How to Track Conversions from Google Adwords

Written by Johnny K. Young

Sunday, 13 September 2009 15:15

Tracking your conversions is one of the most important elements in any PPC campaign. You will not be able to optimize your campaign if you cannot track your conversions accurately.

by JohnnyK.Young

Tracking your conversions is one of the most important elements in any PPC campaign. You will not be able to optimize your campaign if you cannot track your conversions accurately.

Google offers two valuable conversion tracking tools through the Adwords platform, but you may decide you want to simply rely on landing page hits or the number of sales generated from a particular link you used within the ad. Whatever the case may be, here are some tips for tracking conversions with Google Adwords:

First, you'll need to embed your conversion link using JavaScript. If you are using a shopping cart or other type of setup where the buyer receives a confirmation as part of their checkout process, your best bet is to use some JavaScript code that gets sent back to the Google Adwords tracker.

This tool does not show the number of visitors to your site; but it tracks click-throughs on your ads that resulted in a conversion. Once you place the simple code into your website, you can then access the data in the Reports Center of Google Adwords under 'Campaign Summary'.

The only requirements for installing conversion tracking on your website is that you are running approved Adwords ads on the site, and that the code snippet is placed only on your conversion page. If you're missing either of these elements, you will not be able to generate accurate data about your Adwords campaign.

You can verify if the code is working by completing a complete conversion yourself. If you can find out exactly when a user has clicked on your ad and completed the conversion process, you can review your conversion reports within 24 hours and see the click-through on the report summary. Avoid clicking your own ads, as this is a breach of the Google Adwords terms of service contract.

You can still track your conversions if you are using a payment checkout system, like PayPal. PayPal and most other systems offer a conversion confirmation webpage wherein you can insert your Adwords tracking code. You will have a record of all conversions or sales once a customer successfully completes the checkout process.

Authors Sarah Milstein, J.D. Biersdorfer and Mathew McDonald of the book "Google: The Missing Manual", emphasize the importance of determining your total cost-per-conversion for every campaign at any given time.

This information will let you understand how much it actually costs to generate your sale; you can calculate this by using the free conversion-tracking tools and matching the number of conversions up with the total cost of your campaign for any given period of time. To calculate this, you will need to produce a summary report of keyword purchases at the end of each month and divide the number of conversions by your total costs to run the ad.

About the Author:

Marketing with Google Ad Words is a powerful technique that most online-businesses can use to attract more customers. Creating quality Google Ads is one of the most important skills to have when using Ad Words - and there are many quality training resources available online.