Simply capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages
Do you want to know which campaigns bring in leads, customers and revenue? You can do this by teaching yourself how to capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages.
Do you have no clue how to get a hold of information on which of your Google Ads campaigns are generating customers and revenue?
What if you could determine where each lead came from, right down to the campaign ad they clicked? If you could do this, you’d be updated about the campaigns and ads generating customers and revenue, and you’d be able to invest more in those.
In this article, we’ll show how to use Attributer to capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages with every lead that arrives and then, ultimately, how you can use it to monitor the performance of your Google Ads campaigns.
Why it's important to track customers and revenue from Google Ads
Let’s suppose you own a business that sells and installs pool equipment. To let people know about your business, you create ads on Google showcasing your products, such as Pool Pumps and Pool Cleaners.
If you were using a tool like Google Analytics alone to measure visitors and form completions, you’d get results like this:
| Spend | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Visitors | 200 | 100 |
| Goal Completions | 20 | 10 |
If your only data is on visitors and leads from spend, it would appear that your Pool Pumps campaign is doing better than your Pool Cleaners campaign. And because of this, you’d want to put more of your budget into the former.
On the other hand, what if you could see the results down to the number of customers and the amount of revenue generated?
You’d get something like this:
| Spend | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Visitors | 200 | 100 |
| Leads | 20 | 10 |
| Customers | 2 | 5 |
| Revenue | $8,000 | $25,000 |
You can see the real and whole story when you're informed about every detail of your track campaign's effectiveness, including information on customers and revenue.
In this situation, the Pool Cleaners Campaign is doing better because:
- You made more customers from the Pool Cleaners Campaign (5) than the Pool Pumps Campaign (2)
- Your lead-to-customer conversion rate is five times greater in the Pool Cleaners Campaign 950% vs. 10%)
- Your average customer value is higher for the Pool Cleaners Campaign: $5,000 per customer vs. $4,000 per customer from the Pool Pumps Campaign.
- Your expense in acquiring a customer is lower in the Pool Cleaners Campaign: $400 vs. $1,000
- Your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is three times higher in the Pool Cleaners Campaign
As stated above, when you can have a hold of the source of every lead and track all the way through to customers and revenue, you get a much better understanding of what's working and what isn't.
4 simple steps to capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages
Attributer makes it easy to capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages. Here's how it works:
1. Add UTM variables to your ads
The first thing to do in order to capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages is to add UTM parameters to your campaigns.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term UTM parameters, they’re extra texts that you add at the end of the URL you send to people from your campaigns.
So, for example, if the page you want to send someone is attributer.io/integrations/salesforce, then your final URL (with UTM parameters) may look something like this:
attributer.io/integrations/salesforce?utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=brand-campaign
Even though you can design the UTM parameters however you want, there are proven methods and practices for Google Ads, like:
- UTM Medium = Paid search
- UTM Source = Google
- UTM Campaign = The name of your Google Ads campaign
- UTM Term = The name of the ad group the ad belongs to
- UTM Content = The specific ad
Putting UTM parameters on your URLs is relatively simple, and there are also free resources online that can help you build them.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
Secondly, you need to add several hidden fields to your lead capture forms (these are the forms used to collect data from site visitors). Below are the hidden fields you need to add:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
Lead Pages make adding hidden fields simple and easy. You need to drag and drop a ‘Hidden’ field type into the form. You can see further instructions here.
3. Attributer writes Google Ads data into the hidden fields
Once the hidden fields are added, Attributer will track the origins of your visitors. Attributer auto-fills the hidden fields with the values you put in your UTM parameters whenever a visitor completes a form on your site.
For example, if I was a marketer at Dropbox and a visitor arrived at my site from one of my brand campaigns in paid search, Attributer would fill out the hidden fields as follows:
- Channel = Paid search
- Channel Drilldown 1 = Google
- Channel Drildown 2 = Brand campaign
- Channel Drilldown 3 = Free account ad
Moreover, Attributer would also capture the visitor’s landing page (e.g., dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage) and the first landing page group (e.g., features).
4. Google Ads data is captured in Lead Pages
The last step is the Google Ads data alongside the lead’s entered information (like their name, company, email, phone, etc.) are captured whenever a visitor completes a form.
There are a few things you can do with this data, such as:
- Add it to all the new lead notification emails so you can instantly see where each lead came from
- Send it to your CRM so your sales team can see where each lead has originated from
- Use it to create reports that state which Google Ads campaigns are bringing in leads, customers, & revenue.
Why using Attributer is the best way to capture Google Ads data in Lead Pages
There are alternative ways to place UTM parameters to your Google Ads and capture data in Lead Pages, so why is Attributer the best option?
Here’s why:
1. Captures all traffic
Along with the fact that Attributer is an excellent tool for capturing Google Ads data in Lead Pages, it can also monitor all the other sources of leads (Organic Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, etc.)
This means that when you build reports to find out where your leads and customers are coming from, you’ll be able to determine the source of all your leads, not just the ones from your Google Ads campaigns.
This data is essential, especially when your SEO efforts are responsible for most of your leads and customers, not your Google Ads campaigns. You’d want to know so you can invest accordingly.
2. Remembers the data as visitors browse your site
For most UTM capturing tools and methods, it is common to require that the UTM parameters be present on the page where the form is completed. However, this becomes a problem when the page a visitor completes a form on isn’t the exact page they first landed on your site from your ad.
For instance, imagine someone clicks one of your Google Ads and goes to a landing page you created for this campaign. Once the visitor has decided that they’re getting your product or service, they click on the ‘Get A Quote’ button and are taken to a different page to complete your quote request form. This means that the page they complete a form on isn’t the exact page they initially landed on, so the UTM parameters are lost.
This doesn’t happen with Attributer because it stores the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user’s browser. This way, the UTM parameters will always be sent through, no matter what page the user completes a form on.
In the end, this means that regardless of the user’s navigation activity on your site before they complete a form, you’ll always be able to track them back to your Google Ads.
3. Provides cleaner data
One of the troubles in using other raw UTM capturing tools is that you end up with messy data that makes running accurate reports difficult.
For instance, imagine some of your Google Ads campaigns are tagged with UTM_Source= Google.com (capital G), others with UTM_Source= google (lowercase, no domain), and others with UTM_Source= adwords.
Using these raw UTM parameters to see how many leads your Google Ads campaigns have made, you’ll receive three different sources you need to stitch manually together.
You don’t have to put up with this with Attributer because it considers the possibility of capitalization and other inconsistencies and ultimately appoints leads to the correct channel regardless.
4. Captures landing page data as well
Have you ever questioned how many leads and customers your blog and other in-depth content pieces you’ve made are attracting?
Attributer can help with this. It captures not only channel data (such as the fact they came from your Google Ads campaigns) but also the landing page (i.e., attributer.io/blog/capture-utm-parameters) and the landing page category (i.e., /blog).
With this data, you can see how specific sections on your site are performing (e.g., your blog) regarding leads, customers and revenue generation.
And since Attributer captures both the landing page and landing page group, you can view how your blog is doing as a whole section and zero in on individual blog posts. This way, you know which ones are driving the most leads, customers and revenue.
Wrap up
If you’ve been looking for a way to track the number of leads and customers you get from your Google Ads, then Attributer is an excellent solution.
It will capture the UTM parameters behind your Google Ad campaigns, which lets you build reports that display the campaigns each of your leads and customers has come from.
Moreover, Attributer also provides data on leads that arrive from other channels so that you can determine the source of ALL your leads (not just those from Google Ads). With this, you can ultimately know where you need to invest in order to optimize your business.
What’s best is it’s free to get started! What are you waiting for? Start your free trial today!
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About the Author
Aaron Beashel is the founder of Attributer and has over 15 years of experience in marketing & analytics. He is a recognized expert in the subject and has written articles for leading websites such as Hubspot, Zapier, Search Engine Journal, Buffer, Unbounce & more. Learn more about Aaron here.