Digital Gurus

How to track the enquiries your ads bring in

Tracking shows which ads bring in enquiries, and lets the ad platforms find you more of them. What to track, how it works, and how to set it up on your website.

Reviewed by Chris Day, COO Last reviewed

7 min read

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When you pay for ads, every click costs money. Tracking tells you which of those clicks turned into an enquiry, a booking or a sale, so you can judge your advertising by the work it brings in rather than by traffic.

Why tracking matters for paid ads

Without tracking, an ad platform can tell you how many people saw your ad and how many clicked. It can't tell you whether any of them got in touch. You'd be comparing ads, channels and audiences on clicks alone, and the cheapest clicks are often not the ones that turn into customers.

With a conversion recorded each time someone enquires, you can see what each enquiry cost (your cost per lead) and, if you sell online, what each pound of spend returned (ROAS). It's also what lets us optimise your campaign towards enquiries: the ad platforms learn from every recorded conversion who is likely to enquire next.

What to track

A conversion is the action you want someone to take on your website. Pick the ones that mean real work for your business. For most service businesses that's one or two of these.

Conversion Your visitor
Enquiry forms Sends your contact or quote form Counted: The form's thank-you message or page
Calls Calls the phone number shown on your Google ad Counted: A call to Google's forwarding number
Bookings Books a consultation, table or appointment Counted: The booking confirmation
Purchases Completes an order in your online shop Counted: The order confirmation, with its value

Calls are tracked by Google Ads itself rather than by a tag. Your ad shows a Google forwarding number that rings through to your phone, and Google records each call to it as a conversion.

Signing up for an account or reaching a key page, such as your price list, can count too. Track the actions that mean real work for you, rather than everything.

How it works, from click to enquiry

Here's one enquiry's journey, from the moment someone clicks your ad to the moment it shows up in your reporting.

  1. Someone clicks your ad

    Wherever it ran: a search, a feed or a ChatGPT answer.

  2. They enquire on your website

    They send your form, book or buy.

  3. Your tag fires

    Google Tag Manager spots the action and passes it on, if they have consented.

  4. A conversion is recorded

    The ad platform matches the enquiry to the ad that brought it.

  5. You see it in the Performance Hub

    Next to the impressions and clicks that led to it.

Then it feeds back in. With enquiries recorded, the campaign can be optimised towards more of them, not just more clicks.

The piece on your website is the tag. It's a small script that watches for the actions you care about and reports them to the ad platforms. That's all conversion tracking is: a tag on your site, and a conversion recorded against the ad that brought the visitor.

One tag, set up once

We use Google Tag Manager to manage tracking on your website. It goes on once, and from then on we can add and change tracking for each channel without touching your site again. You can install it yourself, or ask and we'll set it up for you.

You'll get a Tag Manager code to paste in, and inside it an ID that looks like GTM-XXXXXXXX. We send you your ID, and it's unique to you, so don't install the example one.

Tracking uses cookies and similar technology, and privacy law such as GDPR means visitors have to agree before most of it runs. Before your campaign launches, we check that your cookie banner asks for that consent, and we connect Tag Manager to it so each tag fires only once consent is given or when it isn't needed.

No banner yet? We can add one to your website through Tag Manager. Our privacy guide covers which tags need consent, cookie banners and consent management platforms.

Install Tag Manager on your website

Most website builders have a plugin or a built-in setting for Tag Manager. Open your platform for the steps.

WordPress With the GTM4WP plugin
  1. Go to your website's admin area.
  2. Open Plugins and click Add New Plugin.
  3. Search for GTM4WP (Google Tag Manager for WordPress), click Install Now, then Activate.
  4. Find GTM4WP on the plugins page and click Settings.
  5. Paste your Tag Manager ID into Google Tag Manager ID, exactly as sent, with no quotation marks.
  6. Click Save Changes, then let us know and we'll check it's working.
Wix With Wix's built-in integration
  1. Go to your Wix dashboard.
  2. Open Settings, then the Marketing Integrations card.
  3. Find Google Tag Manager and click Connect.
  4. Paste your Tag Manager ID, click Save and close the pop-up.
  5. Under Activate advanced consent mode (optional), make sure the box is ticked.
Squarespace With Code Injection
  1. Go to Website, then Pages, scroll to the bottom and select Website Tools.
  2. Select Code Injection.
  3. Paste the Tag Manager code at the very top of the Header section.
  4. If you sell products through Squarespace, paste the extra order code we send you into Order Confirmation Page, and check the currency in it is right.
  5. Click Save.
Shopify With a custom pixel
  1. Go to Settings in your Shopify admin, then Customer events.
  2. Click Add custom pixel, name it (for example “Digital Gurus GTM”) and click Add pixel.
  3. Under Permission: if you use Shopify's own cookie banner, choose Required with Marketing and Analytics ticked; if not, choose Not required and we'll check your privacy settings separately.
  4. Under Data sale, choose Data collected does not qualify as data sale.
  5. Paste the pixel code we send you into Code, and put your Tag Manager ID where it says GTM-XXXXXXXX.
  6. Click Connect, then Connect again in the pop-up.

Tag Manager then receives your shop's sales events. It doesn't collect customer names, email addresses, street addresses or payment details. Checkout events do include the shipping city, region and country, with some anonymous ids we can't tie to a person.

Figma Sites With custom code
  1. In your site file, open Settings in the left navigation, then General.
  2. Select Custom code.
  3. Paste the Tag Manager code at the top of the <head> section.

Figma's own guide: Edit website settings.

Your own code, or another platform Paste the code into your pages' head
  1. Paste the Tag Manager code as high in the <head> of your pages as it will go.
  2. Make sure it loads on every page, and only once per page.
  3. No access to the code? Check your website builder's documentation for a Tag Manager plugin or integration.

If you have a web developer, it's a quick job for them. If you get stuck, email [email protected] and we'll help.

How Digital Gurus helps

We help you set up tracking and check it works before your campaign goes live. Once Tag Manager is on your website, our team takes care of the conversion tags for each channel in your campaign and their link to your cookie banner, and we set up Google call tracking for your Google ads. If you'd rather we installed Tag Manager for you, email [email protected] and we'll set it up.

You'll see every recorded enquiry in your Performance Hub, next to the ads that brought it in.

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Related

Privacy in digital marketing Policies, cookie banners and which tags need consent Conversion tracking What it is, with a worked example, in the paid advertising glossary How it works From your campaign plan to results in the Performance Hub Paid advertising glossary Clicks, conversions, costs and returns, in plain English Google Search Be there when someone searches for what you do Facebook & Instagram Reach your customers in the feed, before they search

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