Conversion Tracking is a crucial part of your Marketing efforts. You must know from which channels your leads or purchases come from, determine which channels are most effective at converting, and how you can optimize your marketing strategy accordingly. However, accurately attributing conversions to the correct channels has become increasingly challenging due to the third-party cookies crackdown, reduction in the cookie lifetime value, privacy tracking preventions and different attribution modelling algorithms across tools.
A question that I get asked a lot from clients is why there is such a big difference in registered conversions measured in Google Ads compared to those recorded in GA4. In this blog I will dive into the two different ways of tracking conversions and how you should work with each.
Google Ads Conversions vs. GA4 Conversions
Google Ads uses the last-click attribution model by default. This means that a conversion gets attributed to the last channel that brought the visitor to the website. Imagine the scenario where a visitor arrives at your website today via LinkedIn and tomorrow clicks on one of your ads in the Google Search Results and converts right after. In the case for tracking your conversions with the Google Ads Pixel, the last clicked advertisement gets full credit for the conversion. This conversion will also be reported in Google Ads.
Now imagine the same situation, but the other way around. The person first finds you on Google Ads and tomorrow comes on your website again via a LinkedIn advertisement and converts in the same session. The Google Ads Pixel will trigger, but not record a conversion in Google Ads. Tracking your conversions with the Google Ads Pixel is a great way to track your absolute conversions that derived from a campaign directly. The pixel pushes all conversions to Google Ads, and only counts the conversions from a session that started from an advertisement in the Google Network.
Now let’s consider how this same example is processed in GA4. The analytics tool uses a data-driven attribution model by default. This means that a Google algorithm decides how the conversion gets attributed to multiple channels such as Google Search, Google Ads and LinkedIn. It determines how many sessions have been generated by a unique user within a certain time period before the conversion took place. Subsequently, it looks at the engagement of each session and puts a weighting factor to the channel of each session in order to attribute a part of the conversion to each channel. Your decision making relies on a complex algorithm with numerous (unknown) variables in a black box. So sometimes it is hard to explain and defend the results that are shown in the analytics tool.
In our example, you could assume that a conversion gets equally divided between the LinkedIn and Google Ads. However, it’s not that simple to just cut the conversion in half and attribute each to a channel. The weighing factor in this case will rely on many factors such as:
- What was the engagement for each session? Think about clicks, time on site, amount of pages visited etc.
- Does the last channel get a higher weight than the first channel?
- Is Google Ads perceived as superior to LinkedIn in the standard algorithm settings considering all things equal?
Unfortunately Google does not provide any answer to these questions. We also don’t have a complete list of parameters that determine the outcome of the data-driven attribution algorithm. However, I do belief that the GA4 attribution model provides marketeers with a solid “source of truth” to base their decisions on . It would be nice to see if Google will ever open-source the algorithm, just like Twitter did with its recommendation algorithm.
The pros and cons of each solution
Each solution has its pros and cons, and each should be taken into account when you as a marketeer start to make decisions based on the results.
Google Ads Pixel provides a clear and real-time conversion tracking. You know directly, without delay, how many conversions directly come from people clicking on your campaigns. It looks at the absolute and unmodelled amount of conversion (when consent mode is not configured). This is handy if you search for clarity in your campaign results and do not want to rely on black box algorithms that try to adjust error margins in web analytics. It excludes all external factors such as customer journeys and the time it takes to take the desired action. It looks at the snapshot of the conversion taking place in a specific session and no further! Another great feature of the usage of the Google Ads Pixel is that it sends extra PII- or metadata to Google Ads along with the conversion. Enhanced Conversion configuration and sending extra browser- and client data provides extra input into the “Google Algorithm” so that it can better service your ads to the right audience.
GA4 on the other considers the complete customer journey and the importance of multiple touchpoints of a unique visitor with the website or brand. It provides enhanced measurement possibilities where the visitor can be recognized across devices and provides a “sophisticated” attribution model to define the right mix of channels in the complete marketing strategy. It looks further than Google Ads and rather provides insights in the optimization in the right mix of channels. It comes with its flaws of not always being able to always explain the data as a marketeer. You just have to put your faith in the algorithm and assume that the algorithm is correct.
How to deal with different conversion results in your reporting?
As explained, both methods have their advantages, and it really depends on the situation on which conversion tracking method to use in your reporting. If you are running an e-commerce business that runs Black Friday campaigns, then it would be wise to look at the results from the Google Ads Conversions. The time-to-decision making is short (sense of urgency). The visitor does not travel a large customer journey with multiple sessions or touchpoints and is willing to decide to either buy or not buy in the same session.
If running ads campaigns is part of your core marketing efforts, then you most probably want to keep track on the effectivity of the campaigns. You want to track the ROAS, ROI, CPC and conversion rates. In the end you will have to make a business case and determine if your campaigns render the desired results. Also in this case it would be recommended to use the Ads Conversions to report on.
You want to report on the GA4 conversions when you want to make more strategic marketing decisions. You will have to look at the complete marketing funnel, customer journey and touchpoints within that journey. The Google Analytics data provides great insights in how to optimize the right channel mix for your marketing strategy and to adjust your efforts accordingly.
How can Dataleap help you report on your conversions?
Dataleap can assist with conversion tracking by helping you analyze and interpret the data from both Google Ads Conversions and GA4 conversions, depending on the situation and specific business needs and objectives.
For instance, if you operate an e-commerce business with short decision-making timeframes, such as Black Friday campaigns, Dataleap can help you focus on Google Ads Conversions to evaluate the effectiveness of your advertising efforts. We provide cutting-edge campaign dashboards to track the effectiveness of your ads campaigns and provide ongoing insights in your ROAS, ROI & CPC.
When you need to make more strategic marketing decisions and want to consider the entire marketing funnel, customer journey, and touchpoints, Dataleap can help you leverage GA4 conversions data. This information will enable you to optimize the right channel mix for your marketing strategy and adjust your efforts to maximize results.
By providing a comprehensive analysis of both Google Ads Conversions and GA4 conversions data, Dataleap ensures that you make informed decisions, ultimately improving the performance of your marketing campaigns and maximizing ROI.