Conversion-Tracking Tips for Google Adwords
The next step after you’ve selected your keywords and written a compelling ad is to track your conversions. Any Adwords campaign would not be successful if users do not have the tools for tracking conversions.
A common way to track conversions is to look at your landing page hits and your sales quantity for a given period. However, Google provides Adwords advertisers some tools to automate the process. Below are some guidelines for tracking your conversions with Google Adwords.
If you’re checkout process involves using a shopping cart or requires confirmation on the end of a buyer, you need to embed your conversion link using Javascript. JavaScript is required to send information 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’.
There are only two conditions for the above method to work and track your conversions accurately. The first is that you should be running approved Adwords ads on your site and the second condition is you should place the code only in your conversion page.
You might want to check if the code works by completing a conversion. Just remember that you cannot click on your own ads, as this is a violation of your contract with Google. The conversion tracking reports would be available within 24 hours after a user has clicked your ad and gone through the whole process.
This tracking method will also work with PayPal and most payment checkout systems. PayPal offers a page wherein you can insert your Javascript tracking code. If a customer completes Paypal’s payment process, that transaction would then be recorded into your conversion tracking report.
The book “Google: The Missing Manual”, written by J.D. Biersdorfer, Mathew McDonald, and Sarah Milstein, justifies the importance of knowing your total cost per conversion.
This information will tell you the actual costs of generating a sale with your campaign. To calculate this, match the number of conversions with the total cost of campaign for a certain period.
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