How to Track Google Ads in Google Analytics

Google Ads, formerly known as AdWords, is an incredibly powerful and effective tool for online marketing. It plays a significant part when you want to understand how your customers interact with your website. 

But more importantly, it is a Google property. And that’s a major reason why marketers prefer Google Ads over other PPC advertising tools. 

The best part about using a Google property is that you can link all your tools together to get the full picture of your insights. And that means you can use the insights from Google Ads to study those from Google Analytics, as well. 

Google Analytics is perfect to learn about your site’s demographics, including their behavior, interests, devices, and lifetime value to name a few. 

So, why link Google Ads and Google Analytics?

New users, who come from AdWords, are those that already have an interest in your products and services. In fact, they have landed on your ads because they searched for your products or services in Google. 

But Google Ads displays a wealth of information into your account. And sorting through it all can be tedious. 

With Google Analytics, you have the opportunity to track the value of each customer who clicks on your ads. All you have to do is link your Google Ads account and start tracking in-app activity in Google Analytics.

The tool can also help you understand how valuable and comprehensible the information on your ad property is by monitoring the click-through and exit rate. 

And you can use these metrics to calculate your ROI, identify underperforming campaigns, or get detailed information about which keywords are bringing you traffic and revenue. 

How To Link Google Ads To Analytics

To optimize your ad campaigns and make informed decisions on your ad spend, it is important to configure your Ads and Analytics account properly. 

Here is how you can do that:

• Go to your Google Analytics dashboard.
• Click Admin at the bottom of the menu. 
• Next, go to the Product Linking section under Property and select Google Ads Linking from the options. 
• In the Configurations window, select the box(es) next to the Google Ads Account(s) that you want to link your Google Analytics to.
• Lastly, provide a title to your group in Link Group Title under Link Configuration and enable auto-tagging in Google Ads to ensure the platforms collaborate properly and report accurate data. 

How to track events in Google Analytics

If you click on Acquisition > Google Ads, you will find six options that you can use to monitor and track your campaigns.

• Campaigns
• Treemaps
• Keywords
• Search queries
• Hour of Days
• Final URLs

These options will help you access your entire customer journey from the initial visit to the final purchase, including showing you your best and worst performing ad properties, the amount of time visitors are spending on your site and the keywords that are bringing you the most traffic. 

You can also access additional information on your ad campaigns through Acquisition > Campaigns. The section will provide you with insights on your Paid & Organic Keywords as well as Cost Analysis to help compare the ad spend and revenue generated for each campaign.  

You can use this information to understand your ad performance and grow your business the right way.