Help! Tracking Conversion Source of Specific Users: Possible? How?

[RickyShockley]

Just as an example, let's say we generate a website lead from John Smith. Can we trace John Smith's activity back through AdWords or Analytics to see exactly where he came from and (with AdWords for example) what keyword he typed in before clicking our ad and converting?

Thanks for the help!

[DavidKonigsberg]

Yes you can you can do this by setting up conv tracking in adwords and putting the code on the thank you page that appears after the lead form is submitted. read more here https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722054?hl=en

For phone calls you can setup 3rd party call tracking that can do this look at services like callrail.com or https://www.mongoosemetrics.com/

[LesleyPaone]

I have played around in my spare time with a product called segment.io and it lets you track people around your web site and port the information out to different sources. You can set it up to track where they come from, if they create an account their name or email address, and things like that. Also what they purchase as well. You should take a look at it. Here is a link to their api dealing with tracking people, https://segment.io/docs/tutorials/quickstart-analytics.js/

One thing I don't think you are going to be able to do is track the search term though. With the whole keyword not provided thing it is kind of hard.

[guillermoga]

Hi Ricky,

We came across this issue several times. It can't be done with just Adwords conversion code without using any other software. To achieve this, we use Hubspot with most of our clients to have detailed contact insights.

If you want to try a free software, you can go for Convertable. I've tried it before and works really well. However, I'm not sure if it can tell from what specific Adwords campaigns are your leads coming from.

Hope it helps!

Guillermo

[guillermoga]

David,

Can you point out exactly where can I find this information in the link provided from Google Adwords support?

Perhaps I'm wrong, but as far as I know, you can't track a specific lead with just your conversion code. I'll be happy to read more information about it

Hope you clear this out for us.

[DavidKonigsberg]

For adwords channel conv tracking will give you the keyword used to enter site etc. For non adwords channel you need to set up a goal in analytics to see the channel

[DavidKonigsberg]

Im sorry guys it seems i answered to quick - if you want to track a person back to a channel you would need the form to be programmed to pass that info into the lead.

[guillermoga]

No prob David!

I was pretty sure lol

[StreamlineMetrics]

I'm actually a co-founder of Convertable. We created Convertable to do exactly what Ricky is looking to do because we ran into the same problem not being able to use Google Analytics or AdWords conversion tracking to identify the source of any individual lead. And to add onto Guillermo's comment, yes, you can definitely track which specific AdWords campaign, ads, keywords, landing pages, etc. generated each lead by using our Campaign Tracker tool.

Please let me know if anyone has any more questions or suggestions for things to add to Convertable since we are always looking to improve the service for our users!

• Patrick

[JasmineA]

There are a lot of great answers here to your issue, all of these guys are very knowledgeable and correct across the board.  Just chiming in to hopefully make it more cohesive and direct - but what you're asking for has a complex answer

Yes, it is possible to track a specific lead's information. 
No, you cannot track the specific keyword that the user typed in (due to Google's latest privacy ruling). but you can track the listed keyword in the AdWords interface.

It is possible to use this with some of your favorite tools (like Convertable, Hubspot, SalesForce, etc), or if you have a working knowledge of URL parsing, you can set up your own hidden fields to accept different URL parameters.

However, just be sure you know how your chosen software works with attribution. All of these methods have their own attribution modeling. Most of them will only pull the information if it was a direct sale on that page in one session. If the user leaves the page, sometimes they won't parse the parameters.

You will have to use a bid management software like Marin to be able to see keyword level attribution through the whole path.

[KeriMorgret]

Google Analytics at least used to have a privacy policy in place against tracking personally identifiable information as well, so you'll want to check on the privacy policies of the tools you use to carry this out.

[TomRayner]

As far as I'm aware Keri, that is still in place.  It certainly looks that way on the Analytics Partner Forum.

Your Analytics account cannot hold any personally identifiable information (PIN) and, while Google isn't know for being stringent in checking accounts, if it finds any it will suspend you no questions asked.

IBM Digital Analytics, what was CoreMetrics, is an enterprise analytics solution that does let you track users and their journey through your site.  Once a user identifies themselves to you - eg entering their email on a form - that person is "revealed" and you can then see their current session (plus any other sessions on your site they have had in the past).  It's an enterprise solution though and quite pricey.

[StreamlineMetrics]

Yeah, it's definitely still in place.

But I don't really understand why, especially since Google loves to track everything everyone is doing but doesn't want to allow anyone else do it. Also, I'm not sure how much they enforce it, especially because Google Analytics' own Justin Cutroni has written about how to capture personally identifiable information in GA many times in the past -http://cutroni.com/blog/2009/03/18/updated-integrating-google-analytics-with-a-crm/. (Although he includes a disclaimer about the privacy policy, he still writes the post...)

Anyways, Keri is right that the policy is still in place so if you rely heavily on Google Analytics for your site, it's probably best not to blatantly violate their TOS since we all know Google can and will bring the hammer down anytime they feel like it.

[StreamlineMetrics]

I just wanted to chime in that Convertable provides multi-touch attribution modeling. When a user submits a lead through the contact form, you will be able to see how many visits the user made to the site, date and time, the source of every visit, every page they viewed on each visit, how much time they spent on the site for each visit, and so on. This information allows you to determine which traffic sources, ads, keywords, etc. should actually be credited with the sale at the end of the sales pipeline.

[RickyShockley]

How does your software compare to Inbound Now? I found that tool after this conversation and find it very useful!

[MarkHawaii]

Lead-IQ.com does that. It extracts the keyword, adgroup and campaign behind all the leads that came from Adwords. It also extracts if the lead came from re-marketing (and the website that sent the lead) as well as Google Display Network (telling you the exact website that send you good/bad leads). Actually it extracts all the source traffic behind all your leads.