Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Unsolved Google Ads Subdomain in sitelinks & Composition Change for Strategy Status
I have a basic query but could not find a definite answer on the internet. I am currently running a campaign for the main website of a big education brand and they also have a secondary learning website on subdomain, and I want to add sitelinks of subdomain to the campaign, but I am not sure whether it is allowed or not. The brand I am running ads for is https://www.rauias.com/ and the secondary website is https://compass.rauias.com/ branded slightly different in a subdomain, so should I add the sitelinks of Compass to the main campaign? Also one more silly question My Max Conversion search campaign gave me this status today. "Learning (composition change): Campaigns have been added to or removed from the bid strategy. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize bids. 5 days left for learning" What does this mean exactly? And Why does it reenter the learning phase whenever I make a small change?
Paid Search Marketing | | rauoff0 -
Top of funnel google ads campaign not hardly converting, why?
Hi, I really hope someone can help me with this. I'm running two search ad campaigns and a google shopping campaign in google ads. The search campaigns are targeting top-of-funnel keywords as the business doesn't have universally known collections which everyone would search for so they are just unique to my business. So the campaigns are driving traffic but really converting whereas google shopping is converting because searchers are looking for particular products so they're lower down the funnel closer to aking a purchase decision. I feel I've optimised the campaign well and for the most part, most keywords have 7/10 quality score. The landing page seems fine. However, our offering wasn't as strong as competitors so we've offered a discount the same as them to compete. Since I started google ads we have nearly doubled our monthly revenue and the product types targeted in campaigns have increased in quantity sold so it seems it's having an effect but the campaigns aren't showing a good performance. Does anyone have any suggestions or input that could help me? I looked at first interaction attribution model and even there it's not performing well which makes this even more difficult to resolve. I'm thinking I should enable USER id feature in Google analytics so i can track signed in users across devices which may then help attribute sales to paid search channel as I saw in search console that the keyword that generates the most traffic to the site is our brand name and we're not a well-known brand so makes me think they may be starting their buyer's journey on a work computer on their mobile and finishing on their computer at home as an example. However, I don't believe this will be the main cause or solution as I would only have data for signed in users which still won't give me the full picture. Also if the campaign is optimised effectively but conversions are minimal could not having many conversions affect quality score? If someone can help or provide me with a different perspective it would be much appreciated. Please let me know if I need to clarify or explain further. I hope I've made myself clear. Thanks, T
Paid Search Marketing | | TZ19820 -
Can Google Shopping Ads Lower Ranking due to Bounce?
I am noticing Google Shopping Ads are showing up for really irrelevant keywords on some of my products. This quite predictably causes a high bounce rate when a user comes from these ads. There is very little control over what Google Ads seems to decide are relevant keywords from what I can see. Only control is by viewing search terms and setting as negative keywords, but his doesn't help much. Negative keywords are often ignored or they come up with some other really irrelevant new keyword. Seems this high bounce rate could hurt ranking? Any experiences shared with Google Shopping ads appreciated!
Paid Search Marketing | | Chris6611 -
301 Redirects and Google Shopping Feeds
I am moving my site from Volusion to Shopify. The domain remains the same but the URL paths are different. With respect to my Google Shopping feed, is it best to send old URLs (with 301 redirects) or to send the new URLs?
Paid Search Marketing | | vgusvg0 -
Google Shopping Feed being blocked by robots.txt
I had created a manual Google Shopping Feed that was working fine, and then someone well meaning put a block in my robots.txt file so Google couldn't read the images folder. because of this, Google now won't accept my feed. I changed the robots.txt file to allow them to read the images again, but it's been 3 days now and I'm still getting the error saying my products are disallowed because the robots.txt file won't let them scan for images. Does anyone know how long it will take for Google to see it again?
Paid Search Marketing | | sparrowdog0 -
CPC or CPM for Google Display Network?
HI all I'm setting up my first Remarketing campaign on the display network. I'm targeting those that have visited a specific product page at the moment and therefore there won't be a massive amount of traffic to remarket to - roughly no more than 50 clicks/day. My question is - what is the best bidding option for a campaign like this? Not sure whether to go for CPM or traditional CPC. I have previously found CPM much better for Facebook but obviously thats very different to Google. All help appreciated!
Paid Search Marketing | | SamMaley0 -
Paid Search Visits Not Showing Up in Google Analytics
Hey all, Just took over SEM for my company, and noticed a bit of a problem with GA. Whereas Adwords has registered 141 clicks on paid campaigns that go to the site, GA has tracked only 5 vists in that time. Two things of note: The GA account was not linked to the Adwords account until today, and also, auto-tagging was not turned on. I understand these two things are important to having proper GA tracking, but I just want to make sure that there aren't any other things I should check right now to make sure I start to see tracked paid visits again. Is there anything else I should try? Cheers.
Paid Search Marketing | | danny.wood0 -
Multiple keyword match types - same ad group, or separate ad groups?
Hi guys, Looking at an account that has historically used broad matching, and i'd now like to take some of the better performing keywords and duplicate as phrase and/or exact match to increase the quality of traffic to the landing pages. I know I can add red shoes, "red shoes" and [red shoes] to the same ad group, however I've also read that people are creating separate groups for each match type. Other than easy of management (same group), or more granular targeting of ads (separate groups), should I go with either approach, or a blend of the two? My key objective in this restructure is to drop the currently high bounce rate on the landing pages by improving the relevance of the incoming traffic. Cheers, Jez
Paid Search Marketing | | jez0000