Conversion tracking
Last updated
Last updated
To make the most out of Google Ads and the ever-increasing usage of Machine Learning capabilities of Google, it is critical for you to and to .
Here’s some help content from your e-commerce platform:
Glopal uses two mechanisms to track conversions from Google Ads campaigns.
Google Ads conversion action
Glopal creates a native Google Ads conversion action in your ads account:
Goal category: Purchase
Goal name: Purchase (Glopal)
Note: The goal name may vary but we’ll usually use Purchase (Glopal) for consistency.
This conversion action allows Glopal to benefit from the native and comprehensive tracking capabilities of Google across its entire network. This is what the campaigns are optimizing towards.
Conversion actions imported from Google Analytics
Glopal uses Google Analytics (GA) tag along with Google Tag Manager (GTM) for overall analytics and tracking on the localized sites. And thanks to this, Glopal also imports the conversions measured by Google Analytics into Google Ads.
GA usually is less precise than Google Ads when it comes to conversion tracking but it’s a good addition in order to compare and verify that conversions are tracked properly.
In detail, Glopal imports 2 conversion actions from GA into Google Ads:
Transaction: This is the Purchase event recorded by GA and then imported into Google Ads. It is defined as a secondary goal and is counted in the All conversions column.
Go to checkout: This action is an event tracked by GA and that is triggered every time a checkout is initiated. This conversion action is also imported into Google Ads to give campaigns more data points. It is defined as a secondary goal and is counted in the All conversions column.
Understanding conversion actions in Google Ads
In 2021, Google introduced the concept of conversion goals and goal categories. This was done so in order to move advertisers towards goal-oriented campaigns.
However, this can be confusing, here’s what you need to know:
Google uses ALL conversion actions as signals.
Set to primary, the conversions are counted in both the Conversions and All conversions columns. They are an impacting source for machine learning and smart bidding.
Set to secondary, the conversions are counted only in All conversions column.
Only primary actions set as account goals or in the campaign goals are impacting campaigns.
In Google Ads, it is important to include in the Conversions column only the final actions you want to get and optimize towards. While product page views, adds to cart or initiated checkouts are indicators of a visitor’s engagement and progress in the purchase funnel, those are not what you’re looking for at the end of the day. That’s why they can be added as conversion actions to track and provide data points, but they should not be defined as a primary goal for the campaigns.
It is then recommended to keep campaigns focusing on a single and specific goal category, in this case, Purchase.
To, when importing the conversions from GA, Glopal also uses Google native tagging by feature in Google Ads. This lets Google handles all the complex URL parameters, tracks several dimensions automatically, and feeds the ad campaigns with these data in Google Ads.