To drive results for any business, the first thing we have to know is which data to look at. As mentioned in a previous post, tracking multiple conversion events is a great way to drive additional insight and value for your clients.

In the example below, we will set up a secondary conversion event for an ecommerce client who has been tracking sales in Google Ads but now wants to track how many people on their email list come from paid search.

Setting Up a 2nd Conversion Event

1.  Start by clicking on the Tools & Settings > Measurement > Conversions tab

where to find the google ads conversions tab

2.  You will see your sales conversion action in the Conversions tab. You now want to add your Email Capture conversion type, so click the big blue + Conversion button.

3.  The next page offers many options; you will pick ‘Website’ because the new conversion type will be tracking data from the website.

google conversions tab step two

4. From here, you’ll need to input some settings. These include your conversion action name, conversion windows, and attribution model. One important note here: Google Ads will default the ‘Include in Conversions’ setting to ‘Yes’. Unless you are looking to use this conversion action for direct optimizations in the account, you should change this to ‘No’. In this specific example, we want to continue optimizing based on actual sales – not emails – so we’ve updated the setting accordingly.

google ads website conversion action set up

5.  Once you click to the next step, you’ll receive instructions for implementing the new conversion tag on your website. If you use Google Tag Manager, just create a new Google Ads conversion tag in GTM and input the newly generated conversion ID and conversion label. If your conversion tag is hard-coded onto the website, you’ll only need to implement the event snippet code – the global site tag should already be on your website from your first conversion event.

6.  The new action will populate in the Conversion page immediately, but until someone clicks on an ad and converts, the Tracking Status will be Unverified.

google ads conversion actions view

7.  Check back often the first few days to make sure that your 2nd conversion event is beginning to collect data. If you don’t see any conversions coming through – either on this page or in the main grid – then check the source code of your confirmation page to double-check that the conversion tag is placed properly or review our troubleshooting tips in this blog post.

Creating a Custom Column in Google Ads

With custom columns in Google Ads, you can create and save a new conversion column that will allow you to assess the performance of your secondary conversion.

1.  In the main Google Ads grid, click on Columns > Modify Columns. Scroll all the way to the bottom to select ‘Custom Columns’.

2.  Create a new column for each secondary conversion type you want to track. In order to do this, you’ll want to select ‘All conv.’ as your metric, and then under ‘Segment,’ select the new conversion action you created. This will ensure that this new column only pulls data from your new conversion action.

example of how to create a custom column in google ads

3.  After you save, you can use these in the campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords tabs. The custom columns make data analysis much easier and faster than constantly exporting data from different tabs.

Happy tracking!

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