Tracking Website Conversions in Google Ads using Google Tag Manager

NOTE: The New Google Ads Design will be enforced sometime this year so we will be using the new interface

What is a conversion?

Why does Google Ads need to know about conversions?

Google Ads needs to know about conversions to understand how effective your ads are at driving valuable actions on your website. Here’s how conversion tracking benefits Google Ads:

• Measure Success: Without conversion tracking, you’d be flying blind. You won’t know if your clicks translate into sales, sign-ups, or whatever your goals are. Conversions are the ultimate indicator of a successful ad campaign.

• Optimise Campaigns: Conversion data helps you identify which keywords, ad groups, and campaigns are generating the most conversions. This allows you to focus your budget on what’s working and refine what’s not. Imagine showing an ad for hiking boots to people searching for ballet shoes – conversion tracking helps avoid such mismatches.

• Smarter Bidding: Google Ads offers automated bidding strategies like “Maximise conversions” or “Target ROAS” (Return On Ad Spend). These strategies rely on conversion data to optimise your bids and get you the most conversions for your budget.

• Understand ROI (Return on Investment): By tracking conversions, you can calculate how much revenue your Google Ads campaigns generate. This helps you understand if your ad spend is paying off and allows you to make informed decisions about your advertising budget.

How to track conversions in Google Ads using Google Tag Manager

Step 1: Go to the Google Ads Interface and click “Goals”.

Step 2: Click “New conversion action”.

Step 3: Click “Website”.

Step 4: Enter your website domain and click “Scan”.

Step 5: Select “Add a conversion action manually”.

Step 6: Select your conversion action from the dropdown (here we will be using “Submit lead form” as an example) and name your conversion (this should be something simple, easily recognisable and different to your other conversions – if you have any).

Step 7: Scroll down, add your conversion value (here we are not adding a value as lead form submissions are not directly linked to value here). Next select which “Count” option suits your conversion best. Here we have selected “One”, this means if someone clicks on our ad and enters their information twice on our site, only one conversion will be reported. If you were tracking purchases however, you would want to select “Every” to allow every purchase that occurred after the ad click to be tracked, as some individuals may make multiple purchases and we want these to be attributed to the ad click.

Step 8: Scroll down again, the last 5 settings can be adjusted based on your preference. Then, click “done”.

Step 9: Click “Save and continue”.

Step 10: Under “Get instructions and finish” Select Google Tag Manager.

Step 11: Open Google Tag Manager in the container you want to track. Before we can start tracking Google Ads Conversions, a Google Ads Conversion Linker tag must be in place on every page of our site. If you haven’t set one of these up yet, we have a handy guide on how to here. 

Step 12: With the Conversion Linker tag in place we can now add the google ads conversion tag. Go back to the GTM “Tags” interface and click “New”.

Step 13: Rename your tag and click “Tag Configuration”.

Step 14: Select “Google Ads”.

Step 15: Select “Google Ads Conversion Tracking”.

Step 16: The page should look like this (a). Next, go back to where we left off in your google ads account (b). Using the info provided in Google ads under “Conversion ID” and “Submit Lead Form” (or whatever conversion goal you chose), populate the corresponding boxes (Conversion ID + Conversion Label) in Google Tag Manager.

(a)

(b)

Step 17: In GTM scroll down and click “Triggering”.

Step 18: You may already be using tag manager to track contact form submissions on your site, in which case here you can select the relevant trigger for this. If not you can create a new one to track this action – but we’ll not get into that now.

Step 19: Once you have selected your trigger, click “Save”. Once again the tag should appear under the “Tags” tab.

Step 20: Go back to Google Ads and select “Done”

Step 21: Your new conversion action will now appear in the “Goals” “Summary” section in Google Ads. It will appear as “Inactive” until google has verified it (can take up to 3 hours after the tag is fired). To speed this up you can visit the page to trigger the tag yourself. If, after a few days the conversion action is not showing as active and you know conversions have taken place, there could be an issue with the tag/triggering. Clicking “Troubleshoot” in blue to the right of the conversion action will allow you to view the tag in tag assistant to identify issues, failing this we would recommend you go to Tag Manager and troubleshoot from here. 

If you have any questions or there’s anything else we can help with in Google Ads or Tag Manager, please leave a comment below, or contact us at contact@glowmetrics.com. You can also follow us on @GlowMetrics or subscribe to our newsletter for more tips and news within the world of Digital Analytics and Marketing.

You can also register for a FREE account on our resource hub for lots more useful resources, including exclusive Digital Analytics and Digital Marketing how-to videos and insights!