Track your Google Ads campaigns in Chargify in 4 simple steps
Learn how to capture Google Ads data and send it into Chargify so you can see campaigns are actually generating your customers & revenue.
Are you running Google Ads to attract new subscribers to your subscription product?
If so, do you know which campaigns are generating you customers and revenue, as opposed to just driving visitors that don't convert?
Imagine how good it would be if you could see where each customer came from, right down to the campaign and ad they clicked. If you could do this, you'd know which campaigns and ads are actually generating customers and revenue and you could invest more in them.
In this article, we’ll walk you through how to use Attributer to capture Google Ads data in Chargify, which will let you build reports that tell you exactly where your customers and revenue are coming from.
Why it's important to track customers and revenue from Google Ads
Say you operate a business that sells project management software. To promote your business, you run ads on Google showcasing different types of terms people are looking for, such as ‘Project management software’ and ‘Task management software.’
If you were using a tool like Google Analytics 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 the only information you have is on visitors and leads from spend, then the results would show that the Task Management was surpassing the Project Management campaign, which would urge you to put more of your budget into that.
But what if you could see the results all the way through to the number of customers and amount of revenue generated?
Then 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 have the means to monitor campaign performance down to customers and revenue, you get to grasp and understand the real and whole story.
In this situation, the Task Management Campaign is performing better because:
- More customers were generated from the Project Management Campaign (12) than the Task Management Campaign (2)
- The free trial-to-customer conversion rate is far higher for the Project Management Campaign (60%) than the Task Management Campaign (14%)
- The average customer value in the Project Management Campaign is $2,083 per customer vs. $1,142 per customer from the Task Management Campaign.
- The cost of getting a customer is lower in the Project Management Campaign: $416 vs. $714
As shown in the analysis above, you better understand what’s working and what isn’t when you can capture the source of every free trial and customer.
4 simple steps to capture Google Ads data in Chargify
Attributer makes it easy to capture Google Ads data in Chargify. Here's how it works:
1. Add UTM parameters to your ads
The first thing to do to start capturing Google Ads data in Chargify is to add UTM parameters to your campaigns.
If UTM parameters are new to you, they’re extra text that you add to the URL you send to people from your campaigns.
Hence, 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
You can use whatever UTM parameters you want, but 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
Putting UTM parameters to your URLs is simple. Plus, there are free tools online that can help you build them.
2. Attributer stores the Google Ads data in a cookie
When the Attributer script is up and running on your site, Attributer will monitor your visitors for the presence of the UTM parameters you’ve added to your campaigns.
If it finds the correct UTM parameters, it will appoint this particular visitor to ‘Paid Search’ and then store this information in a cookie in the user’s browser so that it’s always ready for when the user completes a form (i.e., starts a free trial of your SaaS product, or purchases your subscription offering).
3. Google Ads data is sent to Chargebee
Once a user fills out a form on your site, the Google Ads data is passed into Chargify along with all the other data entered by the user, such as their name, email address, company, etc.
This data can be passed to Chargify in two ways:
- Hidden fields in forms - You can add a series of hidden fields to your forms, and Attributer can automatically put the necessary data into them. Once the form is submitted, this data is sent to Chargify along with all the other information entered in the form.
- Retrieved from the cookie - By adding a simple line of javascript to your registration process, the UTM parameters are captured from the Attributer cookie and then sent into Chargify. This is beneficial if you allow the users to sign up for your service or product via their Google or Facebook account, which removes the need for a user to complete a form.
4. Run reports in Chargify
When the Google Ads data is inside Chargify, you can use them to run reports. This data includes the campaign the user came from, ad group, keyword, etc.
Some examples of the reports you can build are the following:
- New Customers added each month by Campaign
- New Revenue added each month by Ad Group
- Average Revenue Per Customer by Ad
- Customer Lifetime Value by Channel or Campaign
- Customer Churn Rate by Channel or Campaign
- And many more!
You can create these reports in Chargify or sync your Chargify data with other analytics tools like Chartmogul and Profitwell to run even more detailed reports.
Why using Attributer is the best way to capture Google Ads data in Chargify
There are limited options when it comes to sending Google Ads data into Chargify, but here's why Attributer is your best bet:
1. Captures all traffic
Apart from being a proven system for sending Google Ads data into Chargify, Attributer also tracks all the other sources of signups (Organic Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, etc.)
With this, you can create reports that shows where ALL your sign-ups and customers are coming from, not just the ones from your Google Ads campaigns.
This feature can be beneficial in a number of ways. Imagine if it turned out your SEO efforts were producing more most sign-ups and customers than your Google Ads. You’d want to know this so you can invest accordingly right? Attributer will tell you.
2. Attributer remembers the data as visitors browse your site
Most methods and systems for sending Google Ads data into Chargify require the UTM parameters to be present on the page where the form is submitted. This poses a problem when the visitor completes a form (like your sign up form)on a different page than the one they initially landed on from your ad.
For example, say someone clicks one of your Google Ads and is taken to a landing page for that campaign. Once they’ve decided they like what they see, they click the ‘Start Free Trial’ button and are taken to a different page to fill out a form and sign-up for your product or service. This means that the page they complete a form on isn’t the exact page they first landed on, so the UTM parameters are lost.
This won’t matter with Attributer though, because it stores the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user’s browser. This way, the UTM parameters will always be passed through, no matter what page the user completes a form on.
3. Provides cleaner data
Ending up with messy data is a common issue when using other raw UTM capturing tools, and this dilemma can make creating accurate reports difficult.
For example, pretend 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 send these raw UTM parameters into Chargify and use them to determine the number of sign-ups and customers your Google Ads campaigns have made, you’ll see these as three different sources in your reports and you’d need to stitch them together.
You don’t have to go through this with Attributer though, because it considers the possibility of capitalization and other inconsistencies and would ultimately appoint the leads to the Paid Search channel regardless.
4. Attributer captures landing page data
Have you ever tried to understand how many leads you get from your blog or other content marketing efforts?
Content marketing is notoriuously hard to measure, but fortunately Attributer can assist with this as well.
On top of capturing channel data, it also captures the lead's landing page (i.e., attributer.io/blog/capture-utm-parameters), and landing page category (i.e., /blog).
This means you can monitor the performance of certain sections on your site (e.g., your blog).
Moreover, since it captures both the landing page and landing page group, you can see your blog’s performance in two ways: as a whole section and as individual blog posts.
Wrap up
If you need a way to monitor the sign-ups and customers you get from your Google Ads, Attributer is an excellent solution.
It will capture the UTM parameters behind your Google Ad campaigns and pass them into Chargify, enabling you to run reports that show which campaigns produce sign-ups and customers for your company.
Aside from that, it will also provide information on leads that come from other channels so that you can track the source of ALL your leads (not just the ones from Google Ads). This will ultimately help you make informed decisions on where to invest to grow your business.
The best part is it’s free 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.