Google Ads enhanced conversions: What it is and how to set it up

There have been quite a few changes in marketing analytics over the past couple of years, the main goal of which is to protect the privacy of users’ data.

The GDPR, restrictions on the use of third-party cookies, the release of Google Analytics 4 — all of this complicates campaign analysis and conversion tracking for marketers.

To help marketers improve their conversion tracking accuracy in a privacy-friendly way, Google has added a new feature to Google Ads called enhanced conversions. In this article, we explain what enhanced conversions is, the advantages of this feature, and different ways to set it up.

Enhanced conversions is a relatively new Google Ads feature designed to improve the accuracy of conversion tracking in a way that protects user privacy. With enhanced conversions, you can collect first-party data from your site (name, phone number, user email) and send it to Google Ads in encrypted form. Google uses the SHA-256 hashing algorithm for this. User information is converted into unique fixed-length characters.

Google then matches this data with the customer’s Google account to track the customer’s path to conversion. This will allow you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns by associating conversions with ads customers have clicked on.

Let’s consider how enhanced conversions works with two examples. For both examples, we will assume you have an online shop that sells musical instruments.

Example 1:

• Alex searches for a guitar on Google under his account.
• He sees your ad on the Google search results page, clicks on it, and goes to your online shop.
• Your enhanced conversions tracking tag captures Alex’s email address, hashes it, and sends it to Google Ads.
• On your site, Alex studies guitars, watches video reviews, and adds the guitar he likes to the cart, but then Carol comes home and distracts Alex from completing the purchase.
• A few days later, Alex returns to the site and completes the purchase.
• The email address that Alex provides when confirming the order is hashed again and sent to Google Ads.
• With this email address, Google Ads can now link all conversions (pageview, videoview, add to cart, and purchase) to the original ad that Alex clicked on.

Example 2:

• Carol is on her lunch break looking from her Google work account for a guitar to give Alex as a gift.
• She sees your ad on the search results page, clicks on it, and goes to your site.
• The enhanced conversions tracking tag hashes Carol’s work email and sends it to Google Ads.
• On your website, Carol studies your guitars, but then the break ends — she needs to get back to work.
• After work, Carol returns to the site from her smartphone and makes a purchase, indicating her personal email address, phone number, and delivery address.
• This data is hashed and transmitted to Google Ads.
• Since Carol always uses two-factor authentication, Google Ads can use her phone number to link her work and personal emails. This allows Google Ads to understand that the same user clicked on the ad and made the purchase. If it weren’t for enhanced conversions, the system might not link these actions and would see two users.

In Google Ads, you can set up two types of enhanced conversions: for web and for leads.

Enhanced conversions for web is for those who want to track online conversions. In this case, encrypted first-party data (the user’s name, email address, phone number, and address) is sent to Google Ads when the user makes a purchase on your site.

Enhanced conversions for leads is suitable for those who want to track offline conversions (in a store, by phone, etc.). In this case, you are uploading encrypted first-party data about converted users from a CRM system to Google Ads. Google Ads then uses this data to link the conversion to the corresponding ad campaign.

• Use first-party data without violating privacy. With the use of third-party data becoming increasingly limited, hashed native site data is a viable alternative and will help you measure conversions more accurately.
• Get more conversion data. Some conversions may be lost due to third-party cookie restrictions, privacy laws, and difficulties in tracking user activity across devices. Enhanced conversions will help you avoid these problems. According to Google research, advertisers who use enhanced conversions have been able to increase their average conversions by 17%.
• Improve the accuracy of your conversion data. If you work with Google Ads, you may have noticed that the conversion data in the advertising service and your analytics platform may not match. Enhanced conversions improves the accuracy of conversion attribution by matching user data to relevant ads. Accordingly, the ROAS of your advertising campaigns will become more accurate.
• Improve your bid and budget management. Enhanced conversions combined with Smart Bidding and data-driven attribution will help you make much better campaign optimization decisions.

There are several ways to set up enhanced conversions depending on how you set up data collection on your site: through Google Tag Manager (GTM) or the Google tag (gtag.js).

There are four main setup options:

1. Automatic setup (suitable for both GTM and gtag.js)
2. Manual setup using Google Tag Manager
3. Manual setup with the Google tag
4. Setup with the Google Ads API

Since setting up enhanced conversions with the Google tag and the Google Ads API may require developers’ input, in this article, we’ll take a closer look at the first two methods that you can implement yourself.

Using the automatic method, you can set up enhanced conversions without changing the conversion tracking code that is already on your page. But the automatic method is only available in some Google Ads accounts.

The automatic method may not be available when:

• There is no user data on the conversion page
• The conversion is triggered on several different pages where user data is stored in various unique ways
• There is insufficient conversion data for auto-configuration

What you need to set up enhanced conversions:

• The URL of the conversion page on which the conversion tag fires (for example, the URL of the confirmation page) and the trigger for the conversion event (for example, a button click or page view)
• The page on which the conversion tracking tag fires must have first-party customer data available
• Read and agree to the Google Ads enhanced conversions terms and conditions

Basic setup steps:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account. In the upper right corner, click on Tools and settings, and in the Measurement section, select Conversions.

2. Select the conversion action you want to set up enhanced tracking for.

3. Click on the Enhanced conversions section and check the box next to Turn on enhanced conversions.

4. Click Agree to the compliance statement. Then select Google tag or Google Tag Manager and click Next.

5. Check your site for the Google tag. To do this, enter the landing page URL and click Check URL.

6. The Tag type field will display the tracking method you use on your site. If it’s a Google tag, you should be able to complete the setup at this point. If you are using Google Tag Manager, click the Open Google Tag Manager link, click Save, and continue with your GTM account.

7. To complete automatic setup in GTM, you have to wait five days after signing the Terms of Use in your Google Ads account. Once this period has passed, sign in to your Google Tag Manager account. Open the Tags tab and select the Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag for which you want to implement enhanced conversions.

Make sure the Conversion ID and Conversion Label for the tag and for the Google Ads conversion tracking match.

8. Check the box next to Include user-provided data from your website and select New Variable… from the drop-down list.

9. Select Automatic collection. Click Save for the variable, then save the tag.

These steps must be repeated for each conversion action for which you want to set up enhanced conversions.

In this way, you can set up enhanced conversion tracking with minimal or no changes to your website tag configuration.

To set up enhanced conversions using GTM:

• You should already have Google Ads conversion tracking set up with GTM. Otherwise (if you’re importing goals from Google Analytics), you’ll need to create a new Google Ads conversion action using GTM.
• You’ll need the URL of the conversion page on which the conversion tag fires (for example, the URL of the confirmation page) and the trigger for the conversion event (for example, a button click or page view).
• The page on which the conversion tracking tag fires must have first-party customer data available.
• You need to read and agree to the Google Ads enhanced conversions terms and conditions.

There are three manual configuration options in GTM:

• With CSS selectors. This option is the easiest, since you do not need to change the code on the site. It is enough that the client’s first-party data is available on the conversion page.
• With a data layer variable. With this option, you'll need to make small changes to the dataLayer. This option is suitable for those who often change the site code, such as formatting or CSS selectors.
• Using the Code method. You can transfer all data as a single object. To do this, you need to add JavaScript variables to the conversion page in which the client’s first-party data will be defined. This option is relevant if customer data is not available on the conversion page (for example, if you need to transfer it from the previous page).

Next, we consider the setup option using CSS selectors.

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account. In the upper right corner, click on Tools and settings, and in the Measurement section, select Conversions.

2. Select the conversion action you want to set up enhanced tracking for.

3. Click on the Enhanced conversions section and check the box next to Turn on enhanced conversions.

4. Click Agree to the compliance statement. Then select Google tag or Google Tag Manager and click Next.

5. Check your site for the Google tag. To do this, enter the landing page URL and click Check URL.

6. In the Tag type field, a tracking method should appear: Google Tag Manager. Click Save and continue with the setup in your GTM account.

To complete automatic setup in GTM, you must wait five days after signing the Terms of Use in your Google Ads account.

1. Open the conversion page in the Chrome browser. It should already have a conversion tracking tag on it. If you aren’t sure about this, check with your developers. To set up enhanced conversions, this page must contain the user’s email address or physical address along with the first name, last name, zip code, and country. The rest of the fields are optional.

2. Copy the CSS selectors that you will need to specify in Google Tag Manager. To do this, on the conversion page, click on the field with the data you want to send — for example, the email field. Then right-click and select View Code. The source code of the site will appear in DevTools, and part of the code will be highlighted. Hover over the highlighted code, right-click and select Copy, then choose Copy selector.

1. Sign in to your Google Tag Manager account. Open the Tags tab and select the Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag for which you want to implement enhanced conversions.

Make sure the Conversion ID and Conversion Label for the tag and for the Google Ads conversion match.

2. Check the box next to Include user-provided data from your website and select New Variable… from the drop-down list.

3. Select Manual configuration.

4. For each user data field that you want to track, select New Variable… from the drop-down menu.

5. On the Variable Configuration screen, click the Choose a variable type link and select DOM Element.

6. On the Variable Configuration screen, in the Selection Method field, select CSS Selector and enter the selector you copied from the conversion page.

7. Give the variable a name and save it.

These steps must be repeated for each conversion action for which you want to set up enhanced conversions.

Important! What should I do if the conversion for which I want to set enhanced conversions has been imported from Google Analytics and this option is not available for it?

In this case, you need to create a similar conversion with Conversions source=Website.

To avoid duplication, for identical purposes you can select the Secondary conversion type; in this case, these conversions will not affect the optimization (they will be used for observation and reporting) and will also allow you to receive additional signals. Once the conversion has collected enough data, you can optionally switch to optimization for Website (Google Ads) conversion.

If you set up enhanced conversions with GTM, check if the tag works correctly when a conversion action is performed.

To do this, open Google Tag Assistant and enable debug mode for the conversion page. In the Tags tab, select the desired event. In our example, this is Google Ads - Website Registration:

By clicking on a tag, you will see detailed information about it:

If the tag works correctly, information about conversions should appear in Google Ads within 48 hours.

You can check the conversion status in your Google Ads account. To do this, in the upper right corner, click on Tools and settings, and in the Measurement section, select Conversions. Select a conversion and go to the Diagnostics tab. If everything is configured and working correctly, you’ll see the following message:

If you see a similar status on the screen, it can serve as an indicator of a lowered Match Rate.

Such a status does not always indicate that you really need to change the way you track conversions. We ran into a similar issue while setting up enhanced conversions for one of our clients. In that case, the Match Rate was influenced by the type of emails that were sent along with the conversions. Since our client was B2B, a significant part of the transmitted emails were not tied to Google Workspace accounts and, as a result, there was no match.

The incremental impact of implementing enhanced conversions can be estimated within two to four weeks.

Enhanced conversions helps advertisers and marketers use first-party data without violating privacy requirements. You can use enhanced conversions to get more conversion data and improve its accuracy, improve bid and budget management, and optimize your advertising campaigns in general.

There are many ways to set up enhanced conversions depending on how tracking is implemented on your site.

If you need help setting up enhanced conversions, sign up for a demo. OWOX specialists will help you set up enhanced conversion tracking in a way that is relevant for your website.