The following excerpt is from Perry Marshall, Mike Rhodes and Bryan Todd’s book Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | IndieBound
Do you run a lead-generation site where a visitor can fill in a form and get a free brochure? We’ll walk you through how to set up your Google account to track it.
1. Create a new conversion and name it.
First, tell Google what kind of conversion you want tracked. Click the three dots at the very top of your AdWords page and select “Conversions.” On the resulting page, click the big blue “+ Conversion” button.
Next, click the “Website” option since you’re tracking something that happens on your site.
Google will ask you to name your conversion. Choose a name that tells you what the conversion is (e.g., “Opt in for brochure”) and select “Webpage.”
2. Set your conversion category.
You’ll be asked to choose one of the following categories for your conversion type:
- Purchase sale
- Sign up
- Lead
- View of a key page
- Other
In this example, “Sign up” and “Lead” are probably both applicable, but “Lead” is a little more relevant.
3. Set a conversion value.
If you’re not running an e-commerce site, you may be tempted to skip this one, but please don’t. Setting a conversion value right from the beginning is going to make your data far more valuable in the long run.
Think of the conversion value as a point system that rates the relative value of the different types of conversions that exist within your business. For example, you can assign 50 points to a conversion that involves a visitor completing your quiz but 100 points if they complete a “please call me” lead-capture form. If your site is very basic and only offers one conversion action, then you can simply set the conversion value as 1.
4. Set a conversion count.
There are two options: You can choose “every” or “one.”
“Every” measures every single sale or lead. If you were to pick “one,” then if visitors did the same thing…
