How to capture the GCLID in Duda forms
Learn how to capture the GCLID every time someone submits a form on your Duda website, so you can send it to your CRM and other tools (and ultimately pass it back to Google Ads).
Attributer makes it easy to capture the GCLID in your Duda forms. Simply add a hidden field to your forms and Attributer will automatically fill it with the GCLID whenever a visitor submits a form. And as a bonus, it also captures UTM parameters and other attribution data along the way.
Struggling to figure out which of your Google Ads campaigns are actually generating leads and customers? You're not alone.
Tools like Google Analytics do a solid job of showing how many visitors your ads send to your site, but they can't tell you which of those visitors went on to become actual leads or paying customers.
The good news? There's a solution.
In this article, I'll show you how to use Attributer to capture the GCLID each time someone fills out a form on your Duda website, and then pass that data into your CRM and back to Google Ads as an offline conversion.
3 steps for capturing the GCLID in Duda forms
Capturing the GCLID is straightforward when you use Attributer with your Duda forms. Here's how to get it up and running:
1. Install Attributer on your website and add a hidden field
When you sign up for a 14-day free trial of Attributer, you'll get a small snippet of code to add to your website.
Installing it on your Duda site is quick and easy. You can add the code through the Site Wide HTML section in your Duda dashboard, which means it will automatically apply across your entire site.
Once that's in place, you'll need to add a hidden field to your Duda forms. Just add a new hidden field and label it 'GCLID'. This gives Attributer somewhere to write the GCLID so it gets captured with every form submission.
If you need help with any of this, you can find full step-by-step instructions here.
2. Attributer writes the GCLID into the hidden field
When a visitor clicks one of your Google Ads and lands on your site, Attributer grabs the GCLID from the URL and stores it in their browser.
Then, when they complete a form on your Duda website, Attributer automatically fills the hidden field you created earlier with that saved GCLID.
3. GCLID is captured with each form submission
When the form is submitted, Duda captures the GCLID along with all the other details the lead provided (like their name, email, and so on). You can view it in the form submissions area of your Duda dashboard, and it will also show up in any lead notification emails that Duda sends.
From there, you can use Duda's built-in integrations or third-party tools like Zapier or Make to push the data into your CRM or any other tools you need it in.
How to send the GCLID back to Google Ads and mark it as an offline conversion
Before you can send the GCLID back to Google Ads, you'll need to set up a new conversion action.
To do this, log into your Google Ads account and click on Goals in the sidebar, then head to Conversions. From there, click the button to create a new conversion and choose Offline Conversion from the list of options.
Then, in the final screen when it asks you to add a data source, select the option to ‘Add data source later’.
Once your conversion action is ready in Google Ads, you need to figure out which stage of your sales process should trigger the GCLID being sent back to Google. This part is important to get right.
Many businesses hold off until a deal is fully closed before sending the conversion to Google Ads. That might seem like the logical approach, but it can actually work against you. Google's smart bidding strategies (like Maximise Conversions, Maximise Conversion Value, or Target CPA) generally need at least 50 conversions per month to perform well.
If you're not closing 50 deals a month, you'll see better results by tracking an earlier step in your sales process, like when a new deal is created in your CRM. That way, you're still feeding Google a meaningful signal (i.e. a lead that your sales team has qualified) while giving smart bidding enough data to optimize properly.
Once you've settled on your trigger point, go into Zapier and create a new Zap. Set the trigger to match the moment you picked. For example, if you want to send the offline conversion when a deal is created for a contact, use that as your trigger.
Next, select Google Ads as the Action and then select the ‘Send Offline Conversion’ as the event.
Finally, you just need to map the GCLID from your CRM (or wherever you are storing it) to the correct field in Zapier.
That’s it! You have now set up offline conversions in Google Ads. It’s a good idea to test it’s working before piling money into ads, and you can read more about how to do that here.
Why Attributer is the best way to capture the GCLID in Duda forms
There are other ways to capture the GCLID in Duda forms, so why choose Attributer over the alternatives?
Here's what makes it stand out:
1. Remembers the GCLID as visitors browse your site
Most other methods for capturing the GCLID only work if it's still present in the URL when the form is submitted.
That can be a real issue. Think about it: someone clicks your Google Ad and lands on your website, but they don't fill out a form straight away. Maybe they leave and come back a few days later, or maybe they browse through several pages on your site first. In those situations, the GCLID would no longer be in the URL, so it wouldn't get captured.
Attributer takes a different approach. It saves the GCLID in the visitor's browser, so it doesn't matter if they click through other pages on your site before submitting a form (or even leave and return days later). The GCLID still gets captured every time.
2. Captures UTM parameters as well
Attributer doesn't just capture the GCLID. It also captures any UTM parameters you've attached to your campaigns.
For example, imagine you're running ads for a construction company. When someone clicks one of your Google Ads and fills out a form, Attributer would pass the following data through with each submission (based on the UTM parameters behind your ads):
- Channel = Paid Search
- Channel Drilldown 1 = Google
- Channel Drilldown 2 = Residential Renovations Campaign
- Channel Drilldown 3 = Home Renovation Contractors
- Channel Drilldown 4 = Free Quote Ad
3. Captures information on users from organic channels
Attributer also captures details on leads who arrive at your site through organic channels like Organic Search, Organic Social, Referral, or Direct Traffic.
Sticking with the construction company example, if someone finds your business through a regular Google search, Attributer can pass through information like:
- Channel = Organic Search
- Channel Drilldown 1 = Google
- Channel Drilldown 2 = www.google.com (or whatever search engine domain they used)
- Channel Drilldown 3 = Home Renovation Contractors Near Me (or whatever keyword they searched for, if available)
How Attributer helped Harris Federal Law track which Google Ads are truly generating customers & revenue
Harris Federal Law Firm is a legal practice in Washington D.C that focuses on helping federal employees secure their benefits.
They were spending heavily on Google Ads and monitoring website traffic through Google Analytics, but there was a major blind spot. They had no way of telling which visitors were actually becoming leads and customers.
That's when they found Attributer.
Once it was set up, Attributer started passing attribution details (like campaign, ad group, ad, keyword, GCLID, and more) through with every form submission on their site. That data was then sent to their CRM alongside the lead's contact information (name, email, etc).
This gave the team the ability to build reports showing which campaigns were bringing in real, paying customers and which ones were just eating through budget without delivering results.
One of the biggest discoveries? Several of their display campaigns were generating lots of traffic but hardly any paying clients. With that insight in hand, they shifted their budget toward the search campaigns that were actually driving results.
The outcome? More customers while spending less on ads.
"With Attributer we can see which campaigns are actually generating customers & revenue, rather than just website visitors. We were able to see that some of our campaigns were driving lots of visitors but few of them converted into leads and customers. Now we’re able to reinvest that budget into other campaigns that we can see are generating revenue."
Nick Child - Director of Marketing, Harris Federal Law Firm
Wrap Up
Want to capture the GCLID in your Duda forms and send it to your CRM so you can fire offline conversions back to Google Ads? Attributer makes it easy.
It saves the GCLID as visitors browse your site (even if they leave and come back days later), and automatically passes it along with every form submission.
Best of all, it's free to get started and you can be up and running in under 10 minutes. Start your 14 day free trial today and start capturing the GCLID in Duda right away.
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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.