To setup the 'Google Ads Conversion Tracking Tag', please follow the steps below.
Step 1: Create a conversion action
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
In the top right-hand corner, click the tools icon
, and under 'Measurement', click Conversions. Note: If you're updating your conversion actions, you'll be prompted to review and update your conversion categories. You can read more about the updated conversion categories.
- Click the plus button
. - Click Website.
- Under the categories section, select the type of action that you’d like to track. There are categories available to classify actions for Sales, Leads and other activities.
- Next to 'Conversion name', enter a name for the conversion that you’d like to track, such as 'newsletter sign-up' or 'wedding bouquet purchase'. This will help you recognise this conversion action later in conversion reports.
- Next to 'Category', select a description for your conversion action. The category allows you to segment your conversions in reports, so that you can see similar conversions together.
- Use the same value for each conversion. Enter the amount that each conversion is worth to your business.
- Use different values for each conversion. Use this option if, for example, you’re tracking purchases of products with different prices. Later, when you add your conversion tracking tag, you’ll need to customise your tag to track transaction-specific values.
- Don't use a value.
- One. This setting is best for leads, such as a sign-up form on your website, when only one conversion per ad click probably adds value for your business.
- Every. This setting is best for sales, when every conversion probably adds value for your business.
- Click on Click-through conversion window. From the drop-down menu, select how long you want to track conversions after an ad interaction. For Search, Shopping and Display campaigns, the window can be 1 to 90 days. Learn more about conversion windows.
- Click View-through conversion window. Select how long to track view-through conversions from the drop-down. For Search, Shopping and Display campaigns, the window can be 1 to 30 days.
- Click Include in 'Conversions'. This setting – selected by default – lets you decide whether to include data for this conversion action in your 'Conversions' reporting column. If you untick this setting, data will still be included in the ‘All conversions’ column. You might want to untick this setting if you use Smart Bidding, and you don't want to include this particular conversion action in your bid strategy. Learn more about the 'Include in 'Conversions'' setting.
- Click Create and continue.
You’ll now see a screen that shows that you’ve created your conversion action. Follow the instructions in the next section to set up your tag.
Step 2: Set up your conversion tracking tag
To set up website conversion tracking for the first time, you'll need to add two code snippets to your website: the global site tag and the event snippet.
To install the Global Site Tag, please see.
Under 'Global site tag', select the option that best describes your situation and follow the instructions for installing the tag:
- I haven’t installed the global site tag on my website: Choose this option if it’s your first time setting up the tag for a conversion action in your account and you haven’t installed the global site tag from another Google product. This option shows the full global site tag. To install the tag, please follow this guide.
I installed the global site tag on my website from another Google product (e.g. Google Analytics) or from another Google Ads account: If this option applies to you, you won’t need to add the global site tag to your website again; however, for conversion tracking to work for this account, you’ll need to add the config command (the piece of code that contains your conversion ID) to every instance of the global site tag. This option shows that command, where 'AW-CONVERSION_ID' stands for your account’s conversion ID:
gtag('config', 'AW-CONVERSION_ID');
Add the config command one line above the </script> end tag.
Here’s an example of a global site tag that’s configured for both Google Analytics and Google Ads, with the config command for the Google Ads account highlighted:
<script async
src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=GA_TRACKING_ID">
</script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [ ] ;
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag( 'js', new Date () ) ;
gtag( 'config', 'GA_TRACKING_ID');
gtag( 'config', 'AW-CONVERSION_ID');
</script>
I already installed the global site tag on my website when I created another conversion action in this Google Ads account: If this option applies to you, you don’t need to add the global site tag again to your website. Just make sure that the global site tag appears on every page of your site and confirm that the config command in each instance of the tag contains your account’s conversion ID. You’ll see your conversion ID when you select this option.