If you are not tracking conversions, then you have no way to evaluate the success of your paid search efforts, or to make changes to drive more sales or leads. There are multiple ways to use conversion pixels to track conversions. The simplest and most common method is to place the conversion pixel on the “Thank You” or “Order Submitted” webpage a user reaches after submitting an order or completing a form fill out.

In some cases, however, it may be impossible or less efficient to track conversions from a thank you page. In other instances, you might want to track events that do not represent a full conversion, but nevertheless demonstrate a user interaction that’s valuable to your business. In these cases, you should consider setting up an “on-click pixel” that records a conversion when a visitor clicks on a specified button. You can then use this data to better understand how users interact with your site, or how effectively your digital marketing pulls in top-of-funnel visitors or contributes to offline sales and store visits.

On-Click Pixels allow us to further track user behavior. Image via Pexels.

On-Click Pixels allow us to further track user behavior. Image via Pexels.

Use Cases

An on-click pixel is helpful for a variety of reasons and in a variety of different situations. Here are the most common cases in which you should consider implementing an on-click pixel:

No “Thank You” Page

If your website does not take the user to a unique page after completing an order or form fill, you can use an on-click pixel to track when a user clicks on a “complete” or “submit” button.

If a user has the option to leave your website and go elsewhere

If a visitor navigates to a referral site to check out reviews or blog posts about your brand.

If you use a third-party payment processor, and the user may not return to your site after submitting payment information.

Track additional interactions outside of direct conversions

You may want to track additional conversion actions, or micro-conversions, to measure on-site engagement and behavior. You can use an on-click pixel to track users viewing locations, placing an in-store order, opening up a chat window, scheduling an appointment, or downloading a whitepaper

There are many ways to evaluate audience quality outside of direct conversions. Secondary conversions are particularly relevant for advertisers with a longer sales process, such as high-AOV ecommerce and B2B advertisers, where visitors are less likely to convert on a first visit.

Perhaps you are an ecommerce advertiser selling shoes online and in a large number of brick and mortar stores. If someone searches for “women’s Nike free 5.0 size 7” and clicks through an ad to your website, there are a number of different actions she could complete besides placing an online order. If she clicks on a button that says “check if available for in-store pick-up”, there is a good chance that your online ad contributed to an in-store sale, and you should track this interaction.

Another valuable interaction would be a click on the “find store nearest me” button. As you accrue more data on these interactions, you can compare this data with your sales numbers to determine an approximate value to assign to each on-site interaction.

What the On-Click Pixel Looks Like, and How You Set It Up

To set up the on-click pixel, you’ll need to add a conversion tracking tag to the code of the page on your website that contains the button or link you will track. You’ll also need to add a special on-click command to the code for the button or link you will be tracking.

  1. Under the Tools > Conversions section of AdWords, you create a new conversion action.
  2. After naming your conversion, you’ll need to determine if you want to attribute revenue or a set value to the conversion, the cookie window length, and other attributes.
  3. Make sure to select the “Click” option instead of “Page load” under “Choose whether to track conversions on a page load or a click.”
install tag
  1. The conversion pixel looks like this:
    conv_code
  2. Copy and paste the tag between the <body></body> tags of the page that contains the on-click button you will track.
  3. You then need to add the on-click command to the code for the button or the link you want to track. This code varies depending on the button or link.
    • Example: If you are adding the code to a button, then in the code displayed below you should replace (http://example.com/your-link) with your URL, and replace “Download now!” with the text you are using on your button.
      onclick

Step-by-step instructions can be found via Google Help docs.

Once you’ve implemented your pixels, you can use the pixel data to better understand how users are interacting with your site, and to approximate how much your digital marketing is contributing to sales offline or through other channels.

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