Making the investment into paid advertising through Google Ads is a big, but important step in your inbound marketing strategy.  But how many leads are being generated from your ads?

Google Ads is a powerful advertising platform that allows business owners and marketers to advertise their products or services on Google SERPs. 

I won't get long winded on all the details about what Google Ads is or what you should be doing with it for you business.  We're just going to focus on how to accurately measure how many people clicking on your ads turn into leads.

Let's walk through a couple different processes in order to accurately track your Google Ads conversions.

What Conversions Should You Measure?

For each Google Ads account, you have standard "Conversions".  These include actions taken on your website, app, or phone calls.  You can create your own conversions based on the actions your team wants to measure.

If your business generates leads from it's website, you more than likely have forms hosted on landing pages, webpages, and other pages on your site.  We're going to focus on visitors who explicitly request more information, requesting a quote, scheduling service, or other products or services from your company.

Tracking Lead Form Submissions

Use this method if you are tracking visitors clicking on ads that submit a form on your website after they click on a standard text ad or responsive ad on Google.

Example of a standard text ad:

After clicking the ad, the visitor hits a landing page that hosts the form you want them to complete in order to become a new lead. 

Example of a landing page with form:

Typically, our method is triggering the conversion after someone submits the form and is lead to a Thank You page afterwards.  

Example of thank you page after form submission:

After the visitor submits the form, and becomes a new lead, the system guides them to the thank you page where the conversion tracking code is placed in order to trigger the event in Google Ads as a conversion.

This is a great way to personalize the new lead's experience with content based on the fields submitted in the form and an even better way for new contacts to subscribe to social channels or blog articles.  If you are using a CRM with Marketing Automation, like HubSpot, you can insert the person's name or other properties collected from the form submission.

Implementing The Google Ads Tracking Code

To get started, you'll want to navigate to your Google Ads account.  Google will create a specific code to install on your website that should only be used there. 

You may need the help of your IT department in order to successfully accomplish this.

1. In your Google Ads account, go to the top bar and click on the wrench icon labeled "Tools & Settings"
2. Under the tab "Measurements", click on the option "Conversions"
   
3. Click on the blue icon with a white cross to create a new conversion
   
4. Select the option "Website"
   
5. In the "Category" section, select the option "Submit lead form"
   
6. Name the conversion.  **If you have multiple forms, choose a name with the specific form or leave as Submit leave form.
7. In the "Value" section, we recommend choosing "Don't use a value for this conversion action".  Otherwise, choose a value for each conversion.
8. In the "Count" section, we recommend choosing the option "One".  Unless you have other actions you are measuring afterwards.
9. Click save

1. After clicking save, you will be presented with three options, choose the option best for you.  Remember that there is a separate code that needs to be installed only on the "Thank You" page you created.  
2. Once the code has been installed correctly, you can accurately measure how many new leads were created after clicking on one of your Google Ads and submitted the form on the landing page.

Tracking A Phone Call

Use this method for people who click a "Call-Only Ad" or click the phone number extension in on of your ads.  

Besides creating a text ad, you can create Call-Only Ads.  These ads display on mobile phones and provide searchers to call you directly from Google.

Example of a Call-Only Ad:

For your text ads, you can include an extension in your ads that show the phone number to your business where visitors can call directly from the standard text ad.

Example of a text ad with a call extension:

If you are not using a phone tracking system that automatically creates new contacts from phone calls in your CRM or other contact data base, you'll want to decide how long a phone conversation needs to be in order to count it as a conversion.

Considering that if you have a 60 second phone conversation with someone who called from one of you Call-Only ads or call extension, this might be the option for you.  It will be up to you and your team to decide the length of the phone call in order to determine a conversion.

Creating A Call Conversion In Google Ads

This process is much simpler than measuring form submissions and shouldn't require your IT department to get involved.  If you are measuring phone calls on your website you may need their assistance.  Here we will review the Call-Only Ads and call extension.

1. Start by following steps 1 - 3 from above and find the option "Phone calls"
   
2. In the section "Select the source of the phone calls you'd like to track" select the option "Calls from ads using call extensions or call-only ads"
   
   
3. Name your conversion you and your team decides upon
4. In the "Value" section, select the option "Don't use a value for this conversion action"
   
5. In the "Count" section, select the option "One"
6. Choose the call length you and your team determined to be the right fit for you conversion metrics
7. Click save

You're all set!  You can now start measuring how many phone calls from your ads turn into leads.

In Conclusion

These two methods of tracking your conversions are a simple and easy way to start measuring leads generated from you Google Ads.  Tracking is important to calculating your successes and failures from your Google Ads campaigns giving you a clear path on what works best for you company.

If you need help getting started with Google Ads for your business, we have experts that are specially certified to create and manage your Google Ads Campaigns.  Reach out to us or schedule a consultation with our team.