04Aug 23 Why & How to Set Up Google Ads Enhanced Conversions

Enhanced conversions are the main objective of why we advertise. It is crucial to learn how ad campaigns are performing to contribute to your central goal. Clicks and impressions are good performance metrics but conversions are the real deal as it truly drives your business. It is a little tricky and challenging to measure conversions accurately.

The process of enhanced conversion tracking is simplified with Google’s latest enhanced conversions feature. This feature significantly improves the accuracy of conversion tracking for Google Ads.

Let us look into the following aspects of conversion tracking:

• What are Google Ads enhanced conversions?
• How does enhanced conversion work?
• Why is it considered a significant aspect of conversion tracking at present?
• How can you establish enhanced conversions with the help of Google Tag Manager?

Without further ado, let’s begin!

What are Google Ads Enhanced Conversions?

Google Ads launched enhanced conversions with a motive to aid advertisers in accurately measuring their conversions within Google Ads. This feature works by introducing hashed first-party consumer data collected from websites into the already existing conversion tags.

Applying enhanced conversions, you can trace the user’s actions upon clicking on your ad. These actions could look like signing up for the newsletter, filling up a form, or enrolling in a course.

Hashing is the process of storing and segmenting data in a form where it is easy to find particular information. For instance, if you have a list of 2000 numbers and must find one particular number. You will benefit from this storage technique to filter one number that is important to you. The data thus stored is called hashed data.

To define the process, let us look at the customer data’s journey from the point they see your advertisement:

The user watches your ad → They convert on your website to become a customer → The conversion tag hashes the data and sends it to Google → Your hashed data is then matched with Google’s own hashed directory and reports a conversion on your account.

This is the entire flowchart following a conversion.

How Does Enhanced Conversion Work?

When a customer interacts with your website and chooses to take action, your website’s conversion tracking tags actively collect and record information. The collected information may be an email address, home address, or phone number.

A protected one-way algorithm – SHA256 is used to hash the collected information and then sent it to Google. SHA256 transforms the information into a distinct set of characters. This step is crucial for privatising and securing the data while it is in the transmission process.

As soon as Google receives this hashed information, it matches the information with the signed-in accounts on Google. The search engine then attributes the campaign conversions to actions such as clicks or views. This is an efficient way of tracking conversions accurately to maintain customer privacy.

Digital Marketing Trends in 2023 to Enhance Privacy in Tracking

Besides elevating the conversion tracking levels, the feature also enables advertisers to utilize this hashed data to develop customer personas. They create custom audiences inspired by the hashed customer data to yield more fruitful and relevant ads.

Importance of Conversion Feature

Data privacy is a matter of concern for both consumer and business parties. The impact is such that the government has to intervene and adopt data protection laws such as CCPA and GDPR.

With the web browser updates involving Firefox’s ETP and Safari’s ITP, tracking customer data has become more difficult for advertisers and marketers.

Therefore, there is an ever-increasing demand for tools and features that ensures accurate conversion tracking while safeguarding customers’ privacy rights.

We will now explore the history of enhanced conversions and their implications in present-day privacy regulatory scenarios.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

GDPR is a significant data protection law that has been introduced in recent years by European Union in the year 2018. This law empowers European Union citizens to have control over how their data is collected and used by brands. GDPR applies to all companies engaging with European Union citizens, irrespective of their location.

According to this regulation, Companies will have to ask for users’ consent before collecting and utilizing their personal information. It also enables users to modify, delete, or access their data anytime they want. Any company failing to abide by the rules are liable to pay hefty fines as a punishment.

Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)

The state of California announced CCPA in the year 2019. This regulation empowered Californians to control what personal data companies can collect and utilize. It directs companies to inform users beforehand about the way their data is going to be used. This law is applicable to all businesses that operate out of California. It also involves agencies that meet certain requirements concerning data and finance processing.

As per this regulation, Californians can forbid companies from selling, sharing or disclosing their personal information. They can request brands to delete their information from the database. Failure to comply with the rules will result in huge fines for companies.

The introduction of GDPR and CCPA has significantly revolutionized the process of data collection and processing. There is a rise in transparency and security for users over their personal details. What acted as a boon for users slowly grew into a challenge for companies. It became increasingly difficult for brands to track customer information correctly.

This has necessitated the presence of features such as Google Ads enhanced conversions to ensure accurate enhanced conversion tracking. It is operated using restricted data processing.

Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP)

Safari and Firefox are two browsers that have improved the tracking of information more difficult for advertisers.

Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) are two browser updates that have made tracking user data more difficult for advertisers and marketers.

Safari 11.0 was launched for the first time in the year 2017 with Intelligent Tracking Prevention. The aim to create ITP was to put a limit on the functions of third-party cookies. These cookies improve privacy by limiting the cookies’ ability to track users across websites. ITP ensures that the cookies are deleted within 24 hours of inactivity. This duration might as well last up to 30 days depending on the type of cookie.

ITP also limits the authority of third-party cookies to gain access to first-party cookies. This makes it very difficult to trace users through different websites.

Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP)

Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) was first launched in 2018 when Firefox 63.0 was released. Firefox utilizes a list of tracking domains to block cookies with tracking ability and other technologies.

Additionally, ETP excels at blocking fingerprinting. This technique tracks Internet users based on unique browser configurations.

There have been several updates in both ITP and ETP since their inception. All these updates have imposed limitations on third-party cookies and other tracking elements to trace users.

With all these updates, there has been a surge in difficulties in tracking user data. Marketers and advertisers are turning to features like Google Ads enhanced conversions and first-party data to track user information ethically.

How to Establish Enhanced Conversions Using Google Tag Manager

Note these exclusive tips before you enter the domain of enhanced conversions.

• Access the exact Google Tag Manager and Google Ads.
• You must have the ability to add a test order or showcase a test lead action.
• There should be first-party data present on the page. This is where the conversion tag gets triggered.
• Ensure you or your web designing team have the authority to do website modifications.

Keep yourself up to date with Google’s customer data policies and read as well as accept enhanced conversions’ terms and conditions in Google Ads. This process is crucial to ensure compliance with all necessary regulations and policies.

Let us move on to the steps that lead to Google Ads setup:

Step 1

Switch on enhanced conversions

• Access your Google Ads account and scroll to the section where you wish to add the enhanced conversion.
• Move your cursor to the conversion tab.
• Navigate the conversion tab in the “Tools and Settings” section.
• Choose the “Conversion Action” in the applicable enhanced conversions spot.
• Browse for “Enhanced Conversions” in the dropdown menu next.
• Select “Turn on enhanced conversions.”
• Accept Google service terms and choose “Global site tag” or “Google Tag Manager.”
• Tap on “NEXT” to continue.
• Select “Check URL” once you enter the website.

Having finished these steps, move forward to your account in Google Tag Manager. We will continue with the following steps in this section.

Step 2

Execute with Google Tag Manager

In this step, you must ensure that “Google Ads Conversion Tag” is active in your Tag Manager account.

Step 3

Perform Test Order Using Google Tag Manager’s Preview Mode

Considering that you are an e-commerce business owner and your customer is at the checkout page. We will show you how to extract email addresses in the following way just by adding a Chrome extension:

• Add the Chrome Extension GTM Variable Builder
• Right-click the page and choose the “Inspect” option
• Tap the “Console” tab.
• Spot the email address.

Here, the Chrome extension will bring forth the Javascript code. Using this code you will be able to extract the email address.

Once your JavaScript has successfully extracted the emails, you will receive a green popup notification under the heading that would read “FOR USE IN A GTM CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT VARIABLE.” Copy this message and paste it because it is crucial in building a GTM custom Javascript variable.

Now, going forward, you will have to look for Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag.
Here you will get an option to check many options. Choose the “Include user-provided data from your website” option to continue.

Click on “New Variable” to create one. Add a name to it and move down to the “Email” section. Here select “New Variable” once again to build a new variable under the email section.

Next, click on the block that appears on the screen and search Custom Javascript.

Here, paste the green text you copied earlier under the message that says, “FOR USE IN A GTM CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT VARIABLE.”

Click on “Save”. This is the final step to implementing enhanced conversions.

Step 4

Examine the New Variable in Google Tag Manager

Before you rush to publishing, it is crucial to test how your new variable will appear. For this, you can use the preview mode in Google Tag Manager to check if your email is getting extracted using the new variable you just created.

You can see the email in the tag output by hitting on the “Conversion Tracking Tag.” you can find this under the “Tags” tab.

You will be able to display the values easily by selecting the “Values” option present in the top right corner. You will notice that the Window Loaded (on the left of the screen) is populated with variables.

Bottom Line

If you want a more detailed and accurate view of your conversions, your only plan of action should be to implement Google Ads-enhanced conversions within your Google Tag Manager.

Enhanced conversions help you improve your online advertising strategies by introducing data to drive decision-making. Ensure effective Google Ads optimization.

This article has covered regulations regarding data accumulation and storage, and steps to ethically collect customer data while complying with rules. Apply your business sensibility to analyze and narrow down the accurate data to your exact requirement. Conversion optimization based on this data will soon bring you results and you will notice upliftment in your conversion rates.

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