How to capture Google Ads data in Wufoo Forms
When you know how to capture Google Ads data in Wufoo, you'll have an idea of which campaigns are bringing in your leads, customers and revenue.
Do you have no way of knowing which of your Google Ad campaigns are effectively generating customers and revenue?
Just think of the possibilities if you could see precisely where each lead originated from, up to the campaign ad they clicked. If this is possible, you'd know the campaigns and ads that are, in fact, generating customers and revenue, which in turn lets you invest more in the correct ads and campaigns.
In this entry, we'll walk you through how you can utilize Attributer to capture Google Ads data in Wufoo with every lead that comes through and then how you can use it to monitor each of your Google Ad campaign's performance.
Why it's important to track customers and revenue from Google Ads
Let's pretend you own a business that sells and installs pool equipment. To spread the word about your business, you run ads on Google focusing on various products you offer, like pool pumps and pool cleaners.
If you were simply using a tool like Google Analytics to measure visitors and form completions, the data would probably look something like this:
| Spend | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Visitors | 200 | 100 |
| Goal Completions | 20 | 10 |
If the only information you had access to is visitors and leads from spend, then it would appear that your pool pumps campaign is far more successful than your pool cleaners campaign, which couldn't be further in reality. But because this is your only information, you'd direct more of your budget to the pool pumps campaigns.
On the other hand, imagine if you could view the results down to the number of customers and amount of revenue generated.
Your data would look something like this:
| Spend | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Visitors | 200 | 100 |
| Leads | 20 | 10 |
| Customers | 2 | 5 |
| Revenue | $8,000 | $25,000 |
When all of the information, including customers and revenue, is available, you can track the real story behind your campaign efficiency.
In this scenario, the pool cleaners performed better because:
- More customers came from the Pool Cleaners Campaign (5) than the Pool Pumps Campaign (2). The conversion rate of lead-to-customer 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 obtaining a customer is lower when it comes to the Pool Cleaners Campaign: $400 vs. $1,000.
Your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is three times higher in the Pool Cleaners Campaign.
As shown in the above data, when you have the information on the source of every lead and track it all the way down to the customers and revenue, you get a better picture and grasp of what's effective and what isn't.
4 simple steps to capture Google Ads data in Wufoo Forms
Attributer makes it easy to capture Google Ads data in Wufoo forms. Here's how it works:
1. Add UTM parameters to your ads
To start capturing Google Ads data in Wufoo, you should add parameters to your campaigns.
If you're unfamiliar with UTM parameters, they're essentially extra bits of text that get added at the end of the URL you send to people from your campaigns.
So 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, the general time-tested practices for Google Ads are the following:
- 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 in your URLs is simple and easy. There are also free tools available online which can help you build them.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
Next is to add several hidden fields to your lead capture forms (i.e., the forms used to collect data from your site visitors). The hidden fields your need to add are the following:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
Wufoo makes adding hidden fields super easy. You must simply drag and drop a 'Hidden' field type into the form. You can read further instructions here.
3. Attributer writes Google Ads data into the hidden fields
Assuming the hidden fields have been set up, what happens next is that Attributer will scan and record where your visitors are coming from. Whenever visitors complete a form on your site, Attributer auto-populates the hidden fields with the values specified in your UTM parameters.
For instance, let's pretend I was a marketer at Dropbox, and a person arrived on my site from one of my brand campaigns in paid search, Attributer would populate the hidden fields like so:
- Channel = Paid search
- Channel Drilldown 1 = Google
- Channel Drildown 2 = Brand campaign
- Channel Drilldown 3 = Free account ad
Aside from the UTM parameters values, it would also capture the visitor's first 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 Wufoo Forms
In the end, every time a visitor completes the form, the Google Ads data is captured along with the information the lead provided in the form (their name, email, company, phone, etc.)
You can do several things with this data available to you, including:
- Add it to each new lead notification email so you can instantly see where each lead came from.
- Send it to your CRM (including Salesforce, Hubspot, Dynamics & more) so your sales team can view where each lead has come from
- Use it to build reports that display which Google Ads campaigns are bringing you leads, customers and revenue.
Why using Attributer is the best way to capture Google Ads data in Wufoo Forms
Sure, there are many other methods for placing UTM parameters behind your Google Ads and capturing data in Wufoo, but why is Attributer the best option?
Here's why:
1. Captures all traffic
Apart from being an excellent tool for capturing Google Ads data in Wufoo, it can also track all the other sources of leads (Organic Social, Paid Social, Organic Search, etc.)
With this available, you can identify the source of ALL your leads through the reports you'll make, not just those from your Google Ads campaigns.
This data is essential for your business because you would want to know if your SEO efforts are the ones that are actually generating most of your leads and customers than your Google Ads campaigns. This way, you can invest accordingly.
2. Remembers the data as visitors browse your site
It's common for most UTM capturing tools and methods to require the UTM parameter to be present on the page where the form is completed. This could be a problem because the page a visitor completes your form on may not be the exact page as the one they landed on from your ad.
For instance, imagine someone clicks on your Google Ad and is led to the landing page for this campaign. After some reading and evaluating, they decide that they want your product or service, so they click the 'Get A Quote' button which prompts them to be taken to a different page to complete your quote request form. This means that the page they submit a form on isn't the exact page they initially landed on, so the UTM parameters are lost.
It's different with Attributer as it keeps the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user's browser. This means that the UTM parameters will always be sent through regardless of what page the user submits a form on.
In the end, regardless of your visitor's navigation activity on your site before completing your form, you'll always be able to track them back to your Google Ads.
3. Provides cleaner data
One of the problems with using other tools that capture raw UTM parameters is that you can end up with messy data that makes it difficult to run accurate reports.
As an example, 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 were to capture these raw UTM parameters in Wufoo Forms and try to use them to see how many leads your Google Ads campaigns have brought you, you'll get three different sources that you would have to manually stitch together.
With Attributer, you don't have to deal with this because it takes the possibility of capitalization and other inconsistencies into account, and would ascribe leads to the correct channel regardless.
4. Captures landing page data as well
Have you ever wondered how many leads and customers your blog has attracted? How about those in-depth content pieces your spent hours working on?
Attributer can help with this as it not only captures data (such as the fact they came from your Google Ads campaigns) but also captures the landing page (i.e., attributer.io/blog/capture-utm-parameters) and the landing page category (i.e., /blog).
This way, you will see how well specific sections of your site are performing (e.g., your blog) in generating leads, customers, and revenue.
Moreover, since Attributer captures both the landing page and landing page group, you can see how your blog is performing as a whole and which individual blog posts are bringing in the most leads, revenue, and customers.
Wrap up
If you have to track the number of leads and costumes you're getting from your Google Ads, then Attributer is an excellent tool.
It will capture the UTM parameters behind your Google Ad campaigns, allowing you to create reports that display the campaigns each of your leads and customers has come from.
What's more, it will also provide information on leads that come from other channels. This way, you can track the source of ALL your leads (not just the ones from Google Ads). It is ultimately helping you decide where to invest best for the optimal growth of your business.
Best of all, you can try it free of charge. What are your waiting for? Start your free trial today and see if it fits your needs.
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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.