How To Set Up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Shopify

Google Ads is a platform that provides businesses with the opportunity to purchase paid advertisements that will show up in relevant search results. Along with the Google Ads platform, you can also purchase advertisements through Google that will appear directly on other websites via Google’s AdSense program.

Keep in mind that the Google ads you purchase can show up at the top of the search results page or at the bottom of the same page. They will be clearly marked with an “Ad” indicator. One reason why advertising your business or brand on Google is highly effective is because of the ability companies have to place their ads in front of their target audience. Ads will only be shown in relevant search results, which means that anyone who sees these ads will already be interested in the products or services they’re advertising.

If you use the Google Display Network for your Google ads, you’ll have the opportunity to create ads in video, text, or image form. Once you’ve purchased ads, it becomes important to track the ad performance, which can be done with conversion tracking tools. Conversion tracking involves tracking the number of users who clicked on an ad and how many of these users end up making a purchase or creating a membership.

If you find that your conversion rates are low but your bounce rates are high, this indicates that users are leaving immediately after reaching your website, which means that your landing page likely has a poor design. Tracking conversion rates with Google Ads is highly recommended if you want to gain insight into how potential customers view your business and if they are purchasing products at a high rate. The Google Ads conversion tracking setup in Shopify can be done in four steps, which are as follows:

• Create conversion actions with Google Ads
• Install a global site tag in the Shopify theme code
• Install an event snippet
• Set the conversion value to dynamic

The following tells you everything you need to know about tracking conversion in Shopify and why it’s important.

What are Google Ads?

As mentioned previously, Google Ads is considered to be a paid advertising platform. If you purchase ads on this platform, you’ll be tasked with paying whenever someone clicks on the ad in question. Before delving further into Google Ads, you should understand what search and display ads are.

Search ads are a form of pay-per-click advertising that allows ads to be displayed directly above or below search engine results in the event that a user enters a relevant keyword. In comparison, display ads will appear on larger targeting parameters, which means that they won’t only be displayed in a single location in relevant search results. These ads can also be shown on websites that are part of the Google Display Network and can even pop up on social media platforms.

Google Ads has proven to be a highly effective platform for businesses that want to bring more traffic to their websites. Since the only people who click on these ads are ones who would have at least some interest in your product or brand, the traffic that reaches your website from Google Ads is qualified and high-quality traffic. Along with increasing site traffic, you should also notice an increase with in-store visits as well as more phone calls.

Google Ads makes it easy for site owners to create well-designed ads that will reach a target audience. The ads you place on Google can also appear on other Google-related channels, which include YouTube and the Google Display Network. As you continue using the Google Ads platform, you’ll be given tools and reports to help you analyze your ads and how they’ve performed. To understand how effective Google Ads can be, keep in mind that:

• The Google Ads click-through rate is right around 2%, which is very high in comparison to other platforms
• More than 40% of consumers will purchase an item or service they see via a YouTube ad
• Display ads result in more than 180 million impressions every month.

Why Should I Track My Conversions?

There are many reasons why it’s important to track your conversions, the primary of which is that you’ll be able to more organically identify how to use your ad spend. The results you receive from tracking conversions should help you determine which areas need improvement with your current focus. By tracking conversions, you can:

• Determine what your return on investment is, which allows for informed decisions surrounding ad spend
• Identify which keywords, campaigns, and ads have driven customer activity
• Implement smart bidding strategies to optimize your ad campaigns

More than five billion search queries occur on a daily basis, which is why it’s essential that you measure performance to determine if your money is being spent wisely. Keep in mind that Google Ads has existed for almost 20 years, which ensures that it has authority when it comes to paid advertising.

It’s also important that you track Google Ads conversions since your competition will likely be doing so as well. If you want to remain ahead of the competition, making business decisions based on measurable data is essential.

How Do I Set Up Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Shopify?

It’s possible to track conversions in Shopify with the tracking tool that Google offers. With this tool, it’s possible to measure how well your Google ads are performing. The four-step process involves:

• Develop a conversion action
• Implement a global site tag
• Add an event snippet
• Adjust conversion values

1. Create a Conversion Action in Google Ads

The first step in tracking conversions involves creating a conversion action within the Google Ads tool. It’s important to understand that the conversions you choose to track can differ depending on what your business goals are. Examples of measurable conversions include form submissions, purchases, and sign-ups. The process for creating a conversion action is as follows:

• Log in to the Google Ads account you’ve made
• Select the “Tools” button at the upper right corner of the page
• Select “Conversions” under the “Measurement” tab
• Click on the “+ New Conversion” button
• Choose the website
• Enter the domain of your website, after which the “Scan” button should be clicked

The quickest way to create a conversion action is to track a specific page load as a conversion, which will be shown to you as an option when you click the “Scan” button. Customers don’t always reach a conversion in a straight path. These individuals can click on several ads before landing on yours. With attribution models, it becomes possible to allot credit for every type of ad interaction, which means that you can assign worth to each interaction. When you want to optimize the effectiveness of your ads, you can use attribution models like:

• Last click – The final ad that’s clicked will obtain all credit in regards to the conversion
• First click – The initial ad that’s clicked will obtain all credit in regards to the conversion
• Linear – Credit is apportioned equally for every ad interaction
• Time decay – Interactions that occur closer to the conversion receive more credit
• Position-based – The final and first interaction will each receive 40% of the credit with the final 20% being spread to other interactions
• Data-driven – Credit is distributed based on previous data for the conversion action, which means that this model relies on data from your customers

2. Install the Global Site Tag in Your Shopify Theme Code

Once the conversion action has been made, you’ll be tasked with installing a global site tag, which must be placed in the code for your Shopify theme. You can accomplish this goal by:

• Select the “Install the tag yourself” button once you reach the “Set up the tag” step
• Choose the option that best applies once you reach the “Global site tag” area
• You’ll be given a global site tag, which you should copy
• Bring up another browser tab before entering your Shopify admin area and selecting “Online Store”
• Click on the “Actions” button before selecting “Edit Code”
• Open the theme.liquid file
• Paste the global site tag that you copied directly between the head tags, which will apply this tag to each page on your website
• Click on the “Save” button

<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Ads: CONVERSION_ID -->
  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-CONVERSION_ID"></script>
  <script>
    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
    gtag('js', new Date());

    gtag('config','AW-CONVERSION_ID');
  </script>

3. Install the Event Snippet

Now that global site tag has been installed in your website, you must add your event snippet to the checkout page. This snippet will track conversions when a user clicks an ad and eventually enters your store’s checkout page. To install the event snippet, make sure that you:

• Select “Page Load” in the event snipped area
• Copy the code
• Click on the “Settings” option in your Shopify admin area, after which you can choose “Checkout”
• Navigate to the “Order Processing” area, which has an additional scripts text box
• Post the event snippet in the aforementioned box

You can see what the event snippet should look like at this event snippet guide.

<!-- Event snippet for Example conversion page -->
    <script>
      gtag('event', 'conversion', {'send_to': 'AW-CONVERSION_ID/CONVERSION_LABEL',
        'value': 1.0,
        'currency': 'USD'
      });
    </script>

4. Make the Conversion Value Dynamic

The fourth and final step involves making the conversion value dynamic. In the event that the conversion action you wish to track involves purchases that occur through your online storefront, each conversion value will be different based on the price of each item and what the ad is marketing. If you want to track different values for every conversion, the event snippet must be edited. The steps needed to make an event snipped dynamic include:

• Enter the Shopify admin area before navigating to “Settings” and “Checkout”
• Locate the event snippet that’s situated in the additional scripts text box, which is itself in the “Order Processing” area
• The line that begins with ‘value’: should be replaced with ‘value’: {{ checkout.subtotal_price | money_without_currency }}, if you want to exclude shipping and taxes from the total conversion amount
• If you want to include shopping and taxes in the total conversion amount, replace the ‘value’: line with ‘value’: {{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency }},

Google Ads conversion tracking gives you the opportunity to identify the percentage of users who click on your search/display ads before eventually making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. If you have a Shopify website and online storefront, tracking conversions can be done in four simple steps, which are detailed above.