Monitoring conversions is crucial in Google Ads, allowing you to see what valuable actions visitors take on your website or landing page. This helps you grasp your ad spending’s effectiveness and return on investment for your marketing endeavors.
While it seems straightforward, it can become intricate, leading to obstacles, decreased conversions, and malfunctions. Before you know it, your account might have distorted conversion data, leaving you clueless about your ads’ impact on your business’s success.
This guide explains why conversion tracking is non-negotiable for every business. We’ll cover its setup, metrics, and the eight most frequent issues I’ve observed with Google Ads conversion tracking (and how to resolve them). These include:
- Uncertainty about what to track
- Lack of conversion data or low conversion rates
- Inaccurate conversion data
- The need to remove/add a conversion
- Unclear conversion action
- “No recent conversions” or “tag inactive” notification
- New landing page, outdated conversion tracking setup
- Sudden drop in conversions By the end, you’ll be proficient in setting up and troubleshooting your Google Ads conversion tracking, ensuring your account data remains consistently accurate. Let’s get started.
Fact: EVERY business needs conversion tracking
As a nexus-security consultant, I’ve encountered numerous individuals who hesitate to implement conversion tracking. This usually stems from their preference for manual tracking or uncertainty about its implementation for their specific business model. Not every business fits the mold of cookie-cutter purchases or call-based conversions. Nevertheless, I always advocate for conversion tracking because it can be tailored to every account.
Typical conversion actions encompass calls, form submissions, and purchases. However, there are many others better suited for your business, such as live chat interactions, content downloads, and bookings (more on that later).
At a minimum, conversion tracking quantifies your advertising’s value. More importantly, it serves as a fundamental metric for comprehending all other data points within your account. Since PPC decisions often rely on historical data (eliminating guesswork), accurate conversion tracking is crucial for ongoing optimization and maximizing your return on investment.
How to set up Google Ads conversion tracking (correctly)
Despite the variety of conversion actions, the setup process remains largely consistent.
In essence, Google provides a snippet of HTML code that you insert into the webpage visitors reach after completing a conversion (like an order confirmation or thank you page).
Begin by clicking the Tools section in Google Ads, choose Conversions under Measurement in the dropdown menu, which will lead you to the Conversion actions section. Click the +Conversion button to establish your first conversion.
You’ll be prompted to complete a form that helps Google Ads generate the correct HTML code for you to paste directly into your webpage.
Name the conversion descriptively, such as “Contact Form Submissions” to monitor how often visitors complete your website’s Contact Us form.
Next, select the conversion source, and Google will guide you through the implementation based on your choice. Your source options include:
- Webpage: Track actions on your website, such as online purchases, contact form submissions, or page visits.
- Call on-site: Track calls from mobile devices to the phone number displayed on your site.
- App download: Track downloads of your app.
- Import: Import offline custom conversions from external providers.
Metrics available through Google Ads conversion tracking
With your tracking operational (and hopefully avoiding common conversion tracking errors), you’ll start observing conversion data. Let’s review the conversion metric columns Google offers to better understand your conversion activity:
- Conv. (1-per-click): Tracks instances of one or more conversions resulting from a single ad click, providing an estimate of new customer acquisition.
- Cost / conv. (1-per-click): Displays the ratio of your ad spending (cost per click) to total conversions, measuring your return on investment (ROI). Ideally, your cost per click should be lower than your earnings from conversions. This metric is also known as Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Action (CPA).
- Conv. rate (1-per-click): Shows the percentage of clicks leading to conversions. Higher percentages indicate more effective ad or keyword performance.
- View-through conv.: Measures instances where a customer viewed your ad without clicking but later completed a conversion.
8 reasons your Google Ads conversion tracking isn’t working
Now that we’ve addressed the fundamentals, let’s explore the eight most common obstacles businesses encounter with their Google Ads accounts.
1. Not knowing what to track
What’s wrong
Many mistakenly believe conversion tracking is limited to conventional transactions like purchases. However, for most businesses, it’s not always that simple.
How to fix it
If you’re unsure which actions to track as meaningful conversions, step back and analyze your customer journey. If you have a longer sales cycle or a complex product/service, customers likely won’t convert immediately after a single visit from an ad.
Perhaps conversions happen offline through sales calls. However, visitors can still take significant actions upon landing on your webpage.
Get creative and provide opportunities for potential clients to engage. These actions might not translate to immediate revenue but nudge leads further down your sales funnel, eventually converting them into customers.
Such actions include downloading whitepapers, submitting emails through pop-ups, watching videos, engaging in live chat, viewing specific pages, and more. Embrace creativity in what you track; quantifying customer actions at every stage yields valuable insights.
2. No conversion data or low conversion rates
What’s wrong You believed your conversion tracking was functioning, but your account reveals minimal or no conversions. Why aren’t your Google Ads converting? How to fix it Stay composed and follow these three steps: First, rule out performance issues! Don’t hastily blame your tracking for low conversions. Begin by retrospectively examining your account to ensure performance isn’t the culprit.
If your conversion data is slightly low (not entirely absent), it suggests some tracking activity is occurring. The issue might not lie solely with the tracking itself.
Review your change history for recent account modifications that could have impacted performance. Ask yourself:
- Have budgets or bids been reduced?
- Do my keywords have lower search volumes, indicating decreased popularity?
- Is this time of year typically associated with lower activity? Examine the “Conversions” section in Google Ads We discussed creating conversions in the Conversions section of Google Ads. Equally important is understanding the read through the data it provides. Within this section, verify which actions are currently classified as conversions.
The adjacent column indicates the type of conversion for each action.
Check for recent activity related to each action’s tag under “Tracking status.” Inactivity might explain slow conversions.
On the right side, you’ll see the total conversions received. “Repeat rate” represents the average number of conversions per interaction leading to at least one conversion.
Familiarize yourself with these columns to ascertain if conversions are slow, malfunctioning, or being recorded incorrectly. Hovering over a column title provides a definition from Google. Utilize the Google Tag Assistant browser plugin Google offers a useful tool for verifying landing page tags. Google Tag Assistant is a downloadable browser plugin that runs tests on your current webpage.
For instance, if you’re unsure about your tags’ functionality or suspect duplication, the Tag Assistant can help. It identifies active tags, uses color-coding to highlight issues, and displays the tag code for comparison with the code found in the selected conversion action within the Conversions section.
3. Conversion data seems off
What’s wrong You consistently generated a ton of sales, but your conversion metrics are unusually slow or significantly different from historical data. How to fix it Besides ruling out performance issues and using the Google Tag Manager plugin to detect duplicate or misplaced tags, check two specific areas within the “Conversions” section. Review the “Recent Activity” and “Include in Conversions” columns For example, recent activity might indicate a lack of recent conversions (“tag inactive” or “no recent conversions”). Alternatively, the “Include in Conversions” column reveals whether an action’s conversion data contributes to your campaign’s conversion columns. If it’s set to “No” instead of “Yes,” edit it accordingly unless it’s a Google Hosted conversion (those never appear in conversion columns). Cross-check against your backup tracking Crucially, maintain a separate method for tracking conversions to validate your data. This could involve Google Analytics, a CRM, a marketing partner’s interface, or manual tracking.
Having a backup system not only safeguards your data in case of tracking issues but also allows you to cross-reference and verify the accuracy of your Google Ads data.
4. Need to remove/add a conversion
What’s wrong You realize you missed adding a desired conversion action, or your conversion data is inflated because it includes an action you no longer wish to track. How to fix it To add: Simply revisit the setup section and follow the prompts to add the desired action for future data inclusion. To remove: Go to the Conversions section in Google Ads under Tools > Measurement. Click the name of the conversion action you want to remove. In that specific conversion’s information section, click Edit and uncheck the “Include in Conversions” option. You can also remove the tracking code from your website’s backend.
5. Conversion action unclear
What’s wrong Conversion data appears in your Google Ads columns, but you’re uncertain about the specific conversion or its implications for your customer journey. How to fix it This can be tricky. Google Ads has limitations in its reporting capabilities.
For instance, attributing a specific keyword or ad to a particular conversion is nearly impossible. While you can analyze converting keywords or ads and adjust date ranges to align with a specific conversion’s timing, you won’t definitively know the corresponding action if multiple actions are tracked.
However, you can cross-reference your actions in the Conversions section. It displays the number of completed actions within your chosen timeframe.
For further granularity, such as analyzing conversions from different locations based on unique thank you pages, click on those actions and navigate to the “Webpages” section within them. This provides a breakdown of total conversions by page.
6. “No recent conversions” or “tag inactive” in the Conversions section
What’s wrong The Conversions section in Google Ads displays alarming messages like “tag inactive” or “no recent conversions,” even if you’ve had recent conversions. What’s going on? How to fix it This issue requires minimal action. While these messages seem alarming, hovering over them reveals their benign nature.
They simply mean you haven’t received conversions within the past 7 days (“no recent conversions”) or 30 days (“tag inactive”). This doesn’t signify tracking problems but rather slow conversion rates for that specific action. The solution is to assess your account performance and optimize for increased conversion frequency. Evaluate your Google Ads account performance with our Free Google Ads Performance Grader.
7. New landing page, old tracking set up
What’s wrong You’ve launched your new landing page, but how do you manage tracking that was previously configured on the old page? How to fix it This point serves as a reminder to perform necessary updates on your new landing page, ensuring seamless conversion tracking.
A brand-new page likely won’t have your old tags unless it redirects to an existing thank you page or similar scenarios. Treat this like a fresh setup, implementing tracking as if it were a completely new page.
Finally, remember to update all final landing page URLs in your ads, including paused ones. This prevents Google from flagging “destination mismatch” errors between old and new landing pages within the same ad group.
8. Conversions just (poof!) fell off
What’s wrong Your conversions plummet drastically or disappear entirely after a period of consistent performance. How to fix it Sudden, complete drops in conversion data usually indicate a tracking issue.
Don’t panic!
First, revisit your change history (as mentioned in issue #2) to eliminate performance as a factor. Then, follow the audit steps discussed earlier, utilizing the Conversions section in Google Ads and the Google Tag Manager to pinpoint tracking weaknesses. Reinstalling tracking tags or modifying what’s being tracked might be necessary to get back on track.
Now you can reap the benefits of Google Ads conversion tracking
While conversion tracking can feel daunting due to its complexity, coding elements, and various components, you don’t need to be a web expert to troubleshoot its impact on your PPC performance. Approach any issues methodically, and you’ll find solutions to ensure stress-free ad campaign management.