How to Duplicate a Google Ads Campaign (+ Why You Should)
Here, we'll break down how to duplicate a Google Ads campaign (as well as ads themselves, audiences, and keywords) -- and why you might want to....
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So, you’ve set up an “optimized” Google Ads campaign. You’ve identified your target audience, set an ideal budget, and are targeting top keywords. Stunning.
Now, after some time, you’re seeing a significant number of clicks, which have translated into sales. Even better!
Mission accomplished, right?
Unfortunately, your job isn’t done yet.
Aside from setting up Google Ads (formerly Adwords) campaigns, it’s just as critical to set up Google Ads conversion tracking. That’s because you can gather conversion data and gain a deeper understanding of your campaigns.
But why does this matter?
While generating sales from your Google Ads campaigns lets you know your ads are working, you need a peek behind the curtain to A: know what you did right, and B: find growth opportunities.
To do that, you need an efficient tool like Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM) for Google Ads conversion tracking.
Google Tag Manager is a free online tool and tag management system that lets advertisers manage and deploy marketing tags (code snippets used for collecting marketing data) without having to enlist a developer.
Just to be clear, GTM is not a conversion tracking tool, per se. In most cases, when deploying code, every other code on the website will need to be changed. But no changes to the code are necessary when applying Google tags (more on this later).
Put simply, “GTM is just a tool to add code to a website without needing a developer to physically do so,” explains HawkSEM Search Engine Marketing Manager Steve Gantzer.
GTM provides a centralized platform for tracking websites and collecting marketing data. Through this platform, marketers can stay on top of their online properties and keep track of their marketing activities.
In basketball, each player’s performance is monitored along with the game’s final score. This way, the coach can gauge the team’s overall performance and find individual opportunities for improvement.
Just like a basketball game, the success of your Google Ads campaigns is also a product of different elements that must be tracked to measure the performance of the entire campaign.
These and many other questions can be answered by tracking your conversions.
“Conversion tracking is important for a couple of reasons,” says Gantzer. “Most importantly, it helps measure the effectiveness of a company’s digital efforts (advertising, SEO, CRO, email marketing, etc.).”
Additionally, conversion tracking helps you gather valuable conversion data and collect insight so you can:
To learn how GTM works, it’s key need to understand three main elements:
Through the GTM web-based interface, you can create tags for specific information you want to obtain and set up triggers for when to fire the tag. Then, when the specific action is performed, the tag will fire.
You can then set up variables to obtain even more specific information, which helps automate your tag configurations.
(Image: Adobe Stock)
It’s highly likely you’re already familiar with Google Analytics. And while GA also provides data collection capabilities, it differs from GTM in one key aspect: reporting. GA is able to create reports and offer campaign analysis, while GTM is used only for storing and managing third-party code.
“Google Tag Manager is a tool that is meant to inject code into a website to send information on any number of variables someone might be interested in, [while] Google Analytics is the actual platform where those variables are captured and measured,” explains Gantzer.
So, comparing Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics is really like comparing apples with oranges. However, they make a pretty tasty fruit salad when combined.
As Gantzer explains further, Google Tag Manager can also track conversions by itself, although it will be very hard to do. So instead, use it in tandem with Google Analytics to become quite an effective tool for quickly implementing conversion tracking.
Many clients regularly have issues tracking conversions from click to close. But our exclusive ConversionIQ dashboard, which is primarily built on the successful deployment of GTM, helps connect the dots. See it in action here.
To begin setting up conversion tracking for your website, Google recommends you satisfy two main requirements:
Next we’ll provide instructions on installing a Google Tag on your website. If you’ve already done so in the past for Google Analytics, you can skip the next section and directly go to how to create a conversion action.
Otherwise, read on to learn how to set up a Google Tag on your website.
If you’re using a WordPress template, you can do this by accessing the Theme File Editor under Appearance and opening the header.php file.
Alternatively, you can also install the Google Site Kit plugin on WordPress to seamlessly install the Google Tag on your website, regardless of whether you’re using a template.
After creating a Google Tag Manager account and installing GTM on your website, you can head back to the GTM dashboard to create a conversion action.
Defining your conversion action lets you know how well your ads are performing in terms of attracting meaningful actions from your target audience.
For instance, if you’re advertising items for sale from your ecommerce store, you’ll most likely want to measure how many items are added to the basket and checked out.
To set up this conversion action on Google Ads, you will need to:
At this point, you will be asked where you want the action to be tracked: your website, an app, phone calls made through the ads, or imported from another platform like Google Analytics (more on this later).
In this case, we want to measure an action on the website.
Google scans your website to see if the Google tag has been set up. If you’ve set it up correctly, you will see a confirmation page along with a GTM tracking code. But if you haven’t set this up yet, refer to the previous section.
There are two methods to set up your conversion action: Use method one if you want to measure page load as a conversion and don’t want to customize your measurement setup. However, if you choose this method, you won’t be able to use Google Tag Manager for tag setup.
We’ll focus our discussion on the second method, which requires you to set up your conversion action manually.
Pro tip: It doesn’t matter if a user fills up a form multiple times since they only converted once, which means it should be counted once. But an item sold numerous times to the same user counts as multiple conversions.
A look at Google Tag Manager settings
After creating a conversion action, it’s time to set up the tag and add it to your website.
At this point, you have three options:
Guess which one we’re going to use? Hint: it rhymes with Floogle Bag Tanager.
To install the conversion tracking tag with Google Tag Manager, you will need two critical pieces of information: the Conversion ID and the Conversion Label of your Conversion Action. Once you have these two, follow the instructions below to set up the tag:
Note: to ensure proper tracking across different browsers, you must ensure that the Conversion linker is enabled and set up to fire on all web pages.
If you want to see if your conversion tag has been set up correctly or if you suspect that something is wrong, sign in to your Google Ads account to confirm the existence of the problem.
And that’s it! You’ve successfully combined the power of Google Ads and Google Tag Manager to enable a more efficient way of tracking conversions from your Google Ads campaigns.
Conversion tracking is an essential process in digital marketing that offers greater insight into the success of your marketing strategies.
In that regard, Google Tag Manager can definitely make your life easier once you’ve learned how to set it up. Integrating Google Ads and Google Tag Manager makes testing and validating conversion events much easier and more efficient. This speeds up the time it would take to optimize your advertising efforts to drive more conversions.
More conversions means the higher likelihood of closed business, which means you’re that much closer to scaling your business and crushing your goals.
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