number one issue is Conversion Tracking - I tried to become a Google Tag Manager expert and I just gave up. That thing is so complicated. I know enough to understand what's going on in there, but you would not hire me to set up your GTM for you.

So for most people, conversions imported from Google Analytics are perfectly sufficient. It's what I do in my own business when I run Google Ads with my own money and for the vast majority of businesses I work with, they use Google Analytics Conversion Tracking, they run Google Ads and it works great. 

So, if you have the capability to use Google Tag Manager, then yes, that's going to be better, but never let perfect get in the way of good enough, and Google Analytics is absolutely good enough.

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Sauna Suites on TikTok asks, how can I track conversions from Google when bookings are on Court Reserve, which is a third-party system? 

Okay, first answer is you are SOL. 

Not really, but that's what it's like when you're tracking conversions on some kind of third-party system. I see this in the event space, and the travel space, and in the spa space. People come to your website, but then you use a booking platform that's hosted on a different website, not owned by you, which makes things really complicated. 

Option one is to track button clicks. You can do this with Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager or another tag system and track a conversion when someone clicks on the button to go to that third-party platform to go book. You won't know when someone completes the booking necessarily, but you will know when people come to your website from Google Ads, how many of them click the button to go do that next thing. That's probably the easiest way to implement it. 

The fastest way to implement it is to track the button click or the link. For example if you do have Analytics on that system, what you can do is use custom UTMs or a custom ads landing page to know exactly which visitors to your booking system came from ads. For example, if your Google Ads campaign goes to a specific landing page, and the only way people go to that landing page is if they are from ads, and then that landing page has a unique link that takes you to a certain part of the system, you can track that connection there and know that if they came from that page, they had to have come from ads.

Or maybe you don't do a custom landing page, but you put UTM parameters into the URL to your booking system. Again, this is only worth it if you can put Analytics on that booking system and view those analytics, and not all systems let you do that.

You won't be able to send that data back to Google Ads, so Google Ads wouldn't be able to optimize based on it, but you’d at least know, of the people who come to your booking system and then end up booking, how many of them actually came from ads.

Okay, option two is something called OCT, Offline Conversion Import. This is something that the large businesses I worked with at Google would do, and it has to do with the GCLID. What you can do is capture the GCLID, the Google Click ID, when someone clicks on a button to go to the next page, and then you can pass that through to your CRM, and then when you connect your CRM to Google Ads, you can then send the GCLID back into Google Ads for accurate, timely Conversion Tracking.

Now, if that last sentence or two sounded like total gibberish - it’s okay, just move on, don't attempt this. It is quite difficult to implement. I would consider this advanced level. If you're advanced level, and you're like, “Wow, I never thought of using the GCLID that way before,” that is also an option.

To summarize, how can you track conversions when you're running Google Ads to your website, but then the conversion happens on a third party system? The easiest way is going to be tracking clicks on that button to that system, and then if you have analytics on it, using UTMs so you can really understand what happens to those ad clickers when they make it to your system. But it's complicated. It's absolutely complicated and it's not going to be perfect.

That's kind of the downside to these third-party systems. It makes it really easy for you to capture those appointments, those event bookings, those tickets, whatever it might be, but you don't get a lot of insight into it, and therefore your Google Ads is not going to be able to optimize based on who converts and who doesn't. 

If you're enjoying this episode and you're thinking, “Hey, I've got a question for Jyll, too,” then go ahead and follow me on your favorite social media platform. I'm active on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Threads right now. You can find me on all those platforms, the links are in the episode description and simply drop a comment on any of my posts. I respond to all my comments personally. That's not something I outsource to my assistant, and that's also where I source the topics we're going to cover on future episodes of Inside Google Ads.

Our third question for today comes from Mike on TikTok. He says, I'm tracking the phone call buttons and most days I get 15 conversions a day but no calls. Why?

So basically, his Conversion Action is a phone call, and Google Ads is saying he's getting about 15 conversions a day, but he's not actually getting any of those phone calls. 

There's a few different reasons this could be happening. The fastest way, how I would diagnose this if I was on a call with Mike, is to segment by Conversion Actions.

When you're in your Campaign view, you want to hit the Segment button, Conversions,  and then Conversion Action, just to verify what's going on in the Conversions column. I know you say you're tracking phone call buttons, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what you're actually tracking.

What can also be helpful to do in tandem with this is to add a column to your report for All Conversions. There's hundreds of columns you can have in your Google Ads reporting. One is Conversions and one is All Conversions. The difference is Conversions shows you how many conversions that campaign has gotten in the given time period, for those conversions that the campaign is optimizing for, those Primary Conversion Actions. Whereas All Conversions will show you how many conversions you've got for all of the Conversion Actions available in the account.

Let me give you a practical example. I'm going to give you an ecommerce example, just because it's easier to understand than a phone call example. Let's say in your Google Ads account, you are tracking as conversions Add to Cart, Begin Checkout, and Purchase. All those are being tracked.

For your campaigns, you're just using Purchase to optimize for. Your Conversions column is just showing Purchases. Your Conversion Value is just showing revenue. But the account is capturing those Add to Carts and Begin Checkouts. 

If you add the All Conversions column, you'll be able to see not just how many Purchases you're getting from those campaigns, but also how many Add to Carts you're getting from those campaigns and how many Begin Checkouts you're getting from those campaigns. All of that will show in the All Conversions column, so when you're trying to diagnose a conversion problem, it's helpful to look at the Conversions and All Conversions columns to see if they're the same or different, and then to add that Segment by Conversion Action to really analyze what's going on. 

Often, just by doing those two things, adding the Conversion Action Segment to your view, and adding the column for All Conversions, you'll be able to spot the issue. It’s usually some kind of setting or implementation issue, like you're tracking the wrong thing.

There could always be other reasons this is happening, that Google Ads is saying there's a bunch of conversions and you're not getting any phone calls. 

One thing to keep in mind is if it's a call from an ad, for example, if someone clicks to call you, that'll register as if they clicked on the phone call button. It doesn't actually call you, it pulls up the phone app on their phone with your pre-populated number, but they still need to hit Send. 

So, it's unlikely that 15 times a day people are clicking that, the phone number’s coming up, and then they choose not to actually call you, but that could be a source of discrepancy that is important to mention.

There could be an issue with your phone number, whether you're using a Google Forwarding Number or not, something else to look into.

Lots of different ways this could be a problem here, but the fastest way to diagnose is looking at Conversions versus All Conversions, and Segment by Conversion Action to double check and what's actually being tracked.

Which is better for Conversion Tracking: GA4 or GTM? Honestly, all that matters is that you are tracking conversions. As you saw with our question about the third-party booking system or a question about not getting any calls, Conversion Tracking issues are so common.

I audit dozens of Google Ads accounts a year now, mostly for small businesses, and so many of them either aren't tracking conversions, or they're double counting conversions, which is arguably worse, or something is broken in the Conversion Tracking.

If your conversion data is inaccurate, not only do you not know what's going on with your ad investment, but Google also doesn't know what's going on with your ad investment, so it can't optimize.

I will be the first to tell you, I mentioned it earlier, I am not the foremost expert at Conversion Tracking implementation. I’m great at spotting the issues and understanding what's wrong. I am not the person you go to to fix it, but I do have my go-to guy who is such a pro with this stuff. Whether it's Google Analytics 4 or Google Tag Manager, I pull him in for all my clients whenever we need Conversion Tracking help. If you've got a Conversion Tracking issue and you'd like an intro, I've dropped an inquiry link in the episode description here. Just shoot me a note via that link. Let me know what the issue is and I'd be happy to connect you to my guy.

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next week Inside Google Ads.

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