EP259 - Adventures in Conversion Tracking in 2023

0:00 Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the PPC Chat Roundup. In today's episode, we have Julie leading us on a talk about adventures in conversion tracking in 2023. So, AKA, how are you dealing with GA Four and all the issues that's throwing your way? Yeah, I can imagine a lot of us are in that hole. What the heck is going on in terms of conversion tracking? And yeah, if you're in that camp, this episode is for you. I hope you listen. I hope you enjoy and realize you're not alone. And for those who are finding GA4 or Breeze, or those who have just decided not to use GA4 and, you know, dealing with completely different issues or just not having any issues at all, well, be empathetic and listen to how the other side are doing. But whichever side you're on, I hope you. Enjoy.

0:51 Learn something takes a great take away. Maybe think about how you could be doing things better in terms of conversion tracking for your clients. So yeah, sit back and enjoy. Hello, and a warm welcome to this episode of the PPC Chat Wound Up podcast, where I round up the Twitter discussion that happens on Tuesdays at 5:00 PM GMT. I'm your host Anu and I'm recording from my studio here in London, UK and I use this platform to share not just expert but also my ideas and considered best practices about paid media and the direction the digital industry is going in. So if you want to keep up to date with my tips and tricks in the industry and get the latest on the podcast that has been called your go to.

1:40 If you don't make it to the PPC chat, live discussions and even if you do, then like, follow, share and retweet. And that's right, Twitter still on Twitter, although I'm also on treads so you can check me out on there as well on the same handle which is the marketing annu or join our LinkedIn group which is the PPC chat roundup. Or if you're on Instagram, why don't you check us out at PPC Chat on. Just call Roundup to get quotes and snippets from previous episodes. So yeah, we have Julie Bercini taking us on a very lively chat about adventures in conversion tracking in 2023. So basically, how are we dealing with the big change that we've had? I don't think everybody, not everybody had a bad time of it.

2:22 Somebody actually put a tweet on saying what are the issues that you're having with G A4, how you're dealing with GA Four? And some people were like actually smoother, gives more reliable data in terms of performance. So yeah, I hope you are in that this campaign you're just listening out of empathy. But for those who are struggling with it, I hope you learn something that takes some great takeaways on doing paid search better and doing not just paid search, doing conversion tracking better, usual, PSA is says. Before we get into the questions, this chat is intended for PPC professionals of all levels and if you have something you want to share, please do. We are a friendly and supportive community. Please don't be afraid to participate. But also Lurkers and the listeners of the podcast are most certainly always welcome. So yeah, a little bit of A roll call. We have quite a few people that joined the chat today. We had Napa Hopkins as well as Sean Ellie. Amit Cabra joins us as well.

3:15 Sophie Logan, a dear friend of mine as well as of PPC Live UK. And yeah, I'm sure more people and Chris Ridley as well and more people join the chat. But yeah, let's get into our questions for today. Julie goes, what types of convergent actions are you currently tracking in your PPC campaigns and what methods do you use to track the conversion? So are we saying G, A4, Google ad, third party tool, et cetera? Management starts us off saying we typically use Google Ads tracking pixels directly, sometimes using a third party cash tracking tool. I've never liked using Google Analytics for ads convergent tracking, brand singer goes, why is that? Have you seen one work better than the other? Ray Bassett responds saying wide variety of actions including phone calls, phone clicks, e-mail clicks, form fills, meetings, scheduled clinic bookings start check out e-commerce.

4:08 If I can use a GA tag I will, but it's not always possible. So G A4 meta Pixel events or flight events enhanced and hotspot. A John response saying that I leveraged a lot of different conversion actions purchase. Form fills being the most common, I try to utilize Google Ads tags fired through GTM most often when possible and he continues saying one nice new feature with G A4 imported ads is selecting how you want outside channels attributed and he gives a link to a Google article about selecting attribution settings. I'll put that in the show notes. Now the Hopkins then responds to question one saying I'm going to start with primary actions. i.e. the ones that count 1 calls over 180 seconds, 2 calls from the website, three form fills, 4 checkout, 5 start trial or lower value. 6 pain customer which is higher value with enhanced conversions and seven chats, mostly legal things, she continues.

5:11 Going yeah, when it comes to social ads, I'm a little more forgiving on the convergence because they need so many for their algorithms to function. The core ones are still there. I tend to default to GA for events when there's at least 60 days of trusted data, otherwise ad network and she finishes saying primarily convergence. Should be 10 million percent trustworthy. I tend to test the validity of conversion tracking with secondary actions as well as tracking little steps like add to cart. And then we have Sophie Logan responding to question one saying contact form submissions and free trial signups as primary conversions. Then other actions such as webinar and newsletter sign ups as secondary conversions, GA 4 is what we use and they provide a deeper level of performance analysis via their CRM reports, she continues.

6:03 This is our SAS clients who have stripped back their Cta's and don't have the option for calls or purchases directly through their website And we have Julie as well responding to question one saying since I'm a lead Gen. PPC of my accounts track form fills. And phone calls as conversion actions have been using the Google ads conversion tagging rather than importing from analytics for a while in anticipation of GA four being a mess. And then yeah Sean, early response to question one as well saying it depends on the account. We do a lot of ecom so revenue and transactions are the biggies for for a few clients that have very long bind cycles, we track micro conversions and assign them values based on historical CVR and AOV. Julian gives her question 5 saying the big question, have you encountered any issues with conversion tracking lately? If so, on which platforms and what did you do to try to solve it?

7:00 And before we get to the answers, question to amid Kabra response saying depends on the client, but the focus is whatever the macro conversion points is. So lead purchase, download of white paper, et cetera, we use GTM to set up the events and then analytics from there. And Julie as well answers question one saying we have not heard anything about Google's one conversion tag to roll them all either. Remember when they talked about that at GML, so Google marketing live not a peep on that even with GA4 taking over. And then Sean early responds to question two saying the whole UA not sun setting even though they had a doomsday clock caused issues for a couple of clients. Not great that it was a Friday, but other than that, I think G A4 actually made us clean up conversions better than they were. You see, yeah, some people did find use in GA four, I mean caber response question 2/2 as well seen only when clients redevelop their sites without telling us and remove the GTM container.

7:59 Julie goes, haven't so many of us been there unfortunately, I mean goes we've had it happen three times this month. So it's fresh annoyance for me three times in one month. I hope that's three different clients and not the same client repeatedly doing there, because after that the third time they're doing it on purpose. That's no mistake. Chris Redley responds to question two saying yes. GA4 seems to be showing funny data with organic mixed with Google or CPC within the paid search channel group. We're opting for website conversion tracking directly into our ad platforms to allow us to better understand the last click conversion volume. Sophie Logan responds to question two saying we've had a lot of teething issues while switching to GA4. Unfortunately this has been due to our clients internal teams. Handling, setting up tracking and their lack of knowledge or quality checking, it's so difficult when you can't just fix them yourself.

8:53 And Julie also responds to that saying GA four is most definitely not just put this tiny bit of code in the head section of all your sites pages simple like Universal Analytics was. And so because absolutely not. Especially when you throw in those cross domain conversion parts and iframes. Oh Lord iframes sweet Moses, that's awful. So yeah, that means a client is using iframes, Hate iframes, Ashton Clark responds to question One is saying. Yeah, most of my clients are fixed on lead Gen. or bTB, so we mainly track form submissions and phone calls if relevant. Methods kind of vary depending on the website or client, but historically we've tried to use imports from Google. Analytics when possible for the. Google Ads tags. Now our response to question two is saying, yeah, almost all my glitches have been ecom related.

9:40 For the most part. It's it's discrepancies in the shopping platform versus G A4 versus the ad network reported conversions vastly under reporting on the Google side. My suspicion is that there's a privacy compliance issue. I also responded to question two saying, yeah, my clients are having issues with conversions being double counted and they are still using G A4 to sort that out and I think they've come up with a solution. For it. But yeah, they were seeing double conversions, double revenue and lots of inflated numbers. So that was like, you know, one of those things that you thought they were really great numbers. But actually, yeah, like April fools come late. Julie then gives us question three saying do. You. Find some platforms are better at or easier to track conversions on. If so, which are better and worse and why. Managing response to question three saying anytime there is a built in integration, that's my choice. Bassett responsing I used to say hotspot is easy and I like their new enhanced conversion events by recently. But recently a client replaced buttons on their sites with hotspot Cta's that link to emails tracking nightmare. My usual method of tracking the mail to doesn't work and the lead is not in hotspot.

10:55 And then, yeah, shown earlier response to question three saying I'm comfortable with GTM and like the debugging possibilities. So I like tracking through GA and then importing Nava Hopkins responds to question three saying shout out to Mfst ad support. So that's Microsoft ad support and that's a handle. I said Mfst ad support. And they're amazingly trustworthy. Conversion tracking. I also say I really like Google's local service ads because of how clear cut the conversion tracking is. Facebook conversion tracking is torture, but we do what we must. So yeah, Julie goes, I feel like Facebook has historically been the platform most likely to claim credit, where credit is not due for conversions or sales.

11:38 And Nava goes yes. I also find that the share volume of conversions needed for its algorithm to function is a really tough ask for Smb's. I'm interested to see if part of treads is an attempt on Twitter's ads market, since those are objectively the worst. Julie goes. If ever there were there were a platform that should be easy to poach from based on interacting with the ads interface, Twitter is right up there at the top of the list. And we have AMID Caber responded to question three saying, if I'm being honest, I've only really used GTM and analytics, so I can't answer the question. I've always found it easy to implement and use, so I've never had to think about another platform. So we go, same here.

12:21 And yeah, amid goes, I just love GTM so much, I don't think I would ever look anywhere else. So yeah, Tiffany Shares also talked about GTM and how to make the most. Out of it, how to use it, how to set it up, especially before GA4 with GA4 migration. So that was earlier in the month that this was our PPC Live UK and yeah, it was a hit. It's one of our videos that is the most watched. So if we go on YouTube, you can check out those past talks. Yeah, including Tiffany shares this talk about GTM. And then we have Ashton Clark responded to question two saying I like others mentioned G A4 has some discrepancies compared to what shows in each ad platform. We've seen this impact social in particular like LinkedIn, he continues.

13:04 Some of this due to clients setting up G A4 incorrectly or still troubleshooting. So I provide the numbers we can and then ask what they see on their end. To try to figure out what's most accurate. Also trying to get Crm's integrated with platforms where we can. And then Julie takes us on to question 4, saying when what are the biggest roadblocks you encounter when it comes to properly tracking PPC conversions in 2023? How do you handle these situations? And my answer to that was clearly that, yeah, I handled them by not getting involved with them and just realizing that I am not a. Tracking expert I'm not the one that knows what people are talking about and it's usually about tags on the website.

13:49 So yeah, I solved that by getting other people and people who are experts in that area to. Deal with our clients and interact with our clients and helping them solve those issues before we get to some more answers about question four, we get some answers from question 3 from Ashton Clarke saying I like to default to Google Analytics data mostly because that's what clients tend to refer to as their main source of truth. Especially true if I know or trust the people who did the GA implementation. On the flip side, there always seems to be a discrepancy with Facebook. And LinkedIn. So if you Logan responsing a lot of clients have cross domain conversion parts and use iframes. Talk about adding another level of complexity. I miss the good old days of simple thank you Pages right Shaunaligo.

14:36 Seriously, I don't understand why thank you pages went away, gives you better or easier tracking and in my opinion doesn't hurt UX at all. Who decided to change this? Some numpting Ray Bassett response and I often insist clients set up thank you pages. So if he goes, it can make tracking so much easier sometimes. And as a user, I like firm confirmation that the form or sale has gone through properly, Melissa goes. I would like to know this too, so I can hunt them down in terms of, yeah, whose idea was it to get rid of thank you pages. So yeah. People are not happy with iframes here. I'm sure Julie responds to question for seeing. It often starts with issues on the client side of things, either with getting codes in the proper places or working correctly.

15:21 But I think we are only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to attribution getting blown up from what we are used to seeing or getting. Chris read the response to question. Three saying the lack. Of external gold import. For Google ads is annoying. Meta ads is 1. That is always widely different to other. Data sources. GA4 is a mess. Google Ads was the best in my opinion. I'm not sure how Melissa McKee responds to question forcing. Some clients are still having trouble getting pixels and onto their sites. It's most common than you would think and especially with GA4 rolling out. In response to that, Julie goes right. The assumption that advertisers is also same person who implements things on the website expertly too is hilarious. Many platforms barely even recognize their biz. That the business have someone other than that them managing that for them Melissa goes for sure and sadly kinds think the PPC person is the expert in site tagging when often like me they are not creates A vicious cycle.

16:22 So yeah exactly what I said thinking that telling people that I am not the tracking expert. I can tell you in terms of tell you and advice you in terms of PPC strategy you know the fact that tracking needs to be correct but how try to be set it up. Go to someone else. Which really respond saying this creates potentially harmful expectation for clients and impostor syndrome for PPC marketers who aren't proficient in site tagging. Melissa goes exactly. I can handle very basic questions but know nothing about tag installation or GTM. Get to know a bit more about tag installation or GTM by going to PPC Live UK and watching on YouTube and watching Tiffany shares talk on that.

17:05 Sean, early response question forcing clients who put? Every widget known to man on their websites to try to get conversions. All iframes, of course. Oh Lord. I feel like I'm guilty of that for the PBC live UK site. But then I'm trying to get Eventbrite tagging in there. I don't know how to do that. I'm going to talk to someone about trying to make it more of a, you know, sending people to thank you, Paige. But we'll see, that's one later date. Sean continues answering question forcing. I do my best to set up all the tracking to start with and show them that many of the widgets aren't producing quality leads and start to slowly remove them. Very rarely do clients just trust that it's a problem from the beginning.

17:49 And I'm Julie responds to Sean Ellie, saying that all run 54 tags and wonder why conversions are awful. Yeah, more is always better, right? That was a sarcastic comment from Sean Ellie. And similarly to Judy's answer about there being 54 tags, I'm wondering why the conversions are awful. Melissa as well also in answer to question 4 says I have also seen clients accounts that have 20 plus primary conversion actions. This is really needed and usually muddles the whole issue. Lord 20. And then in response to question 4, Nava Hopkins goes custom setups where developed where developers refuse to collaborate and we get stuck making the same asks forever.

18:31 Everything else is conquerable through testing and client communication. I'll also give a shout out to custom support for most landing page tools and we'd also have Ashton Clark responded to question 4 saying the G A4 switch and making sure that data is accurate has been a struggle for some clients Cookie consent. Banners and privacy updates have also impacted if conversions are attributed properly or if they fire at all. Ashton goes also not having access to a client, CRM, analytics or other platforms makes it hard to get the full picture on my own. I try to come back to this by talking about lead quality of volume on every call. What do you see on your end?

19:12 Do those numbers align internally? Yeah, that is definitely very important to know. And yeah, Melissa goes there. You can say that again even though we had a long lead time, many advertisers are still working through GA4 issues. So yeah, GA four issues impacting data accuracy and we have NAV Hopkins responding to question of five. Actually we go to question five. First of all, with Apple potentially stripping out UTM parameters as early as Q 4/20/23, including Google and Facebook ads parameters, how do you plan to capture conversions that should be attributed to ads?

19:52 For me it was screaming into my screaming towel and duly recommended that we should make some branded swag from that. So yeah, screaming into a Screaming towel and I thought PBC Live UK Screaming towels. That will be fun. So yeah, in answer to that, Jagadesh responds saying this is only removed when the user is browsing in privacy mode in Safari. That's a tiny percentage, Julie goes. It is in emails and messages too and could be expanded at anytime to AI, to all browsing. It is worth thinking about how you would work without the data we have today. Management goes, my understanding is that they will only strip shared URLs. Not from ad campaigns. If you click on an ad message and then send a link to someone in iMessage, I don't think this was communicated effectively. These guys just don't care about communicating things effectively, do they?

20:44 Nava Hopkins goes G Braid and W Braid. Never heard of G Braid or W Braid. These already got introduced and just require configuring your GTM. So yeah. Configure your GTM 4G Braid and W Braid interesting terms there. Julie responds to question 5, saying not that attribution has ever been super great, but it well has been. Perceived as quite accurate up until now and this is our issue to unwind as tracking will continue to get more difficult or less reliable. Consent mode is not something us searchers understand, she continues. Time will tell as far as how much data loss we will face.

21:25 Facebook had a huge ruling against them and sharing data amongst their proper. Our parties this week in the EU and how they use data to target ads. We need to prepare for way less attribution availability now. And yeah, we get to my screaming into my screaming towel answer. We also have Sean Ellie responding, saying honestly with all the J4 tracking I haven't had a chance to look at this yet so we'll be curious to see everyone's answer. Ashton Clark as well says to be honest, I don't really have a solution in mind yet. So interested in other answers? Yeah, interested in anyone's answer. Maybe test landing pages that are only used for paid channels, so if someone converts on the page we know it only could have come from us. Not easily scalable though, especially for SMBs. That note seems like that was a short and sweet chat today, but very interesting in terms of what's coming, how people are finding conversion tracking and how they deal with it. Don't have too many tags on the side. Don't have too many primary tags that you're your conversion types that you're focusing on.

22:28 Try to move away from iframes. I'm looking at the mirror. On that one, and yeah, work with web development team and keep learning. Keep figuring out how to do things. Learn GTM, learn GTM as well. That'll be my biggest tips for you today. So apart from that, I hope you've taken some very useful takeaways. And if you want to chat more about this topic, join Julie and the team and our community on Thursday at 12:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:00 PM GMT or BST, even around British Summer Time. Where we're going to be having this chat, so it's going to be on the PVC chat, Discord. I'll need to be looking into that. There's a link on that that I will share. So yeah, I hope you find that useful and join us for that.

23:10 If you have anymore answers or questions from this chat, for any feedback about the podcasts, or even some correction and anything that has been shared to get in touch with me on my Twitter and threads. My Dms are open on the handle at the marketing Annu. It would also be great to all you longstanding and brand new listeners to give the podcast a review. It will help with the good strategy of the podcast and you can do that on Spotify by leaving a rating or leaving a review on Apple or Pod Chaser. To do that, just go to linktree.com/ppc chat, under score roundup. And yeah, that's also nice little reminder, our one year anniversary event is happening in just over 2 weeks, so that'll be on the 27th.

23:53 Of July I need to order the cake, which I'll do tomorrow. I finalized the location, which I'm happy about and yeah, it's going to be another wonderful event for amazing speakers. We're going to be talking about micro conversions. A I of course it's going to talk about ways to ensure that you are looking beyond just rowing and some more amazing panel chats are going to happen where the audience really gets involved. So yeah, I hope you can join us for that on the 27th of July. Just go to ppclive@uk.com. For tickets, Finally remember for your campaigns and businesses to glide smoothly. There's a lot of hard work needed beneath the surface, so keep your Swans kicking by and speak to you next week.