Google Ads: Measure your conversions!

Cotswold Web • 18 October 2023

Heading 1

You can invest as much time and money as you like into Google Ads. But if you don’t measure conversions, you will have no idea how effective they are for your business and how good your return on investment (ROI) is.

A conversion happens every time your ad achieves its purpose. This isn’t just a sale. In fact, for many business to business (B2B) companies, booking a call or a prospective customer filling in an enquiry form is an important conversion.

As a business, you decide on what counts as a conversion depending on your own business goals. Each business will have its own higher value conversions, which won’t be the same as those of other businesses.

It is essential to always measure these conversions. It is the one definitive way of checking whether your ads are leading to those meaningful actions you want potential customers to take.


Tracking your conversions


Google Ads work just as well for start-ups and SMEs as they do for big businesses Can Google Ads work for small businesses? (cotswoldweb.co.uk) When you set up your Google Ads (which used to be known as Google AdWords), you need to set up conversion tracking to see how effectively ad clicks lead to a particular action – including phone calls, downloads, sales and newsletter sign-ups.

You can also set a conversion value when you set up your ads. This should be a specific customer action that is valuable to your business. Conversion values can either be the same value for each conversion (static values) or different values for each specific transaction (dynamic values).

The process of setting up Google Ads is different depending on what sort of conversion you want to track.  You can also set up a different conversion action for each sort of conversion you want to monitor, so one conversion action could track phone calls to your business and another could track sales. If you’re not sure how to do it, Google Ads will take you through the process of setting up your conversion measurements when you set up your ads.

The conversion data will show you how often the ads lead to people performing the action you want them to perform.

All Google Ads users can and should monitor their ROI ie how much they have to spend to get a prospective customer to perform the action they want them to perform.

With sales, it’s pretty straightforward to measure. If you spend £10 on clicks to get a sale of £100, you’ve made a £90 profit from your ads – a good ROI.

With other forms of conversion, it is slightly harder to track. But if you spend £10 to get one phone call and it takes 10 phone calls to make a £2,000 sale, that’s £1,900 ROI.

And those other phone calls might come back to your business in a month, two months or a year, after they have spent time talking to other businesses and weighing up their options.

Conversion values


A conversion value is a monetary numerical value attached to a specific conversion, based on its value to your own individual business. Assigning conversion values will help you track your return on investment of a particular ad campaign, which will also help with decision making for the future – helping you to optimise your ads to achieve the highest value conversion for your business.

Dynamic conversion values can help to identify the true value of a keyword.

If keyword 1 has driven 100 conversions and keyword 2 has driven only 20, it might appear that keyword 1 is the most valuable.

But if keyword 1 has driven conversions valued at £10 each and keyword 2 has driven conversions valued at £100 each, keyword 2 has earned the business £2,000, while keyword 1 has only earned £1,000.

Tracking conversions in this way will help a business to allocate ad spend in the best way to generate the highest ROI.

Conversion values in Google Ads are mainly used for leads which directly drive sales, where it easier to measure a monetary value to the conversion. For a phone call or lead generation form, which many B2B businesses are aiming for, it won’t always be easy to attribute a monetary value to these conversions. Instead, these conversions can be referred to as key performance indicators or KPIs.

What is a ‘good’ conversion rate?


The conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors that perform your desired goal for each ad interaction.

The average conversion rate for Google Ads is 3.75%, but this masks big differences between industries. Data from 2022 shows a conversion rate of over 15% for animals and pets, compared to just over 2% for fashion and jewellery.

So a ‘good’ conversion rate is very specific to a particular industry.

You can track your conversion rate by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of interactions with your ad.

So if 40 visitors converted out of 2,000 who interacted with the ad, you would divide 40 by 2,000, giving you 0.02 – or 2%. For a low-cost consumer product, that rate would almost certainly be too low. But for a big ticket B2B service, that could be a very acceptable conversion rate.

You can read more about making your Google Ads campaigns more profitable here Google Ads tips to make your campaigns more profitable (cotswoldweb.co.uk)

 

If you are running Google Ads which don’t convert, you are wasting your money and time. If you don’t know how well they are converting, you need to start tracking your conversions straightaway.

Once you are tracking your conversions, you can adjust your spending and the way you optimise your ads to achieve a better ROI for your business.

More Posts.

A man is pointing at a group of people with a marker.
by Richard Jaques 26 March 2025
In today's digital landscape, effective content marketing can be the key differentiator for small businesses striving to stand out. As consumers increasingly turn to online platforms for information, brands must engage their audiences through valuable content that resonates with their needs. Understanding the nuances of content marketing is crucial; it encompasses various strategies designed to attract, inform, and delight customers while ultimately driving sales. From developing engaging customer personas to measuring success through specific metrics, small businesses have an incredible opportunity to refine their marketing approach. This article explores eight proven strategies that can lead to content marketing success for small businesses, equipping you with the tools necessary to create impactful and sustainable marketing efforts. 1. Understanding the Importance of Content Marketing Content marketing is vital for small businesses. It helps connect them with their target audience, builds brand awareness, and drives organic traffic. A well thought out content marketing strategy lets small businesses compete with larger companies by using cost effective methods. Regularly sharing valuable content can position a business as an expert in its field. This fosters trust and encourages potential customers to seek their services. Documenting your content strategy also increases the chances of seeing your marketing efforts as effective, allowing a higher allocation of budget toward content marketing. Creating a diverse range of content types is key. Here are some content formats to consider: Blog Posts Social Media Posts Email Marketing Visual Content Developing a strategic content plan helps business owners carve out unique market spaces. Establishing clear business goals and using tools like Google Analytics to gauge conversion rates can refine your approach. Below is a quick checklist for effective content marketing: Know your target audience Set SMART goals Use a content calendar Perform a content audit By focusing on these elements, small businesses can enhance their content marketing efforts and achieve growth. 2. Developing Customer Personas for Targeted Engagement To create targeted content, small business owners should develop detailed buyer personas. These personas are fictional versions of ideal customers, including demographic and psychographic details. Tools like Google Analytics and social media insights provide valuable data to shape these personas, making them more accurate. Understanding your target audience through buyer personas is key. It allows content marketers to tailor pieces of content that address specific needs and challenges. This approach boosts engagement and builds trust with potential customers. It is often necessary to have multiple personas to cater to various products, services, or customer segments. Each persona reflects different motivations and interactions with your brand at various stages of the customer journey. Here's how you can develop them: Collect Data: Use surveys, Google Analytics, and social media insights. Analyse: Determine the needs, interests, and behaviours of your audience. Create Multiple Personas: Define different segments based on your findings. Tailor Content: Use the personas to guide your content marketing efforts. Effective personas lead to a successful content marketing strategy, enhancing your business goals with every piece of content created. 3. Crafting a Comprehensive Content Plan Creating a successful content plan is key for small business owners. It acts as a guide to align all your content marketing efforts with your business goals. Here’s how you can craft a comprehensive content plan: Identify Key Topic Areas: Focus on subjects relevant to your target audience. This ensures you create valuable content that speaks directly to potential customers. Choose Content Types: Use a mix of blog posts, infographics, and videos. Different content formats can help engage various segments of your market. Plan Distribution Channels: Decide where to share your content. Consider social media posts, email marketing, and your website for maximum reach. Set Calls to Action: Encourage your audience to take the next step. This could be signing up for a newsletter or visiting a product page. Utilise a Content Calendar: This keeps your content marketing strategy organised and consistent, minimising missed opportunities. Analyse Metrics: Use Google Analytics to track conversion rates, engagement, and content performance. Including these elements in your content plan aligns with the fact that structured strategies significantly boost success rates. Regular content audits refine this strategy further, ensuring continued engagement and growth .
A close up of a blue laptop keyboard with white keys
by Richard Jaques 13 March 2025
This article will delve into the strategies, statistics, and tips that will define successful content marketing efforts in the coming years
A magnifying glass with the word seo on it
11 March 2025
Today, SEO is about far more than stuffing your website with keywords. Google and the other search engines are wise to this tactic and have moved on from it.
A woman is sitting at a desk using a laptop computer.
20 January 2025
While different disciplines, UX is becoming increasingly important to SEO success. It isn’t a direct ranking factor in SEO,
silhouette  of a person against a backdrop of computer text
19 November 2024
Heading 1 Artificial intelligence (AI) has had a huge impact in many areas of life and SEO is no exception. While it has made online searches easier for consumers, keeping up with it and staying ahead as a business can be challenging. As Google integrates advanced AI into its search results, businesses must rethink their SEO strategies. Understanding the future of SEO in the context of AI is essential to appear high on search rankings and remain competitive. Traditionally, search engine optimisation (SEO) has relied largely on keyword optimisation and link building. If you sell garden products, you would make sure the phrase ‘garden products’ was used frequently throughout your website. You would also look to get some links back to your site from other websites – maybe other businesses in your local area or in a complementary sector. These traditional SEO methods are becoming less effective. AI means search engines like Google and Bing have become better at understanding the intent behind a search, through machine learning algorithms analysing huge quantities of data, as well as natural language processing. Natural language processing doesn’t just understand the words in a query, it understands the context and intent behind it. AI can even understand synonyms, slang and regional variation in language! When someone searches for something online, AI can analyse, interpret and predict their behaviour. So businesses have to adapt their SEO strategies to changing algorithms to stay competitive. You need to have a deeper understanding of your target audience and produce content which meets their needs and answers their queries. It is about providing the best answer to the questions your audience is asking, because AI algorithms are skilled at recognising content which meets the search intent of users and provides value. This means that content which is designed to meet specific needs, answer questions and provide the solutions to problems is more likely to rank higher in searches. AI algorithms will prioritise content which resonates with users on a human level – with every paragraph adding more value and depth. This aligns with AI’s preference for content which engages and informs – and also helps build a stronger connection with your target audience. In addition, AI is making voice searches (e.g. Alexa) much more effective. Voice searches tend to use more words than online searches e.g. ‘find me healthy snacks for pre-school children’ rather than just typing ‘healthy snacks’ into Google with no context. This aspect of AI will continue to grow in importance and become even more widely used.
SEO Audit by Cotswold Web Cheltenham
by Cotswold Web 1 October 2024
An SEO audit is a way to evaluate how well your website is optimised for search engines
Share by: