When your Google Ads campaign is up and running, you start generating a great number of clicks. However, how many of those clicks actually end up in sales? If you don't know that, you're actively throwing your money down the drain.
That's why you need a good Magento Google Ads Conversion Tracking strategy to measure how well your campaigns perform. It allows you to change keywords, adjust the bidding and choose a different budget.
Regardless if you're starting fresh or just want to improve your current campaign, you'll find everything in this comprehensive guide. We'll discuss how you can set up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Magento using GTM and Extension. But we'll also show you the default option.
- Default Magento connects Google Ads under Stores > Configuration > Sales > Google API.
- Conversion ID and Conversion Label values from the Google Ads conversion action are required to connect Magento with Google Ads.
- It's recommended to set up Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 in Magento through Google Tag Manager to avoid managing multiple data streams separately.
- The default conversion tracking setup in Magento doesn't support Enhanced Conversions.
- The easiest way to configure Conversion Tracking for Magento is using a Google Tag Manager Extension, like the one from Magefan.
What is Google Ads Conversion Tracking?
Google Ads Conversion Tracking is a free tracking tool that allows you to track and measure customer actions after they interact with the Google Ads. Whether they place an order, sign up for a newsletter, download a product, or make a call — you can track that conversion.
To enable Google Ads Conversion tracking for a website, one needs to create a conversion action in Google Ads and add a conversion tracking tag to the website.
We'll show you how to do that in default Magento or take a shortcut and make it simpler with powerful tools.
Prerequisites for Conversion Tracking in Magento
Before you configure conversion tracking in Magento you should cover a few things:
- Set up Google Ads account — to run ads, set up a conversion actions and dynamic remarketing in Magento.
- Create Google Analytics 4 account — to track data from your store.
- Set up Google Tag Manage accout and container — to set up events you want to track on your website.
- Create conversion actions in Google Ads — to use for conversion tracking.
Note: we'll share how to create a conversion action in Google Ads and create tags and triggers in Google Tag Manager later in this guide.
- Install Magento 2 Google Tag Manager Extension by Magefan — to enable Enhanced Conversion and set up conversion tracking with purchase events.
Once you do all that you can start the setup.
Set Up Conversion Tracking in Default Magento
To set up Google Ads Conversion Tracking for Magento by default, just navigate to Stores > Configuration > Sales > Google API > Google AdWords. Then enable it and fill out the Conversion ID, Label and other relevant settings.
Important note: default Magento relies on the events that Google Analytics tracks by default. It only tracks some basic views, user engagement and session events.
This means you won't be able to track purchases, calls, and sign-ups as conversions for your ads with these default settings.
So, in most cases, Magento merchants use the Google Tag Manager set up for better Google Analytics and events tracking.
That's what we'll cover to next.
How to Set Up Google Conversion Tracking in Magento Using GTM?
To set up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Magento using GTM, you need three things: a Google Ads account, a Google Tag Manager account and container and Magefan Google Tag Manager Extension that will connect GTM, GA4 and Google Ads in a few minutes.
Step 1. Create conversion action in Google Ads
If you haven't done it already, create a Google Ads account so you can create new conversions for tracking. Those of you who have already created a conversion, jump to step #2.
Then navigate to Goals > Summary and hit the +Create conversion action button.
Then choose what kind of conversion you want it to be. We're creating a conversion action for a website.
So you also need to add a website where those conversions will be happening and press Scan. Once your website is scanned, you can choose one or more data sources to measure website conversions. Just choose Google Analytics here.
The next step is to create a conversion action group. Most often it's Purchase, so we'll go with that.
And finally, create the conversion action. Choose the Google Analytics source for that action and set a GA4 event you want to use for conversion.
Save and continue to find your conversion action listed under Goals > Summary.
Step 2: Get Conversion ID and Conversion Label
While in the Google Ads account, navigate to Goals > Summary, open a goal and click on the conversion action you need.
Then go to the Tag setup > Use Google Tag Manager to find a Conversion ID and Conversion Label. Copy both for later.
Step 3: Paste GTM and GA4 IDs in the admin panel
Now it's time to "assemble" everything in the Magento admin. Go to Stores > Configuration > Magefan Extensions > Google Tag Manager > Web Container and paste all the GTM IDs (Public ID and Account ID) into this section.
Note: you can find more details on where to find these IDs, in our guide about how to set up Google Tag Manager for Magento.
Then go to your Google Analytics account > Admin > Data Streams and copy the Measurement ID from the data stream you need. Paste it under the Google Analytics 4 section > Measurement ID.
Step 4: Enable Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Magento
Go to Stores > Configuration > Magefan Extensions > Google Tag Manager > Google Ads Conversion Tracking. Enable this feature, paste your Conversion ID and Conversion Label in the corresponding fields, and Save the settings.
Step 5: Export preset data layer to GTM
It's a step when we automatically create the tracking tags in Google Tag Manager to pass data to GA4 and Google Ads correspondingly, including Enhanced Conversions.
While you're still at Stores > Configuration > Magefan Extensions > Google Tag Manager go to the Export Container section and click on the Generate JSON Container & Download File button.
Once you have the file, navigate to the GTM homepage > Admin tab and click on the Import Container.
Select the file to import, choose a workspace and set whether to overwrite or merge the selected workspace with the container you want to import. Then select a workspace, which is usually the default.
Note:
- Overwrite option deletes all the existing tags, triggers and variables you have and replaces them with the tags from the JSON file.
- Merge option adds tags from the JSON file while keeping the existing tags.
You'll see a preview of the tags and triggers that will be imported. Simply confirm them.
After the confirmation, you will see the Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag created automatically, along with other tags.
Important: don't forget to Publish all the new tags once you import them to GTM.
Step 6: Check Google Ads tags implementation
The last step in the Magento Google Ads Conversion Tracking setup is to check if the Google Ads tags are working properly.
Once you're in your Google Tag Manager account, click on Preview and enter your website URL. Then press continue and you're all set.
You can create a test order in the debug view to check if the purchase event is tracked. That's how you check if the conversion tracking works properly.
Additionally, you can check if the action you've used to track conversions in your Google Ads account changes the Status to Active:
Once you enable Google conversion tracking in Magento, you can track, optimize and improve accordingly with accurate conversion data. However, it you want to improve the accuracy even more, server-side tracking in Magento.
