Learn how to capture Google Ads data in Formsite
Acquire information on how to capture Google Ads data in Formsite so you’re informed on which campaigns are generating your leads, customers and revenue.
Do you want to know which of your Google Ads campaigns are actually producing customers and revenue but have no way to do so?
Think of it if you can see where exactly each lead has come from, right down to the campaign and ad they clicked. If this is doable, you’d know the campaigns and ads are generating customers and revenue and be more informed on the correct ones to invest in.
In this entry, we’ll teach you how to use Attributer to capture Google Ads data in Formsite with every lead you receive. In the end, you’ll also learn how to use it to track all your Google Ads campaigns’ performance.
Why it's important to track customers and revenue from Google Ads
Pretend you own a business that sells and installs pool equipment. You run ads on Google that showcase your products in order to promote your business. These products include Pool Pumps and Pool Cleaners.
If you were using a tool like Google Analytics to quantify visitors and form completion, you’d probably get something like this:
| Spend | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Visitors | 200 | 100 |
| Goal Completions | 20 | 10 |
If the only data you have access to is on visitors and leads from spend, it would appear that your Pool Pumps campaign has surpassed your Pool Cleaner campaign, leading you to direct more of your budget to the former.
On the other hand, what if you could see the results all the way 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 |
When you can observe campaign effectiveness all the way through to customers and revenue, you have a better grasp of the whole and accurate story.
In this situation, the Pool Cleaners Campaign is performing better because:
- You received more customers from the Pool Cleaners Campaign (5) than the Pool Pumps Campaign (2)
- Your lead-to-customer conversion rate is five times higher for the Pool Cleaners Campaign (50% 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 cost of acquiring a customer is lower through the Pool Cleaners Campaign: $400 vs. $1,000
- Your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is three times higher in the Pool Cleaners Campaign
As displayed in the analysis above, you get the whole picture and a much better understanding of what’s working and what isn’t when you can capture the source of every lead and track it all the way to customers and revenue.
4 simple steps to capture Google Ads data in Formsite
Attributer makes it easy to capture Google Ads data in Formsite. Here's how it works:
1. Add UTM variables to your ads
Before capturing Google Ads data in Formsite, you must first add UTM parameters to your campaigns.
If the term UTM parameters are new to you, don’t worry, they’re simply extra bits of text that you add at the end of the URL that 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 like this:
attributer.io/integrations/salesforce?utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=brand-campaign
Even though you can structure the UTM parameters however you want, the general best practice for Google Ads is something like this:
- 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
Tagging your URLs with UTM parameters is relatively easy, and there are free tools on the web that can help you build them.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
The thing to do next is to add a number of hidden fields to your lead capture forms. These forms are the ones you use to collect data from your site visitors. The following are the hidden fields you need to add to your forms:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
Formsite makes it super simple to add hidden fields, you simply have to drag and drop a ‘Hidden’ field type into the form. You can check further instructions here.
3. Attributer writes Google Ads data into the hidden fields
Once the hidden fields are up and running, Attributer will scan the origins of your visitors. Whenever they complete a form on your site, Attributer populates the hidden fields with the values you put in your UTM parameters.
For instance, if I was a marketer at Dropbox and an individual visited my site from one of my brand campaigns in paid search, Attributer would populate the hidden fields as follows:
- Channel = Paid search
- Channel Drilldown 1 = Google
- Channel Drildown 2 = Brand campaign
- Channel Drilldown 3 = Free account ad
More than the values from the UTM parameters, 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 Formsite
Last but not least, every time a visitor submits the form, the Google Ads data is captured along with the data the lead entered in the form, such as their name, email, company, phone, etc.
With this information, you can then do a variety of different essential things, like:
- Add it to each new lead notification email so you can know instantly where each lead came from
- Send it to your CRM (including Salesforce, Pipedrive, Keap & more) so your sales team can also see where each lead has come from
- Use it to run reports showing you which Google Ads campaigns are generating leads, customers, and revenue.
Why using Attributer is the best way to capture Google Ads data in Formsite
What makes Attributer the best option for placing UTM parameters behind your Google ads and capturing data in Formsite when there are other ways to do this?
Here are the reasons:
1. Captures all traffic
In addition to Attributer being a tested system for capturing Google Ads data in Formsite, it can also monitor all the other sources of leads (Paid Social, Organic Social, Organic Search, etc.)
This means that when you build reports to see where your leads and customers are coming from, you can distinguish the source of ALL your leads, not just those from your Google Ads campaigns.
This information can be very helpful. Why? Because if your SEO efforts are generating most of your leads and customers instead of your Google Ads campaigns, you’d want to know so you can invest in the correct channel and prevent wasting your resources.
2. Attributer remembers the data as visitors browse your site
It is a common requirement for most UTM capturing tools and methods to have the UTM parameter on the page where the form is completed. This becomes an issue when the page the user completes a form on isn’t the exact page they initially landed on from your ad.
For example, let’s pretend someone clicks one of your Google Ads and is taken to a landing page for this campaign. After some reading and deliberation, the user decides they want your product or service, so they click the ‘Get A Quote’ button, leading them to a different page to fill up your quote request form. This means that the UTM parameters are lost because the page they submit a form isn’t the same as the one they first landed on.
You don’t have to deal with this with Attributer because it stores the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user’s browser, meaning regardless of the page the user completes the form on, the UTM parameters will always be passed on.
All in all, this means that no matter the user’s navigation activity on your site before submitting a form, you’ll always be able to track them back to your Google Ads.
3. Provides cleaner data
One of the troubles with using other tools that capture raw UTM parameters is that your data ends up messy, which makes it arduous to build accurate reports.
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.
If you capture these raw UTM parameters in Formsite and use them to see how many leads your Google Ads campaigns have brought you, you’ll get three different sources that you’d have to stitch together manually.
This won’t happen with Attributer because it recognizes the possibility of capitalization and other inconsistencies. Ultimately, your leads would be ascribed to the correct channel regardless.
4. Attributer captures landing page data too
Have you ever been curious about how many leads and customers you get from your blog and other in-depth content pieces you did?
Attributer can help with this because aside from capturing channel data, it also captures the landing page (i.e., attributer.io/blog/capture-utm-parameters) and the landing page category (i.e., /blog).
With this information, you will be able to see the performance of specific sections on your site (e.g., your blog) in terms of producing leads, revenue, and customers.
Since both the landing page and landing page group data are also captured, you view your blog’s performance in two ways: your blog section as a whole or zoom into each blog post.
Wrap up
Attributer is an excellent solution if you need to track your Google Ads’ performance regarding lead and customer generation.
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.
In addition, Attributer would also provide data on leads that come from other channels. This way, you can track the source of ALL your leads, not just your Google Ads. Ultimately, it can help you make an informed decision on where to best invest to optimize your business.
Have we mentioned that it costs nothing to get started? Begin your free trial today and experience what Attributer can do for you.
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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.