How to Setup Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Shopify

April 18, 2015Joshua Uebergang79

Having done over one hundred audits of Google Ad accounts for Shopify businesses, I am dumbfounded at the number of accounts that don’t have conversion tracking accurately setup. Some stores spend thousands each month with no idea what, if any part of the campaigns, generate sales. Other businesses may track a sale as one conversion, but they have no revenue data—the sale of a $10 product looks the same as a $1000 product. If your return on ad spend (ROAS) goal is 500%, you have to know what searches, ads, products, and audiences succeed or fail at bringing in $5 for every $1 of spend.

Previously known as Google AdWords, Google Ads has two ways to setup conversion tracking in Shopify.

Option 1: If you accurately track sales in Google Analytics, the quickest solution is to import your transactions as a conversion goal. See the steps to import transactions from analytics to Google Ads.

Option 2: This tutorial covers why you need to edit the existing Google Ads conversion code and how to do it for the best data. I use this solution to help Shopify stores grow.

I recommend the second option because my testing has repeatedly shown sales through Google Ads are lost to the (direct)/(none) traffic source in Google Analytics due to cross-domain tracking limitations of payment processors. This means your advertising would lack the proper attribution it deserves for generating sales, which ruins your ability to optimise ad campaigns. For one of my Google Ads clients I was able to attribute more than double the sales of Google Ads with the conversion tracking code compared to analytics. That level of data accuracy can be the difference between the death of an ecommerce business and it thriving.

You will learn how to setup Shopify with gtag.js tracking for Google Ads. One benefit of gtag.js, released at the end of 2017, is its simplicity. The second benefit is its increased accuracy over the older ga() functions to combat intelligent tracking prevention in Safari. Here we go.

1. Create your conversion in Google Ads

1. In your Google Ads account from the top-right, click the spanner icon. Under the “Measurement” column, go to “Conversions”:

2. Create a new conversion. Click “Website”.

Use the following settings for your conversion:

Name: The name can be anything. I recommend you make it “Sales”
Category: “Purchase/Sale”
Value: “Use different values for each conversion” and select the currency used in your Shopify store. It is okay if this currency is different to your ad account as Google will do the currency conversion. You could enter your average order value (AOV) taken from Google Analytics as the default value. Your average order value can be gather from the “Conversions” > “Ecommerce” > “Overview” section. However, as you’ll see, this value is never empty because we’ll replace this with a liquid variable that contains the order amount in dollars.
Count: “Every”.
Conversion windows: “30 days”. If your products cost more than $200 or you know customers take weeks to research a product before buying, extend the value to “90 days”.
View-through conversion window: “1 day”.
Include in “Conversions”: Tick this option. The setting lets you decide if these conversions should be included in your “Conversions” and “Conversion value” columns
Attribution: “Linear”. Let’s say a person clicks one ad then returns to Google for another search. They then click another ad and buy. The first ad should receive recognition for the sale so you can more accurately optimise campaigns with this data. The linear model means each ad and search term will get 0.5 of a conversion. If you used the last-click option, the first ad would get 0 and the second ad would get 1 conversion. Never use the last-click option because it ignores the effect of upper funnel ads. We will geek out on the various models soon. Linear is a good default.

Your event tag options will look something like:

3. Save to finish creating your conversion code in Google Ads. Select the option to “Install the tag yourself”.

4. Click “The global site tag isn’t installed on all your HTML pages” option for the global site tag.

5. Click the “Page load” option for the event tag.

We will need to modify the event tag then add the global tag and the modified event tag to your Shopify store to complete setup. But first, I want to educate you about attribution.

Picking the Perfect Attribution Model

If someone clicked on you Google Shopping ad, looked at a product but didn’t buy, then returned to the site organically and purchased, would you attribute 100% of that purchase to organic sales? Would you consider the role Google Shopping had played when working out the ROI on each platform?

Attribution modelling in Google Ads and Analytics is a set of rules that determines how each transaction or conversion is credited. Within Analytics, the last-click model (most commonly used by novices to measure sales and goal completions) attributes 100% of the sale to the last action associated with how the user accessed the site such as organic, paid search, or other channel. The first click does the opposite which grants 100% to the first interaction. Realistically, ecommerce stores often see a journey with a variety of interactions before a user becomes a customer. This is why you must consider what model is best.

There are a number of attribution models available to use.

Linear: I recommend this model when you first set up your attribution modelling. It attributes the sale evenly across all touchpoints or interactions the customer has had throughout their buying cycle. This will help you understand how each platform in your multi-channel marketing strategy has benefited your revenue. For example, if the customer originally came to the site through a Facebook product ad, came back again through Google Shopping, then came back via a search ad and eventually came to the site organically, the linear attribution model will award 25% of the sale to each platform.

First click: This model awards 100% of the conversion or sale to the first interaction or touch-point the customer had. It is useful to identify how your customers are finding you, but the model disregards later touch-points the visitor has with your business. You will not know what led to the sale when there is more than one click.

Last click: The opposite of first click attribution—it attributes 100% of the sale to the last interaction had by the customer. It is badly favoured by many online retailers. Given businesses get customers on many marketing platforms, it’s vital to know the influence each platform has had on the sale. Last click doesn’t give you this information.

Position-based: This is a mixture of all of the above but with the majority of the conversion (about 80%) split between the first and last click. The remaining 20% is attributed to the middle of the funnel. This can work for many ecommerce retailers. Those with more expensive items may find the middle touch-points are not attributed enough as larger items are usually a longer consideration process for the customer.

Time decay: The most complex model of all of them. Time decay puts the most emphasis on the the last click, however it attributes a percentage to other touch-points in the journey. The touch-points furthest away from the sale get the least attribution, building up to the most attribution at the final touch-point. This model is worth considering if your customers take a longish time-to-purchase.

Data-driven: An automated attribution method that uses real historical data. Google will look at many data points to build your own attribution model. You may not have this model available as it initially requires 600 conversions through a single conversion action over 30 days. Use it when you meet the requirements. You can learn more about data-driven attribution.

For further help with selecting the best attribution model when your campaigns progress, refer to the Model Comparison Tool. You will be able to test the affect different models have on your data.

2. Configure the Conversion Code

Your event code responsible for Google Ads tracking will look something like:

<!-- Event snippet for Sales conversion page -->
<script>
  gtag('event', 'conversion', {
      'send_to': 'AW-880346044/44BbCP7Vz3AQvIfkowM',
      'value': ,
      'currency': 'AUD',
      'transaction_id': ''
  });
</script>

Do not add this to your Shopify store. You will need to make alterations so the order value and order ID is passed to Google. When optimising your campaign, you want to improve it based on the generated revenue, not just “this campaign got 10 sales versus the other with 12 sales”.

1. Replace the line:

'value': ,

…with:

'value': {{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency }},

This parses the value of the purchase with shipping and other taxes like GST.

Some stores use a comma separated currency in “General” > “Settings” with the code {{amount_with_comma_separator}}. This means the value variable will have a comma, which does not work with Google Ads. If your store formats its currency with a comma often seen in European currencies, steps one and two need to be modified with the replace filter like {{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency | replace: ',', '.' }}. If the store uses Norwegian Krone that has a comma for decimals and separates three digits with a full stop (like 1.000,00), use this filter | remove: '.' | replace: ',', '.'

2. While you can get away with the first two steps, I recommend you use the transaction_id parameter to prevent duplicate conversions when customers visit the thank you page a second time.

Replace the line:

'transaction_id': ''

…with:

'transaction_id': '{{ order.order_number  }}'

3. Update the currency code to the store’s currency. While you may have set this when configuring the code in Google Ads, I suggest using Shopify’s liquid variable shop.currency in case the store’s currency changes and you forget to update the conversion code. The output value is a three-letter format that meets Google’s formatting.

Replace the line:

'currency': 'AUD',

…with:

'currency': '{{ shop.currency }}',

4. For whatever reason, implementing transaction_id does not always stop duplicate conversion data. I’ve seen it happen repeatedly for my Google Ads clients. I recommend you wrap the entire tracking code in the following liquid, which runs scripts only on their first time of the order status page: {% if first_time_accessed %}...{% endif %}

If you want to exclude taxes and shipping, replace “checkout.total_price” with “checkout.subtotal_price”:

'value': {{ checkout.subtotal_price | money_without_currency }},

3. Adding the Google Ads Conversion Code to Shopify

Use the full global site tag given to you in Google Ads. You will install the Google Ads global site tag only on the thank you page inside the “if statement” so it runs when an order is placed.

1. Log into the admin section of your Shopify store. Go to “Settings” > “Checkout”. Under the field “Additional scripts”, paste your Global site tag and the updated Google Ads conversion code inside the conditional tag. All this code should look like:

{% if first_time_accessed %}
<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Ads: 880123456-->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-880123456"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'AW-880123456');
</script>

<!-- Event snippet for Sales conversion page -->
<script>
  gtag('event', 'conversion', {
      'send_to': 'AW-880123456/44BbCP7Vz3AQvIfdafM',
      'value': {{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency }},
      'currency': '{{ shop.currency }}',
      'transaction_id': '{{ order.order_number  }}'
  });
</script>
{% endif %}

2. Click “Save” in Shopify and you’re done! You will now start receiving conversion value data inside Google Ads.

You can immediately test the tracking works by viewing the thank you page for an order then search the source code for the snippet to confirm the values inserted for the order ID and conversion value are what you want. If you’re using {% if first_time_accessed %} around your tracking, temporarily remove that so you can view the order status of an existing order.

For other debugging, go to the conversions section in Google Ads, click on the conversion, then click on “Webpages” from the top to view what pages are triggering the conversion.

Alternative: Google Ads with Google Analytics Global Site Tag

The Google Analytics setup inside Shopify’s settings uses Google’s universal analytics. It does not use the global site tag. You can copy-and-paste the global site tag snippet into Shopify’s analytics setup, but Shopify simply extracts the tracking ID rather than use gtag.js.

If you use Shopify’s Google Analytics setup and install the global site tag in your theme, you will send duplicate page view data. You need to use the send_page_view parameter like { 'send_page_view': false } to disable duplicate page views sent to analytics.js.

This solution combines the Google Ads conversion tracking with the Google Analytics global site tag. It stops duplicate page view data when the store uses Shopify’s settings for Google Analytics. You would use this solution if you wanted to send other data in gtag.js like dynamic remarketing or an event via gtag.js.

1. Change this line:

gtag('config', 'UA-76118106-1');

…to:

gtag('config', 'UA-76118106-1', { 'send_page_view': false });

2. Before the closing </script> tag of the global site tag, insert your Google Ads global site tag configuration. Your modifications will look like:

gtag('config', 'UA-76118106-1', { 'send_page_view': false });
gtag('config', 'AW-880123456');

3. In the Shopify admin, go to “Settings” > “Checkout”. Under the field “Additional scripts”, paste your Global site tag and the updated Google Ads conversion code inside the conditional tag. The Google Ads conversion tag remains the same as the previous solution. All this code should look like:

{% if first_time_accessed %}
<!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-UA-76118106-1"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'UA-76118106-1', { 'send_page_view': false });
  gtag('config', 'AW-880123456');
</script>

<!-- Event snippet for Sales conversion page -->
<script>
  gtag('event', 'conversion', {
      'send_to': 'AW-880123456/44BbCP7Vz3AQvIfdafM',
      'value': {{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency }},
      'currency': '{{ shop.currency }}',
      'transaction_id': '{{ order.order_number  }}'
  });
</script>
{% endif %}

Alternative: Google Analytics Import

The above method will work with everyone. However, there is another way that requires Google Analytics. I use the Google Analytics method after running the conversion code method above then seeing it is less accurate than the sales from google / cpc in Google Analytics.

If you see the google / cpc channel has less sales data than Google Analytics, pause your original goal then import the transaction goal into your Google Ads. Go through my Google Analytics setup for Shopify to get clean data in Analytics.

1. Create a new conversion. Click “Import”.

2. Select the type “Transaction” from the primary view you use in Google Analytics that has the most complete and accurate data.

3. Click “Import and Continue”.

4. Once you’ve created the goal, click on it to edit it. The only value I suggest you change is the attribution model from “Last Click” to “Linear”. Your settings will look like:

You are done importing transaction data from Google Analytics into Ads.

As a Shopify Marketing Expert and Google Partner, we’ve helped many Shopify stores grow with Google Ads. If you’d like us to take away the stress of doing paid advertising well, read about our Google Ads service for Shopify stores.

How to Setup Google Ads Conversion Tracking in Shopify

1. Create your conversion in Google Ads

Picking the Perfect Attribution Model

2. Configure the Conversion Code

3. Adding the Google Ads Conversion Code to Shopify

Alternative: Google Ads with Google Analytics Global Site Tag

Alternative: Google Analytics Import

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