Best practice to separate paid from organic conversions in Google Analytics
-
I have a PPC campaign for a client with standalone landing pages with a form, not reachable from the website (although in the same domain).
- I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
Google Analytics whose counter is increased every time the thank you page is reached.
This way I can track conversions with both AdWords and Analytics.
Is that correct?
Should I import back in AdWords the goals from Analytics, as suggested in the AdWords account?
- I have another landing page with a form in the website, where I send users coming from
organic search, so I set up a second goal in Analytics for the thank you page of this form.
Is this the reason why I am supposed to import in AdWords the analytics' goals, so that I could see both kind of conversions in both accounts?
- But the most important question is: If I send both PPC/organic visitors to the same landing page is there still a way to separate PPC from Organic conversions?
Thank you very much for your advice.
DoMiSoL Rossini
- I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
-
Hi DoMiSol,
- I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
Google Analytics whose counter is increased every time the thank you page is reached. This way I can track conversions with both AdWords and Analytics. Is that correct?
Yes, as long as you have added the Google Analytics tracking code to the "Thank you" page so you can track that specific goal.
Should I import back in AdWords the goals from Analytics, as suggested in the AdWords account?
Linking your Analytics account with Adwords has a lot of benefits. The main reason to do so is to be able to see a more comprehensive view of your AdWords post/click activity such as:
- Bounce Rate: When someone sees only one page or triggers only one event.
- Avg. Session Duration: The average time someone stayed on your site.
- Pages/Session: The average number of pages viewed per session.
- % New Sessions: The estimated percentage of first-time sessions.
- Access to awesome Remarketing lists from Google Analytics
In terms of tracking AdWords conversions use one or the other, not both. Do not import any goals that you are already tracking through AdWords Conversion Tracking into AdWords, this can create double-counting and duplication, which would make your conversion data misleading and hard to interpret.
==================================
- I have another landing page with a form in the website, where I send users coming from organic search, so I set up a second goal in Analytics for the thank you page of this form.
Yes, you are simply tracking a new action from a different form.
Is this the reason why I am supposed to import in AdWords the analytics' goals, so that I could see both kind of conversions in both accounts?
_In theory yes (as explained above). But I would not import your organic goals into Adwords, there is no reason to. _To make it simple, remember this:
- AdWords tool will track ONLY your AdWords conversions.
- Analytics will track conversions from ALL your channels: Bing, Social, Email etc. As long as you have the proper tracking & tags implemented in your URL's.
=================================
3) But the most important question is: If I send both PPC/organic visitors to the same landing page is there still a way to separate PPC from Organic conversions?Yes, as long as you have auto-tagging enabled AND Adwords conversion tracking in the pages that you want to track. Google will track your PPC data separate from your organic - Google Adwords adds a "GCLID" (Google Click Identifier) to the Destination URL. This is a globally unique tracking parameter to pass information back and forth between Google AdWords and Google Analytics, this includes UTM parameters, click to conversion and cost data for your paid campaigns.
=================================
I hope this information is helpful.
Cheers,
~Barbara
- I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
-
You should be able to go to Goal Overview > Source / Medium and see where the user came from.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Looking at google shopping results from other country
Hi, I run shops in several languages out of London. One of our key revenue drivers is google shopping. It is important for me to look the the shopping search results for example in germany. Recently Google changed something so when I want to look at the german shopping results from here, eg. http://www.google.de/shopping it always shows me the english ones with prices in pounds. Is there a trick to still get the foreign results? Thanks in advance Dieter
Paid Search Marketing | | Storesco1 -
Will Google penalise me if i noindex lots of pages?
Hey everyone.. I hope you can help! I have optimised my product landing pages for SEO keywords based on volumes. I've been doing PPC for 3 months now and I can see that a lot of the keywords which drive clicks are not showing as high volume in the SEO volumes. My Adwords quality scores for these PPC keywords are low, 6&7 /10... So this leaves me with a predicament - do I 1. Re-optimise my LP's for PPC instead of SEO keywords?
Paid Search Marketing | | Woav
2. Create new LP's just for PPC and no index them? (I could use DKI to good effect here I think thus reducing the necessity to have multiple LP's targeting numerous PPC keywords) But my concern was this... will Google frown on me having lots of similar LPs but only 1 indexed? Or maybe I'm going about this in the wrong manner? Really appreciate any advice anybody can provide on this!? Rick0 -
What is the best way to update Adwords final URLs if I'm moving to a new CMS?
Hi there - One of my clients is redeveloping its website. That means, the domain is remaining the same, but the whole site is being rebuilt in wordpress so all the adwords final URLs need to change OR be redirected. There are 550 live adgroups and 3400 ads. We haven't set up tracking. I can't find anywhere what the best thing to do is in this case. The key issues seem to be: 1. 301 redirects - given we have to do these anyway as part of migration, this seems to be the easiest path as Google is ok about redirects as long as they don't go to a different domain. From what I'm hearing, you don't get adversely impacted in terms of quality score etc. This has the huge advantage that you don't have to edit the ad therefore no loss of statistical history or risk of downtime whilst you wait for approval. HOWEVER, there is some concern that if you then redirected again IN THE FUTURE, the redirect might not work (in some browsers) or cause a loop. I'm also concerned that it's messy to leave it like that (ie: with the wrong URLs throughout). 2. Buik updating ads - I don't think this is an option as if you bulk download and then reupload, Google will see this as a new ad, and delete all the statistical history - I'm also concerned that that WOULD impact quality score as you'd be starting from scratch! 3. Changing each ad individually - as far as I understand you'd have to create copies of all the ads (so that you keep the history of the old ones) and effectively create new ones with the correct URL - one by one. You end up with a messy account (a lot of paused ads) but you keep the history? This is obviously the most time consuming and I can't see a way of avoiding ads having to go in for approval again, given the urls are all different, so you'd have to do this a an ad level, not an adgroup/campaign level etc. People redevelop their websites (without changing domains) all the time. It seems strange that no one is mentioning this problem! Any ideas?! Many thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | catalystmdc0 -
Do only paid adwords appear in google shopping
Does anyone know if we have to have a paid addwords campain for our products to appear in google shopping. We have a feed set up for google shopping. We have addwords campaigns running for google. But our products do not seem to appear in google shopping. Any advise on how to get them there?
Paid Search Marketing | | CostumeD0 -
Best way to automize generation of google ads - API, scripts etc.
I am in the process of setting up a fresh adwords account for a recently launched ecommerce site with about 3000 products and would like to automize the generation of the ads based on a spreadsheet of our product database. I would like to have full control over the code to generate these ads and a programmer with knowledge in SOAP and javscript would be availlable to assist in implementation. Any recommendations? Would you use adwords API or rather adword scripts?
Paid Search Marketing | | lcourse
Do you know whether there may be any existing code for doing this that we could just adapt to our requirements?0 -
Will Google penalize a text ad if the display URL goes nowhere?
Today I had a colleague ask me if Google Adwords will penalize text ads that have display URLs that land on 404 pages. I fully understand the policy that the domains in display URLs and destination URLs have to match up or Google will disapprove the text ad. However if the display url contains the proper domain (and a target keyword phrase for a file folder) will Google penalize the text ad quality score if the display URL lands on a 404? I had trouble finding specific evidence for this.
Paid Search Marketing | | VanguardCommunications0 -
Adding Coremetrics Tags with Google Adwords
Hello, I would like to know if it's possible to add Coremetrics tracking tags in Google Adwords while the auto tagging functionnality is on. The point of doing this is to be able to track in both Analytics systems the performance of the PPC campaigns while still having Adwords to use Google Analytics conversion data. Thanks, Guillaume
Paid Search Marketing | | guiberube0 -
Adding nyc to a keyword in Google Adwords
Hello. If I have a keyword in Google Adwords that is using phrase match ("keyword"), could it be useful to add the keyword phrase "keyword nyc"? Even if I did not add the second keyword phrase, my ad would be triggered if someone searched for "keyword nyc." So would it be redundant to add the second keyword phrase? Thank you!
Paid Search Marketing | | nyc-seo0