Why do 3 out of 5 AdWords Clients Fail to Setup Google Conversion Tracking?

I am stunned that the majortiy of Google AdWords clients we start working with have not setup Google conversion tracking.  By now you know one of our favorite mantras:

Track and test everything because you can only improve what you can measure.”

Google conversion tracking is a brilliant tool that Google offers for free that every Google AdWords advertiser should be using.  My guess why most AdWords users don’t use it is because they don’t know about it and they are not sure how to implement it.

So, here are some very simple steps:

1) Login to your Google AdWords account and click on “Conversion Tracking”

Once you click on “Conversion Tracking” Google offers very simple step by step instructions to make it fast and easy for you to get everything setup.  All you need to do is to grab a piece of code from Google and paste it into your goal page (the page that users end up on after taking the desired action).

2) What goal should I optimize Google AdWords for?

Pick the most wanted response of your landing page.  If you are going straight for the sale, then your goal would be to track sales (i.e. conversions).  If your most wanted response is to first capture leads (i.e. email addresses) then make this your goal to track via Google. 

If you capture leads, it is going to be much faster to optimize your Google AdWords account because it is about 10 times easier to capture leads than it is to make a sale.  So, capturing leads and optimizing against leads will be 10 times faster.

Once you are all done, every time you check any of your Campaigns and Ad Groups you will automatically see two new columns being added. 

In the image above, note the two new highlighted columns.  These two columns help you to rapidly see how your Ad Groups are doing.  At one glance you know whether visitors from this Ad Group are converting and how much you are spending for every goal (lead or sale). 

Having this conversion data right in front of you allows you to optimize your AdWords account in record time and it also helps you to avoid making costly mistakes (such as keeping the wrong ads or over bidding on keywords).  The conversion data is absolutely critical to help you start getting the most out of Google AdWords and it is very simple and easy to setup.

One word of caution - Google conversion data is not 100% accurate

While I am a huge advocate of using Google conversion tracking, I would recommend to only use it as an indicator to gage how you are doing.  

Let me explain, we have conducted many tests where we compared our actual sales from Google AdWords to the sales count reported by Google conversion tracking.  The results:

In all of our tests, Google conversion tracking was under reporting sales  by up to 20-30%. 

How did we get this result? 

We have even more rigorous internal tracking systems in place and noticed that we see more sales from Google than Google is counting.  So, it pays to double check because if sales are actually better than what Google is reporting, then you might be able to afford to bid more per click than you would have otherwised believed.   

Setting up Google conversion tracking is only one of six crucial steps in setting up a winning Google AdWords system.  To find out what the other steps are check out AdWords System Exposed.

Click here if you want to check out other case studies and helpful Google AdWords Tips

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike

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