The best way to track Jotform submissions as conversions in Google Ads
Track your Jotform submissions the right way and capture up to 23% more conversions in Google Ads.
Use Attributer to capture the GCLID and the other Google Ads identifiers with each Jotform form submission, then send them back to Google Ads as a conversion. You can fire it the moment the form is submitted, or hold off until the lead becomes a paying customer in your CRM.
Google Ads is a great way to bring in new leads and customers for your business, but properly setting up conversion tracking is hard.
Tools like Google Tag Manager require you to write custom code to listen for form submissions and send a lead's information into the DataLayer, configure variables to capture it, then set up triggers and tags to send it off to Google Ads.
And basic approaches like tracking thank you page visits can result in up to 30% of your conversions being missed, thanks to things like ad blockers, privacy features built into modern browsers (Safari being the main culprit), and people clicking your ad on one device (like their phone) but converting later on a different device (like their laptop)
So what are you supposed to do?
In this article, we'll show you how to set up proper conversion tracking in Google Ads when someone submits a Jotform form on your website. We'll use an approach known as server-side tracking (or Enhanced Conversions as Google Ads brands it).
Why server side tracking in Google Ads matters
Common approaches to tracking conversions in Google Ads, such as tracking thank you page visits or firing events through Google Tag Manager, have some serious flaws. In fact, studies show that these methods can result in missing up to 30% of your actual conversions.
This happens for a number of reasons:
- Ad blockers: Ad blockers prevent the Google Tag from firing on your website, which means it can't actually track when a user submits a form on your site.
- Privacy features in browsers: Web browsers like Safari have built in technologies that block the Google Tag from tracking visitors for more than a day or two. So if a person clicks your ad and converts 5 days later, it won't be tracked.
- Using multiple devices: People might click your ad on their work computer but later convert on their home computer (or on their mobile device), which means their original ad click can't be tied to their later conversion.
This is why you need to be doing server side tracking. Instead of relying on things to happen in the browser (like the user visiting a thank you page) and hoping the Google Tag can track it, the conversion data is captured with each submission of your Jotform forms and sent directly to Google's servers, which means ad blockers and privacy settings can't get in the way.
This has been proven to work significantly better. Google's own data shows that server side tracking typically results in a 23% average increase in total recorded conversions and a 10% reduction in cost per conversion (because Google's algorithms have more accurate conversion data to learn from and can serve your ads better).
How to track Jotform submissions in Google Ads using server side conversion tracking
There are two ways to do this, and the choice between them comes down to timing. Do you want to send the conversion to Google Ads when someone initially submits a Jotform form on your site? Or would you prefer to send it later in your sales cycle (like when a lead actually becomes a customer)?
Option 1: When a lead submits the form
If you just want the conversion to be sent to Google Ads when someone submits your Jotform form, then the easiest path is using a tool like Converly. It's purpose built for sending server side conversions to Google Ads when someone submits a form on your site, and it works with Jotform out of the box.
You simply pick a trigger (like a new Jotform submission on your site) and pick the action you want to follow it (a conversion sent to Google Ads).
From there, Converly automatically detects when a form is submitted, pulls out the user's name, email, phone number, and so on, secures it with SHA-256, and ships it through to Google Ads. It also passes through a heap of other context about the user and how they got to your site (like the Google Click ID, UTM parameters, GBRAID, WBRAID, User Agent, and more), which dramatically increases the chances that the conversion can be matched back to the original ad click that caused it.
Ultimately, you get every benefit of server side tracking (a 23% average lift in total recorded conversions, a 10% reduction in cost per conversion) without ever needing to write custom code to detect form submissions, learn what SHA-256 actually does (it secures a users personal information so it can be sent to Google), or figure out how to send events to Google's API yourself.
Option 2: When a lead becomes a customer
If you collect leads through Jotform and then push them through to a CRM like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive, you can also wait until later in the sales cycle (when the lead actually becomes a paying customer, for example) to fire the conversion back to Google Ads.
This works by capturing some extra context with each form submission, sending it through to your CRM, and then triggering a conversion when the right milestone is reached. Here's the full flow:
1. Install Attributer on your website and add a hidden field
First, sign up for a 14 day free trial of Attributer. When you do, you'll get a small snippet of code to drop onto your website.
Once that's in place, head into Jotform and add a few hidden fields to the forms you use to capture leads. The four you need are:
- GCLID
- WBRAID
- GBRAID
- User Agent
Jotform makes this easy. Inside the form builder, drag 4x single line text fields into your form, set them to be 'Hidden', and then and set the field Name on each one to the value Attributer expects. The exact field names and the default values to use are documented in the Attributer help docs. Hidden fields are part of the free Jotform plan, so there's nothing to upgrade.
2. Attributer writes data into the hidden fields
Once Attributer's code is on your site, it'll start watching where every visitor is coming from automatically.
So when someone clicks one of your Google Ads and lands on your site, Attributer captures everything Google Ads needs for a server side conversion (like the GCLID, GBRAID, WBRAID, User Agent, and so on) and stores it.
Then when that visitor submits one of your Jotform forms, Attributer writes the data into the hidden fields you set up earlier, and it's captured as part of the form submission (alongside all the information the lead entered into the form, like their name, email, etc).
3. Data is sent to your CRM
Once the data is captured with the form submission, you can send it through to your CRM along with the lead's name, email, phone number, and any other information they entered into the form. Jotform has built in integrations for Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, ActiveCampaign, and most of the other major CRMs, plus a Zapier integration as a fallback for everything else.
The data then sits on the contact/lead record in your CRM, ready to be used when it's time to fire the conversion back to Google Ads.
4. Send the data to Google Ads
Whenever the lead reaches the milestone you care about (like a new deal getting created or an opportunity being mark as won), that's the moment to fire all the captured data back to Google Ads as a conversion.
Zapier and Make handle this part of the flow nicely. Both connect to almost any CRM, and you can configure them to trigger the Google Ads conversion at whichever point in the sales cycle makes sense for your business. They also give you a clean visual mapping screen for matching the values Attributer captured (GCLID, GBRAID, WBRAID, User Agent, and so on) back to the right fields on the Google Ads side.
Why sending server side conversions to Google Ads is the best approach
Ultimately, server side tracking is just a far more accurate way of tracking conversions.
With other approaches (like tracking thank you page visits or using Google Tag Manager), the conversion event has to fire inside the visitor's web browser, which is a chaotic environment full of ad blockers, privacy settings, and device switches you don't control. Server side tracking sends the conversion event straight to Google's servers, where none of that gets in the way.
Here are the 4 main reasons it's the most effective way to track conversions:
1. Overcomes ad blockers
Browser-based tracking methods all depend on the Google Tag loading inside the visitor's browser, but ad blockers and privacy focused browsers regularly stop those scripts from loading in the first place. And if the tag doesn't load, nothing that happens on your site can be tracked.
This isn't a small problem either. Recent estimates suggest over 30% of internet users use some sort of ad blocking technology, and Safari has over 10% of the browser market.
Fortunately, server side tracking sidesteps the issue entirely. The conversion data is sent straight to Google's servers, where ad blockers can't get in the way, so every lead ends up accurately counted.
2. Bypasses Safari & iOS privacy limitations
Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) clears tracking cookies after just a couple of days. So if a lead clicks your ad on Monday but doesn't convert until Thursday, the link between the click and the conversion has already been wiped.
Server side tracking handles this differently. Instead of relying on a fragile cookie that can easily be deleted, it sends the lead's name, email, phone, etc back to Google Ads and Google uses that to tie them back to their original ad click (no matter how much time has passed in between).
3. Works across devices
It's pretty common for a lead to first land on your site on one device (their phone, say) but wait until they're back at a computer to actually fill out a form.
Unfortunately though, browser-based tracking can't connect those two sessions because they happen on different devices.
Server-side tracking gets around this by sending identity data (name, email, phone and so on) directly to Google's servers, which allows Google to essentially "stitch" the two visits together and credit your ad with the conversion it actually started.
4. Eliminates duplicate and messy data
On top of all the above, browser based tracking is prone to other errors like double counting from page refreshes, missing data due to slow load times, or lost events when the visitor's connection drops mid load.
Tracking from the server is much more precise because it only triggers a conversion when a form is successfully submitted (not just when a button is pressed or a thank you page is visited), so the conversion counts in Google Ads end up matching your real lead numbers in your CRM much more closely.
3 reports you can run when you properly send conversions to Google Ads from Jotform
Across 15 years of running marketing for various businesses, I've spent millions of dollars in Google Ads and built hundreds of reports trying to figure out which campaigns were actually generating leads and customers.
Out of all of them, here are the 3 reports I've found most consistently useful:
1. Conversions by Keyword
Most businesses running Google Ads end up bidding on a fairly broad spread of keywords across multiple campaigns (often broken out by the services you offer, like a mortgage broker running a separate residential mortgages campaign and a commercial mortgages campaign).
This report shows you which of those keywords are actually generating conversions, instead of just impressions and clicks that go nowhere.
It helps you understand which keywords are profitable and which ones aren't, so you know where to put more budget for the best return.
2. Conversion Value by Campaign
If you're sending conversions back to Google Ads from your CRM, you can also include the value of each conversion (which would normally be populated from the value of the deal or opportunity attached to the lead in your CRM).
This is important because not all customers are equal. For a mortgage broker, getting a new client from your 'residential mortgages' campaign is nowhere near as profitable as winning a client from your 'commercial mortgages' campaign, so you don't really want to treat them as equals.
If you send a conversion value from your CRM to Google Ads, you can run reports that show you how much revenue you got from each campaign, which makes it much easier to decide which campaigns to put your budget behind.
3. Conversions by Geography
This report is especially useful for businesses that earn most of their revenue locally (optometrists, dentists, pool service companies, and so on). It breaks your conversions down by geographical region.
You can view the numbers at a high level (country, state, or city), or drill all the way down to a specific postcode. This helps you see whether the leads you are generating are actually in your target service areas or whether they are too far away (and as a result, will likely never turn into a paying customer)
From there, Google's Location Bid Adjustments give you a way to act on it. Tell Google to bid more aggressively in the postcodes that consistently produce paying customers, and pull bids back (or cut them entirely) in the areas that don't get you real results (like actual customers and revenue).
Wrap up
Sending server side conversions to Google Ads can really move the needle on your campaign results. It gives you the data you need to make manual adjustments (like bidding higher on certain keywords), and it gives Google's algorithms the data they need to make smarter automated bidding decisions for you.
But it only works well if the conversion data going in is accurate. If you're tracking thank you page visits or firing events in the browser through Google Tag Manager, you're not really sending proper data, and your Google Ads performance will reflect it.
So whether you fire the conversion the second the form is submitted (using Converly) or hold off until the lead becomes a paying customer (using Attributer + your CRM + Zapier), make sure you're sending it server side. That's where the real lift in performance comes from.
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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.