The easiest way to track Google Ad campaigns in Sugar CRM
Know which of your Google Ads campaigns attract leads, opportunities and customers by tracking Google Ad campaigns in Sugar CRM.
Having information on the Google Ad campaigns that generate most of your leads, customers and opportunities will let you reach informed decisions on which campaigns are worth keeping and which ones to drop.
When you send Google Ads data in Sugar CRM, you’ll be able to view the campaigns your leads, opportunities and customers came from. You can also run reports in Sugar CRM that displays which of your campaigns are producing a positive ROI and which ones don't.
In this article, we’ll help you with how to use Attributer in sending Google Ads data into Sugar CRM alongside every lead and use it to monitor the performance of your Google Ads campaigns.
What is Attributer?
Attributer is basically a piece of code that you need to incorporate on your website. Every time a visitor arrives on your website, it looks at some technical things to identify where the visitor came from.
Attributer then groups each visitor according to a series of channels (like paid search, paid social, organic search, etc.) and stores it as a cookie in the visitor’s browser. And whenever that visitor completes a lead form on your website, Attributer sends the channel information into Sugar CRM together with the lead’s information provided in the form.
Every time a new lead arrives in Sugar CRM from one of your Google Ad campaigns, it may look a bit like this:
As depicted in the photo above, Attributer has sent in the data that the visitor came from ‘paid search’ along with the campaign name, ad group name, and the visitor’s landing page.
4 simple steps to monitor your Google Ads campaigns in Sugar CRM
Attributer makes it easy to track Google Ads campaigns in Sugar CRM. Here’s how it works:
1. Add UTM parameters to your Google Ads campaigns
To start, UTM parameters should be added to each ad so you can track your Google Ad campaigns in Sugar CRM.
If you're unsure what UTM parameters are, they're simply extra bits of texts that get added at the end of the URLs you send to people from your campaigns.
Therefore if the page you're sending is attributer.io/integrations/salesforce, then your final URL may look like this:
https:// attributer.io/integrations/salesforce?utm_medium=paidsearch&
You can structure the UTM parameters to your liking, but the following are the time-tested practices for Google Ads:
- 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
Adding UTM parameters to your URLs is pretty straightforward, and plenty of free tools are available online to assist you in building them.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
Next is adding several hidden fields to your lead capture forms. These fields aren’t visible to the end-user but still work hard behind the scenes, which means that tools like Attributer can work with them without visitors ever knowing.
The hidden fields you need to add to your forms are the following:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
Most form-building tools like Gravity Forms and Jotform make adding hidden fields simple. You must drag and drop a ‘hidden’ field type into your form. Further instructions on how to do this for different form builders are found here.
3. Attributer writes Google Ads data into the hidden fields
Since the hidden fields have been put up, Attributer now has space to populate with values from your UTM parameters. Attributer does this every time a visitor completes a form on your website.
For example, if I was a marketer for Dropbox, and an individual arrived on my website 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
Apart from the UTM parameters, Attributer also gathers 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 sent to Sugar CRM
Lastly, whenever a visitor completes a form on your website, all of the Google Ads data, landing page data, and the lead’s name, email, phone, etc., are passed into Sugar CRM.
When the data reaches Sugar CRM, you can create a report on it using its native reporting tools, or if you have a BI tool like Tableau or Looker, you can use it to run more advanced reports there.
Example reports you can create with Google Ads data in Sugar CRM
You’ll be able to create reports similar to the ones below if you follow the 4 steps mentioned above and use Attributer to capture Google Ads data in Sugar CRM.
1. Leads by campaign, ad group or ad
This assessment exhibits the number of monthly generated leads from your Google Ads, grouped by the Google Ads campaign they originally came from.
When reviewed after some time, such as the one above, you can see the breakdown of leads by campaign each month and how it changes over time. Ultimately, you can also observe the impact of the optimizations and changes you applied to your Google Ads regarding the generated leads.
2. Customers by campaign, ad group or ad
This chart displays the newly generated customers each month from your Google Ads, categorized by the channel they arrived at the website.
Comparing this graph to the leads chart may present some interesting facts, such as seeing that there are campaigns that do bring in leads but never actually get converted into customers. When this happens, it can signify that these campaigns aren’t worth investing in anymore.
3. Revenue by campaign, ad group or ad
This file demonstrates the generated revenue each month sorted by the channel the customer came from.
This report can help in computing the overall ROI of your marketing efforts. For instance, in the chart above, we can see that $236,156 in new revenue was generated from paid social ads in March. If the customer spent less than this amount on the ads, it’s a positive ROI and worth continuing.
Why using Attributer is better than capturing raw UTM parameters
There may be other ways to capture UTM parameters and use them to track your Google Ads in Sugar CRM, but there are benefits to using Attributer that aren’t available in the other systems.
They are:
1. Captures all traffic
Attributer is an awesome system for capturing UTM parameters and passing them into Sugar CRM so you can monitor your Google Ads campaigns.
It also sends data on visitors who arrive at your site through other channels like referral, direct, organic social, organic search, etc.
With this data available, you can run reports in your CRM to check where your leads customers came from and identify the source of ALL your leads, not just your Google Ads campaigns.
This data can be very beneficial, especially if your SEO efforts generate most of your leads and customers instead of your Google Ads campaigns, which will let you make informed decisions about where to invest wisely.
2. Remembers the data
Most systems for capturing UTM parameters expect the UTM parameters to be present on the page where your form is completed. This requirement causes a problem when a visitor completes your form on a different page from the one they first landed on.
For example, someone clicks on one of your Google Ads and is then led to a landing page you created for that campaign. Once they’ve decided that they want your product or service, they will click on the ‘Get A Quote’ button and are taken to a different page to complete your request form. This means that the page they complete a form on isn’t the exact page they initially landed on, losing the UTM parameters.
Attributer works differently as it stores the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user’s browser. So no matter the page where the user completes a form and regardless of the user’s navigation activities before passing your form, the UTM will always be passed through, and you’ll always track them back to your Google Ads.
3. Provides cleaner data
One of the common issues experienced when using other raw UTM capturing tools is that your data can get messed up as time goes by, which makes it challenging to run accurate reports.
For example, some of your Google Ads campaigns are tagged with UTM_Source= Google.com (capital T), others with UTM_Source= google (lowercase, no domain), and others with UTM_Source= adwords.
If you pass this raw UTM data into Sugar CRM and use it to find out how many leads your Google Ads campaigns have brought you, you’ll receive three different sources that you’d need to stitch together manually.
It’s a different story with Attributer. You won’t have to deal with this because it recognizes the possibility of capitalization and other inconsistencies, which could ultimately ascribe leads to the correct channel.
4. Records landing page data
Do you want to know how many leads and customers your blog has generated? How about those in-depth content pieces you’ve spent hours working on?
Attributer can provide you with essential data to arrive at the answers to these questions. The software captures channel data, landing page (i.e., attributer.io/blog/capture-utm-parameters), and the landing page category (i.e., /blog).
With this data available, you’ll be able to see the performance of specific sections on your website in terms of leads, customers, and revenue generation.
And since Attributer secures both the landing page and landing page group, you can look at your blog’s performance in its entirety and zero in on each blog entry.
Wrap up
If you’ve been meaning to track the success of your Google Ads in Sugar CRM, then Attributer can provide you with an excellent solution.
Attributer secures the UTM parameters behind your Google Ad campaigns and sends them to Sugar CRM, where you can build reports that display the campaigns where your leads and customers have come from.
Aside from these, Attributer also provides data on leads that come from other channels so that you can monitor the source of ALL your leads, not just those from your Google Ads. Ultimately, it’ll help you reach informed decisions on where you need to invest in optimizing your business.
On top of all these, Attributer is free to get started. Begin your 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.