Do you want to know how your Google Ads (formerly known as Google Adwords) campaigns are really doing?
If someone clicks on your ad but never actually finishes converting on your website, that means you’re wasting time and money on ads.
If you’re using a WordPress lead generation plugin like WPForms, it’s easy to track conversions from your Google Ads campaigns. Here’s how.
In This Article
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Step 1: Link Google Ads to Google Analytics
In order to set up Google Ads conversion tracking of your WPForms, you need to link your Google Ads account to your Google Analytics account.
To start, log into your Google Analytics account and click on the Admin tab in the lower left corner.
Under both the Account and the Property columns, make sure the right Google Analytics account you want to link is selected. If not, click on the dropdown to search for another account.
After that, look under the Property section and click on Google Ads Linking.
Here you’ll see every Google Ads account you have set up. Choose the one you want to link to your Analytics account and click Continue.
Next, a box will pop up under Link configuration. Give your Link Group a title and toggle the view On.
Click on the Link Accounts button.
Your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts are now linked. In other words, data can now flow between them thanks to the built-in auto-tagging feature that lets Google Analytics know when a site visitor lands on your site after clicking on an ad.
Step 2: Create a Google Analytics Goal
In order to see data collected by Google Analytics in your Google Ads account, you need to create an Analytics goal first.
Setting up a Google Analytics goal gives you the chance to track specific user behavior on your website. For example, button clicks, ebook downloads, and in our example, form submissions.
While in your Google Analytics account, click on the Admin tab in the lower left hand corner.
After that, go to the 3rd column to the right (the View column) and click on Goals.
To create a goal, click the + New Goal button.
Next, choose the goal setup you want to use. You have the option of choosing Template or Custom. Template will be selected by default.
Scroll down and select Custom and Continue.
On the next screen, give your goal a name and choose a goal type. You can choose from Destination, Duration, Pages/Screens per Sessions, and Event.
Because you’re tracking Google Ads form conversions, you could choose Destination as your goal type if you redirect users after submitting their forms to another URL.
You could also choose the goal type Event and measure how many people click “Submit” on your WordPress form.
If you want an easier way to track your WordPress form conversions, we recommend using the MonsterInsights Forms Tracking Addon. This will automatically track all your form conversions for you – no need to set anything up in Google Analytics. It can also help you track links and button clicks in WordPress.
For this tutorial, we’ll select Destination. Just remember, if you’re using Destination as a goal type, you’ll need to have a thank you page set up for users to be sent to once they have submitted your form.
When you’re done, click Continue.
Next, enter the URL that users will redirect to upon form completion, such as your thank you page.
If you’re tracking eCommerce transactions, you have the option here to assign a monetary value to each form submission. You can also assign a specific funnel of pages you want each user that submits a form on your site to follow afterwards. In addition, you can click on Verify Goal if you want to measure how often you might expect this goal to convert based on your data for the past 7 days
After that, click Save.
Step 3: Import Goals into Google Ads Account
Now that you have created a goal in your Google Analytics account, you need to import your goal into your Google Ads account.
In other words, you need to let Google Ads know that Google Analytics is tracking a specific goal, and have it ask Analytics for the data it collects.
Start by logging into your Google Ads account.
Navigate to the tool icon at the top right-hand corner of the main page. Now, click on the Measurement dropdown menu and click under Conversions.
Click on the blue (+Conversions) button to add your goal to Google Ads and select which type of conversions you want to track. You have the following options:
- Website. Track sales and other actions on your website.
- App. Track app installs and in-app actions.
- Phone Calls. Track calls from your ads or your website.
- Import. Import conversions from another system.
Since you’re tracking form conversions in Google Analytics, click on Import.
Under Select what you want to import, click Google Analytics. Then click Continue.
Finally, check the Goal that you created in Step 2.
Step 4: Check Your Goal
If you want to see your Goals being tracked, the easiest way is to use the Realtime view in Google Analytics.
Monitor your site under Realtime » Conversions and you should see your Goal being completed right after a visitor clicks Submit on your form.
And there you have it! You have successfully set up Google Ads conversion tracking in your WPForms.
Now whenever a site visitor signs up after clicking on an ad and entering your site, you’ll be able to see the Google Analytics data right in your Google Ads account.
While on the topic of Google, did you know that by June of 2024, Google will be shutting down its Business Profiles? Check out our article to find out what it means for users.
Create Your WordPress Form Now
Next, Track User Activity On Your Site
User tracking doesn’t end here! WPForms lets you track activity in a number of ways.
You can use a similar technique to:
- Track button clicks in WordPress
- Track form submissions in GA4
- Track form submissions with a Facebook Pixel
- Track the user’s journey on your site — without using Google Analytics!
Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
If this article helped you out, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more free WordPress tutorials and guides.
Hi there, am thinking about using MonsterInsights Pro for tracking form submissions. Above you mention that nothing is required to be setup in GA… but how would this data be used in Adwords Conversion tracking? Is there any set up required?
Hi Michael,
Sure, so the form tracking addon in MonsterInsights requires no setup, and their AdWords addon requires a little configuration. However, both can work together to do everything you’d need 🙂
In case it’s helpful, here’s the MonsterInsights tutorial on AdWords tracking. And if you have any additional questions about how this all works, their support team would be happy to help further!
Hi, i have a question, i cant use Google Analytics because im not the admin of the webpage, but i have configured my conversion in Google Adwords, i want the conversion activated when someone clicks on the submit button of my form, if y paste the code below the [wpform] code, i will have that? or everytime someones open my page will count as a conversion?
When people click my ad, they go directly to the page with the wpform, thats why, thank you!
Hi Juan,
Generally if you need to add tracking code, it’s best to put this in the form’s confirmation message. That way, the form will only get counted if the user completing the submission.
Hope that helps! 🙂
Thanks for a great article, this is really helpful, I have a question, that if we are using “Google Tag Manger” in our website, then if there are different seeings for “Google Tag Manager” ?
Hi Subhash,
The approach described above is probably easiest, though others are probably possible. I apologize, though, as that falls outside of our support scope for WPForms. If you have questions about Google Tag Manager, I’d recommend contacting our sister plugin MonsterInsights (which provides integration for Google Analytics) or going through Google’s Tag Manager support pages.
Thanks! 🙂
We are running a Google Ads campaign that needs to track events. We need to know which Ad is prompting people to submit a specific form.
How can I insert the tracking code to the submit button?
Hi Sueli,
I apologize that we don’t have the option to add such a code to the Submit button.
With Google Analytics it might be possible to add a script to the form’s confirmation message or page so that it tracks users who viewed the confirmation. While it is outside the scope of our support to customize the script needed, here’s Google’s documentation, in case it helps.
Thanks!
Great article! Just need something clarified.
My form is on every page on my site and when someone clicks the submit button, it goes to a thank you page. So I placed the tag and snippet in the header.php file of the WordPress template between the head tags as directed by Google. But from your final image above, I see the snippet in the actual body where the form is. Should I do the same and move the snippet from the head tags and move to the body?
Also, since I cannot add the onclick attribute to the form button that would allow me to track when a person submits, what can I do to track the button behaviour?
Thanks in advance
Rick
Hi Rick,
The easiest solution for what you’re looking to do would be to use MonsterInsights, our sister plugin. They specialize in tracking like this, and have a Forms addon that makes this type of setup much easier. If you’re curious, here’s one of their detailed tutorials on setting up form tracking.
I hope that helps! 🙂
Is there a way of telling what the name of the person who filled in the form who came from an adwords ad is? (or just the exact time of the form sent)
We want to track anyone that came from an ad, and match it to the enquiry contact form. The contact may result in a big sale or none at all.
We want to see if all of our ads are worth the final result!
Hi Mike,
I apologize as we’re not able to provide support for Adwords functionality/options. But in case it helps, here’s the Adwords support page where you can find tutorials, plus a forum and contact options.
Hope that helps!
Hello
if we import goals of analytic into AdWords then will it count both organic + paid goals into Adwords or just paid like any adword conversion tracking code works.
Because analytics shows both organic & paid traffic data.
Hi Sunny,
It might worth checking out this article from Google regarding this topic.
But, better yet, I’d highly recommend you reach out to our friends over at MonsterInsights and they’ll be able to get a better answer for you.
I hope this helps! 🙂
best article ever!! i usually read articles, get solutions and move on but this will be the first time i’m stopping to comment. This article is for wpforms but guys if you are looking to input event tag for any other page not necessarily wpforms, this step will work just as well. no other site goes as far as teaching you how to put event tags on wordpress individual pages yourself this easy. Other writers should learn from this writer this is super explanatory it doesn’t make you go crazy and dummies were considered while writing this you can tell the writer loves writing. Article talks about wpforms but get the info, you can apply it in getting your first tag setup right
Hi Justin,
Thanks for the great feedback! We’re really glad you found the article helpful! 🙂
Hello,
Great article! Is there a way to see the contact information (email address etc) in WordPress of the person that submitted the lead form that came from the Google Ads source?
Hi Kristin – In order to collect this type of information, you’d need to add fields for Address, Email, etc to your form. And to help encourage people to submit a form with this kind of information, you could consider also offering a lead magnet (typically something the user can download immediately after submitting a form, to incentivize submitting that form). I hope this helps!
There is one thing which is really confusing here:
“Step 3: Import Goals into Google Ads Account” clearly says we’re going to import the goal which we created in analytics to show up here.
However, in that same step, instead of clicking on “Import” button, you are clicking on the website button, which would simply ignore the analytics goals and have its own tracking code snippet + GTAG.
However, if you did import the goal in adwords, there would be no need to add any code anywhere!
is there something I missed?
Hey Yusuf- Thanks for the heads up!
We have highlighted this step to our Content Team and they will soon be updating the steps in the blog! Thank you so much for your feedback on this.
We will keep you posted here! Have a good one 🙂
Hi Yusuf- Our team has now updated the steps in the blog!
Thanks again and have a good one 🙂
Looks like this is out of date. The View is gone from GA4 and trying to figure out how to connect it for Enhanced Conversions. The Google tag team are no help and wanted the user’s email variable on the thank you page. Any advice?
Hey Emer – we are sorry for any trouble. In order to make sure we answer your question as thoroughly as possible and avoid any confusion.
Would you mind reach out to us with additional details so that we can help you further on this case?
Thanks.
Thank you so much for elaborating, but how can we track “button” submit without thank you page.
Moreover, this article is about Old UA which is obsolete now, how to track and link in GA4 for Google Ads?
Hey Wali – We have this developer documentation that you can checkout to track form submissions using GA 4. Having said that, about your other question, if you have a WPForms license, you have access to our email support, so please submit a support ticket.
Otherwise, we provide limited complimentary support in the WPForms Lite WordPress.org support forum.
Thanks 🙂
Unfortunately, this is totally outdated.
Hi Tom. I apologize for any confusion. This post will be updated as soon as possible. Thanks for taking the time to comment! We appreciate the feedback.