Google Ads Enhanced Conversions extension

Using the Google Ads API, you can leverage enhanced conversions by sending first-party customer data in the form of conversion adjustments. Google uses this additional data to improve the reporting of your online conversions driven by ad interactions.

The Google Ads Enhanced Conversions event forwarding extension (heretofore referred to as the Enhanced Conversions extension) provides a user-friendly template to easily implement enhanced conversions for the Google Ads API.

IMPORTANT

Enhanced conversions only work for conversion types where customer data is present, such as subscriptions, sign-ups, and purchases. One or more of the following pieces of customer data must be available, as they are required when configuring a conversion action for an event forwarding rule:

  • Email address (preferred)
  • Name and home address (street address, city, state/region, and postal code)
  • Phone number (must be provided in addition to one of the other two pieces of information above)

Implementation overview

Enhanced conversions leverage the Google Ads API to add first-party data to a conversion that happened on a client device, usually a website. This means that there are two steps to implement enhanced conversions:

  1. Send a conversion from the client.
  2. Use event forwarding to send additional first-party data that enhances the conversion data sent from the client.
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To associate the client-side conversion event with the first-party data sent from event forwarding, the transaction_ID must be the same in both calls. For more information on where this value must be provided for each service, see the sections on configuring conversion actions for tags and event forwarding, respectively.

Since sending conversion events involves both a client-side and server-side implementation, this document covers the prerequisite steps for setting up the client-side Google Global Site Tag (gtag) extension in addition to the Enhanced Conversions extension for event forwarding.

The following video provides an introduction to the Enhanced Conversions extension and walks through the implementation steps at a high level:

Send a conversion using tags

To send a conversion event from on a website, Google Global Site Tag (gtag) must be deployed. You can achieve this using tags by configuring and installing the Google Global Site Tag (gtag) extension.

Configure and install the Google Global Site Tag extension

Navigate to the Data Collection UI or Experience Platform UI and select Tags in the left navigation. Select the tag property you wish to install the extension on, then select Extensions in the left navigation. Under the Catalog tab, locate the Google Global Site Tag (gtag) extension and select Install.

The Google Global Site Tag (gtag) extension being selected under the Extensions view in the Data Collection UI.

The installation dialog appears. From here, select Add Account and provide the following values when prompted:

Account property Description
Account Name A unique name for the account. This name is only used within the tags UI.
Account ID Your Google Ads account ID. To find this value, log into Google Ads and navigate to: Tools and Settings > Conversions > Select a conversion action > Tag Setup > Install the Tag yourself. The account ID string can be found in the code snippet window that starts with AW- or d.
Product Select Google Ads (AdWords).

When finished, select Add Account, then select Save.

Add a send conversion action

After installing the extension, you can start including conversion actions in your tag rules. When creating or editing a rule that listens to the conversion you would like to enhance, select Add under Actions. In the next dialog, select Google Global Site Tag (gtag) from the Extension dropdown, then select Send an event under Action Type.

The Send an event action type being selected within the action configuration view of the rule editing workflow.

Additional controls appear that allow you to configure the gtag event. At a minimum, the following fields must be filled out:

  1. Event Name (Action): Enter conversion as the value.
  2. Add a new field where the key is transaction_id and the value is a data element that contains the transaction ID value.
  3. Conversion Label: Enter the appropriate conversion label from your Google Ads account. To find this value, log into Google Ads and navigate to Tools and Settings > Conversions > Select a conversion action > Tag Setup > Use Google Tag Manager. The conversion label can be found under Instructions.
    IMPORTANT

    While you are in the tag setup area of your Google Ads account, make sure that enhanced conversions is enabled. To do this, review and accept the Terms of Service, then select Turn on enhanced conversions and API as the implementation method.

After you have configured the action, select Keep Changes to add the action to the rule configuration. When you are satisfied with the rule, select Save to Library.

Finally, publish a new build to enable the changes to the library.

Send first-party data using event forwarding

Once you are able to send conversion events from the client side, you can enhance these conversions using the Enhanced Conversions event forwarding extension.

Create a Google OAuth 2 secret and data element

Before you configure the extension, you must create an access token in event forwarding to authenticate to Google Ads API.

See the guide on creating event forwarding secrets for detailed steps. Ensure that you select Google OAuth 2 as the secret type. Continue to follow the prompts, and when asked to select a Google Account profile, select the account that has access to the conversion action you are configuring.

Once the secret is created, create a new data element and select Secret for the data element type. Select the appropriate Google OAuth 2 secret for each environment and select Save to Library.

Configure and install the Enhanced Conversions extension

Find the Google Ads Enhanced Conversions extension in the event forwarding catalog and select Install.

The Google Ads Enhanced Conversions extension being selected under the Extensions view in the Data Collection UI.

To configure the extension, you must populate the two required fields:

  1. Customer ID: The ID that uniquely identifies your Google Ads account. To find this value, log into Google Ads and navigate to Help > Customer ID.
  2. Access Token Data Element: Select the data element icon (Data element icon) and choose the Google OAuth 2 secret data element that you configured in the previous step from the menu.

When finished, select Save to install the extension.

Add a Send Conversion action to a rule

After the extension is installed, you can start to include Send Conversion actions in your event forwarding rules. When creating or editing a rule that listens to the conversion you’d like to enhance, select Add under Actions. In the next dialog, select Google Ads Enhanced Conversions from the Extension dropdown, then select Send Conversion under Action Type.

The Send Conversion action type being selected within the action configuration view of the rule editing workflow.

New controls appear in the right panel that allow you to configure your conversion. At a minimum, the following fields must be completed:

Conversion Information

Input Description
Customer ID Your Google Ads customer ID. Defaults to the customer ID you entered when installing the extension.
Conversion ID or Conversion Label Tracking values obtained from Google Ads when setting up conversion tracking. Values start with AW-.

For details on how to find these values, refer to the Google Ads documentation.
Transaction ID Select a data element that has the same transaction ID value that is sent from the client side using the Google Global Site Tag extension.

User Identification

  • At least one of the three user identifiers must be included:
    • Email
    • Phone Number
    • Full Address
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User identification data must be hashed before it is sent to Google. If the data is not hashed when event forwarding receives it, select the Normalize & Hash toggle on a given field to instruct the extension to hash the value.

The Normalize & Hash toggle enabled for the Email input within the Send Conversion action configuration form.

When finished, select Keep Changes to add the action to the rule configuration. When you are satisfied with the rule, select Save to Library.

Finally, publish a new event forwarding build to enable the changes to the library.

Next steps

This guide covered how send conversion events to Google Ads using the Enhanced Conversions event forwarding extension. For more information on event forwarding capabilities in Experience Platform, refer to the event forwarding overview.

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