Without proper conversion tracking, your marketing data is meaningless. Here's how to do it right.
Conversion tracking is the absolute foundation of effective digital marketing. If you can't measure how many leads your campaigns generate, you can't optimise them. Yet we audit accounts weekly where businesses are spending £1,000+ per month on Google Ads with zero conversion tracking in place.
Start with Google Tag Manager (GTM). Install the GTM container code on every page of your website, then set up tags for each conversion action: form submissions, phone number clicks, and email link clicks. GTM makes this process straightforward without needing to edit your website code directly.
In Google Ads, create conversion actions for each type of lead. A form submission conversion should fire when someone reaches your 'Thank You' page. A phone call conversion should track calls from your ads and website that last longer than 60 seconds (filtering out accidental dials and quick hangups).
Test your conversion tracking thoroughly before relying on the data. Submit a test form, click your phone number, and verify that conversions appear in both Google Ads and Google Analytics within 24 hours. A tracking setup that looks correct but doesn't actually fire properly is worse than no tracking at all - it gives you false confidence in bad data.