Best way to capture Google Ads data in WordPress forms
Learn how to capture Google Ads data in WordPress forms so you can track which campaigns, ad groups, keywords, etc are generating your leads
Do you wish you could track how many leads & customers you get from your Google Ads?
Tools like Google Analytics are great for tracking how many website visitors you get, but they fall short when it comes to tracking the important things like how many leads & customers you're getting.
But by capturing Google Ads data (like the campaign, ad group, keyword, etc they came from) with each submission of your forms, you can start to track exactly how many leads & customers your Google Ads are driving.
In this article, we'll show you how to use a tool called Attributer to capture Google Ads data with each submission of your WordPress forms, so you can track which campaigns, ad groups, keywords, etc. are generating your leads.
4 simple steps to capture Google Ads data in WordPress forms
Attributer makes it easy to capture Google Ads data in WordPress forms. Here’s how it works:
1. Add UTM parameters to your ads
The first step towards tracking leads & customers from your Google Ads is adding UTM parameters to your ads.
If you've never heard of them before, they are basically little bits of text that you append to the end of the URL you are sending people to from your Google Ads. They are a standard thing on the web that let analytics tools (like Attributer) know where a particular visitor has come from.
For instance, if the page you want to send people to is attributer.io/integrations/wordpress, the URL (with UTM parameters) you would put behind your ads would look a bit like this:
https://attributer.io/integrations/wordpress?utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=brand-campaign
You can put whatever bits of information you want in the UTM's, but the general best practice for Google Ads is something 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 or keyword
Tagging your URLs with UTM parameters is easy and we've even created a video showing you the easiest way to do it.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
The second step is to add a series of hidden fields to your forms.
The hidden fields you need to add are:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
The various WordPress form building plugins (including Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, WPForms, etc) all make it very easy to add hidden fields. You simply drag and drop a 'Hidden' field into your form. Full step-by-step instructions for each form plugin can be seen here.
3. Attributer writes Google Ads data into the hidden fields
Now that you have the hidden fields set up, the Attributer code that you place on your website will start to track where your website visitors are coming from (I..e Your Google Ads).
And when a visitor completes one of the forms on your WordPress site, Attributer will write the information about where they came from (like the campaign, ad name, etc they clicked) into the hidden fields you added in step 2.
4. Google Ads data is captured in WordPress forms
Finally, when the visitor submits the form on your site, that attribution data that Attributer wrote into the hidden fields is captured by your chosen form tool alongside the lead's name, email, etc.
And once the data is captured in your form tool, you can do a whole bunch of things with it, including:
- See it in your WordPress Dashboard - Form plugins like Gravity Forms and WPForms allow you to see the entries (along with the Google Ads data) in your WordPress admin area.
- Add it to each new lead notification email - You can include the attribution information in the new lead notification emails your form tool sends, so you’ll be able to instantly see where each lead came from right from your inbox.
- Send it to your CRM - If you're sending leads to a CRM (like Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, etc), you can include this information so your sales team can see where each lead has come from
- Use it to run reports - If you send the attribution data to your CRM (or some sort of other reporting tool) then you can run reports that show you which Google Ads campaigns are actually generating you leads, customers & revenue.
Why using Attributer is the best way to capture Google Ads data in WordPress forms
There are other methods for tracking your Google Ads in your WordPress forms, so why choose Attributer?
Here’s why:
1. Captures all traffic
On top of capturing Google Ads data with each form submission, Attributer will also capture information on leads that come from other channels as well.
This includes leads that come to your site from Organic Search, Organic Social, Paid Social & more.
This means that you can see where ALL your leads & customers are coming from, not just those from your Google Ads campaigns.
2. Remembers the data as visitors browse your site
Other methods for capturing Google Ads data require the form to be submitted on the same page the visitor lands on.
To illustrate why this is a problem, imagine someone clicks on your Google Ads and lands homepage. Then they click the 'Contact Us' button and complete the form on your Contact Us page.
Because the form is completed on a different page from where the visitor originally landed, no information about where that lead came from would be passed through.
Attributer solves this problem though. It stores the information on where they came from in a cookie in the user's browser, so regardless of which page a visitor submits a form on, the information on where they came from (I.e. Google Ads) is passed through.
3. Captures landing page data as well
As well as passing through information on where a lead came from (I.e. Google Ads), Attributer also captures the initial landing page (e.g., olmo.com/blog/best-music-purchasing-software) and the landing page group (e.g., /blog).
This allows you to see how many leads you are getting from certain types of content on your site (like your blog for instance) as well as drill down into which blog posts are generating the most leads.
3 example reports you can run when you capture Google Ads data in your WordPress forms
If you capture Google Ads data in your WordPress forms and send it to a CRM (or some other reporting tool), then you'll be able to create all sorts of reports that show you how many leads & customers you're getting from your Google Ads, which campaigns are performing best, etc.
Over my 15 years of running marketing & analytics teams, I've run hundreds of reports to understand where our leads are coming from and what we needed to do to generate more.
Below I share some of the reports I've found most insightful over the years so you have a good starting point for your analysis:
1. Leads by Channel
If you're using Attributer, it will capture the source of ALL your leads (not just those from Google Ads).
Because of this, you are able to run reports like the one above which shows the number of leads you get each month broken down by the channel they came from.
This can help you understand how Google Ads performs for your business relative to other channels, and helps you see whether it's actually where the biggest opportunities to for growth are.
2. Opportunities by Google Ads campaign
If you're running Google Ads to promote your business, there's a good chance you're running multiple campaigns and want to understand which ones are performing best.
This report can help. It shows how many sales opportunities have been generated each month from your Google Ads, broken down by the Google Ads campaign they came from.
It gives you a better understanding of which campaigns are actually generating sales opportunities for your business and which ones are just generating website visitors that don't convert into leads.
3. Customers by Keyword
If you put the keyword in the UTM parameters behind your Google Ads (which is easy to do using tracking templates), then you can capture the exact keywords your customers are using to find your business.
This can help you to understand which keywords are generating you the most customers, and you can then go and bid higher on those terms to help grow your business.
Wrap up
If you've been struggling to track how many leads you get from your Google Ads, then Attributer could be a great solution.
It will capture the UTM parameters you use behind your Google Ad campaigns each time someone submits a form on your website, and you can then send that information into your CRM or a spreadsheet and run reports to understand which campaigns are generating leads & customers.
Best of all, it's free to get started and only takes about 10 minutes to set up, so start your 14-day 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.