How Do I Know if Conversion Tracking is Working? 10 Tips
As is revealed in discussions on the same over at runrex.com, accurate conversion tracking is an important part when it comes to achieving success in PPC advertising. This is will help you know what is working well and what isn’t, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments to your campaigns for the best results. If you have already set up conversion tracking, as is explained over at guttulus.com, and want to check and see if everything is working, then you must know if your conversion tracking is working properly, something this article will look to help with through the following 10 tips.
Types of conversion tracking
Before we jump straight into how you can check to see if conversion tracking is working, it is important to know the types of conversion tracking you can set up as covered over at runrex.com. Depending on the platform you are using, there are three separate ways through which you can track conversions and they include:
Creating a new code snippet for each conversion action, which is only specific to Google Ads at this point.
Utilizing URL rules. Most platforms that we used nowadays will have what is referred to as a universal pixel that will go on every page of your website. Within the platform, you can create conversion actions using either URL rules as articulated over at guttulus.com.
Utilizing custom events. Here, you change the pixel a little bit to fire a specific custom event on individual pages on your website.
Ways to check if your conversion tracking is working
There are three ways through which you can check and see if your conversion tracking and they include:
Manual checks
As is explained over at runrex.com, this was what we used to have to do back in the day before the tools we now have to help us with this process were introduced. It is the best option to use if you had hardcoded the conversion snippet onto your website. This means you didn’t use anything like Google Tag Manager or any additional type of container to house your pixel.
When to use manual checks
According to the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com, this option is best when you only have to check one or two pages. This is because it does take several steps to get through and can be pretty tedious if you have lots of pages to check. Utilizing the “find” or “search” function on your browser comes in handy when using this method is it allows you to find the information you need as they allow you to search for a string of characters that you know is going to populate the pixel you want to find.
Tag assistants
The second way you can check to see if your conversion tracking is working, one that isn’t as tedious as the first one is to utilize a tag assistant. As is articulated over at runrex.com, this is very useful if you are trying to check several pages for the manual codes you will encounter in the earlier method.
When to use tag assistants
Other than the fact that using a tag assistant comes in handy when you have to check several pages, the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com point out that it is also very useful if you want to find information that is specific to that channel. This means if you have a pixel that is customized to some degree through custom events or anything like that, these types of tools will give you lots more insights into what you are going to track in the pixel as well as what is firing and if there are any issues with it.
Consider installing Google Chrome for tag assistants
While there are several options out there when it comes to browsers from Firefox to Microsoft Edge as captured in discussions on the same over at runrex.com, a lot of these browsers don’t have nearly as many of the tag assistants that are available out there. Therefore, if you want to have access to a robust list of tag assistants to choose from, then you should consider downloading Chrome as it will provide you with so many options to choose from as far as tag assistants are concerned.
Types of tag assistants
The tag assistant you opt for will depend on the platform you are running your ad campaigns. For example, if you are running campaigns on Google Ads, then you should opt for Google Tag Assistant. If you are running campaigns on Microsoft Ads (previously known as Bing Ads), then you should opt for Bing’s UET Tag Helper as discussed over at guttulus.com, with Facebook’s Pixel Helper being what you should opt for when running campaigns on Facebook.
GTM Preview Mode
The third option for checking to see if your conversion tracking is working properly is utilizing Preview Mode within Google Tag Manager. As the name suggests, and as captured over at runrex.com, this option will only be usable if you are utilizing Google Tag Manager.
Benefits of using GTM Preview Mode
According to the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com, this tool is extremely helpful as it allows you to troubleshoot all of the different tags that are firing on all of your different pages, whether they are conversion tags or not, while also allowing you to find a lot of extremely useful information. This is why it is recommended that you use Google Tag Manager as this makes everything really easy to troubleshoot if something is not working as it should, while also helping to standardize a lot of the pixel setups and conversion tracking setups across all of the platforms that you are using which means that you can control everything in one area.
Activate Preview Mode
The first thing you need to do in Google Tag Manager is to activate Preview Mode for whatever page you are looking at. As is explained in detail over at runrex.com, how you go about this and the process involved will depend on if you have admin access to the Google Tag Manager container you are looking to check. Just remember that, when you are done in preview mode, make sure you go back and click “leave preview mode”. This is important because preview mode can be pretty annoying if you are just trying to visit the website and utilize the website itself as well as the fact that if you publish additional versions of the website, like say from version 5 to version 6, 7, or 8, you will still be stuck previewing the original version 5. This means you will end up troubleshooting conversion tracking issues for version 5 even though you have moved on and published new versions of the website.
The above discussion only just begins to scratch the surface as far as this topic is concerned, and you can uncover more insights by checking out the top-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com.