- [Instructor] Tracking conversion events in Google Ads
isn't too terribly complicated,
and you'll start by selecting Tools and Settings
in the upper right hand menu,
and then choosing Conversions under the Measurement column.
From here, we'll select the plus icon
in the upper left hand corner
to create our first conversion action.
Now, the first thing we need to do
is select what we're tracking.
There are many different kinds of conversions.
For example, website conversions
could track online sales, page views and sign-ups,
app conversions might look at app installs
or any in-app actions,
we can also track any calls from our ads
or even calls to a particular number on our website,
and then you also have the ability to import data
for any offline conversions or insights from Salesforce.
From what we're setting up, I'll select website.
Now we're in the conversion action wizard,
and the first step is to select a category.
Here, we can see that there are sales categories;
purchase, add to cart, subscribe,
there are leads categories, contact, sign up,
as well as more categories such as page view or other.
Now, these categories are really helpful
because as you have more and more campaigns,
you're likely going to be tracking
different conversion actions.
So for many campaigns, you may want to look at purchases.
For other campaigns,
you might be looking at submissions of lead forms.
When you select an appropriate category,
you can later filter those out
in the reports that you're viewing.
So for this case, I'll choose purchase,
and then we'll give this conversion a name.
In this case, this will be a hotel booking.
Now, as with most things in Google Ads,
setting a name is very important
and you want that name to be descriptive
so that as you review those reports,
you'll know exactly what's going on
with this conversion event.
Now, from here, we need to decide
how we'll track the value of these conversions.
And there are three options here.
You can use the same value for each conversion,
you can use different values for each conversion,
or you can not use a value at all.
If we use the same value,
we would then be saying that every hotel booking
was worth whatever number we assigned.
In this case, I could say $100.
But we know that every hotel booking
is going to be a different amount,
so we'd want to use different values for each conversion.
Now, in order to do this,
we actually have to dynamically
provide this information to Google,
which means that we need to embed the tracking code
and then insert the values
of each transaction programmatically
in order for Google to inherit that data.
And this means you'll likely need to work with a developer
if you're not familiar with programming yourself.
This will add some complexity,
but it's actually something
that is still relatively straightforward,
and there is plenty of documentation
to make this convenient.
In fact, many eCommerce websites
actually have plugin features
that will help you do this automatically.
Now, in the last option,
this would simply not assign a value
for this conversion action,
and this is typically not a great idea.
Most every conversion action has a value.
However, if you were simply tracking
page views or video views and it had no monetary value,
then you could use this option.
I'll go ahead and use the same value for each conversion
for the purpose of setting up this conversion tracking.
Next, we need to configure our count.
And this is going to decide how we count a conversion event.
So if it's set to every,
that means every single conversion will be tracked.
So if someone comes onto our site and purchases twice,
that'll be two conversions.
If we select one, if they come onto our site
and submit our lead form say two times
or they buy something two separate times,
it will count as one conversion event.
Now, it's important that you set this
specific to how you want to track.
If you're using eCommerce sales,
every conversion is likely important,
but for something like a lead, a signup or a page view
where multiple interactions can happen
either intentionally or erroneously,
one might be the right selection.
Next is our click through conversion window
and our view through conversion window.
What this refers to is how long you're willing to wait
to still allow that conversion
to be associated with that ad click.
So here a click through conversion window of 30 days
means that if someone clicks our ad
and then 30 days later converts,
we'll still count that conversion.
You can shorten that up to one week
or you can extend it out to 90 days.
Typically, a conversion window is 30 days,
but you could shorten that up
if you have more specific campaign needs.
Now what's great is that Google Analytics
will provide you with reporting
so you can see days to conversions
which will help you understand
how long it's typically taking for someone to convert.
If you have a very long conversion process,
if it takes people a lot of steps
to get through to that conversion event,
you might want to set
a really long click through conversion window.
If you have a short offer
and you need to see immediate data,
and you only care about what happens within a given week,
well, then you'd want a shorter
click through conversion window.
The next piece is your view through conversion window.
And let's say that the ad shows up but nobody clicks on it,
but then they come to your website the next day
and they buy a product.
What Google is suggesting is that
when this is set to one day,
that if somebody comes within a day of seeing the ad,
then they will associate it
with the view of that advertisement.
And a day is typical because beyond that,
there are so many other touch points
that a user could come in contact with
that might trigger them to execute that conversion.
Now, if you're just getting started,
you can leave that as one day.
Next, you'll want to decide
if you want to include this specific conversion action
in your conversions column
when you're looking at reporting for Google Ads.
By default, you'll want that to be enabled.
And then finally we have your attribution models.
Now, attribution models are relatively complex,
and I'm not going to go into too much detail on this.
But what you're essentially deciding
is how you want to attribute when an action takes place.
The default is last click
and what this last click means
is that in the customer journey,
a visitor might go to your Facebook page,
they may come to your website,
and then they may finally click on an ad.
If they convert right after clicking on the ad,
that was the last click,
which means the ad gets credit.
If instead you had first click as your attribution model,
then the first place they visited,
in this case, maybe the Facebook page,
would get credit for that conversion.
And from here, we'll choose Create and Continue
in the bottom left hand corner.
Next you have the ability to set up the tag.
You can either install the tag yourself,
email the tag to your webmaster,
or configure using Google Tag Manager.
If I select install the tag yourself,
you'll see that we receive the instructions.
We can have code for HTML,
or if you're using Google's AMP pages, you can select AMP.
And then you'll decide how you're going to use this tag.
For starters, you'll need to have the global site tag,
which you'll include on all of your HTML pages.
And then below this, you'll have your events snippet.
And this determines
when the conversion event is sent to Google Ads.
Now, this is defaulted to page load,
which means if you put this on your thank you page,
the second that page loads, then this event will trigger,
and it'll say that a conversion has happened.
If you set it to click,
then you're going to add this to a button or a link.
So if you added it to the submit button on a form,
then it'll trigger the conversion event at that point.
From here, I'll select Next.
And now we've set up our first conversion action.
I'll choose Done, and now we can see that hotel booking
is in our conversion actions table.
And on the right hand side,
we can see the tracking status is unverified.
So what Google Ads is going to do
is it's going to come continuously visiting your page,
it's going to try to trigger that tag.
Once it does, it'll verify.
If you don't see verified after three to six hours,
then you likely have something wrong with your setup
and you'll need to go evaluate what went wrong.
I highly encourage you
to take the time to set up conversion tracking
as it's imperative
as you begin developing and building your Google campaigns.