Do you want to add conversion tracking functionality to your WordPress website?
Conversion tracking helps you measure the impact of your marketing efforts and makes it easier to understand how users interact with your website.
In this guide, we'll show you how to add conversion tracking in WordPress and track your conversions like a pro.
What is conversion tracking?
Conversion tracking is the ability to track and measure the success of your various marketing efforts.
Depending on your business, conversion is the desired action that you want people to take on your website.
- For a Online Store / eCommerce website, a conversion could be a successful purchase.
- For a news website / blog, the conversion could be a successful subscription to the newsletter.
- For a professional services website, a conversion can be a user completing a Contact form.
Simply put, conversion tracking shows you how many visitors to your website are successfully performing the desired action.
Why is conversion tracking important?
Conversion tracking is important because it helps you make data-driven decisions to grow your business.
For example, it shows you that users from a specific traffic source are more likely to convert. You can then focus your attention on getting more traffic from that particular source.
Conversion tracking also helps you find out which users are not converting so well.
For example, you can learn that users open the contact page, but many give up before submitting the form. You can then enhance your form by removing unnecessary fields, make it conversational, change color, configure partial form submission, etc.
Basically, you need conversion tracking to measure your successes and failures and then improve each of them to grow your business online.
That being said, let's take a look at a few tools that we'll need to set up conversion tracking in WordPress.
Tools you need to set up conversion tracking in WordPress
Most conversion optimization experts rely heavily on Google Analytics. This is a free tool provided by Google that helps you track your website traffic.
It shows where your users are coming from, and what they are doing on your website.
If you are running Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, to promote your business then you will need to set them up for conversion tracking.
It might sound complicated, but you'll only have to set them up once, and we'll walk you through each step of the way.
Ready ? Let's go.
Setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics
First of all, you need to install Google Analytics on your website.
The easiest way to do this is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market and comes with enhanced eCommerce tracking, form tracking, and other conversion tracking tools.
You will need the PRO version of the plugin to access e-commerce and other conversion tracking features. For basic monitoring, the free version also works well.
Just install and activate the plugin MonsterInsights. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
When activating, you must visit the page Insights »Reports in the WordPress admin area. You will be prompted to configure MonsterInsights by launching the Configuration Assistant.
Follow the onscreen instructions to connect your WordPress website to Google Analytics using MonsterInsights. For more details, see our guide on installing Google Analytics in WordPress.
Now that you've installed Google Analytics, let's set up conversion tracking on your website.
Changes to enhanced tracking of e-commerce conversions
Ecommerce tracking helps you see which products are doing well on your website, which products are viewed but not purchased, and what is earning you the most income.
Google Analytics comes with enhanced e-Commerce tracking that works for most e-commerce websites including WooCommerce. However, you must manually activate it for your website.
Step 1. Enable Enhanced Ecommerce in Google Analytics
First, you need to enable enhanced ecommerce tracking in your Google Analytics account. Go to your Google Analytics dashboard and select your website.
From there, you need to click on the Admin button located in the lower left corner of the screen.
On the next screen, you will see various Google Analytics settings. Under the column " View ", click on the link " Ecommerce Settings "
After that you need to activate the options " Enable eCommerce " and " Enable Enhanced Commerce ».
Google Analytics will therefore activate the eCommerce reporting functionality for your account.
Step 2. Enable e-Commerce tracking in MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is equipped with an eCommerce addon that allows you to properly configure e-Commerce conversion tracking in Google Analytics.
It works with all of the best ecommerce platforms for WordPress including WooCommerce, MemberPress, LifterLMS, and Easy Digital Downloads.
First of all, you need to visit the page Insights »Addons to install and activate the e-Commerce addon.
After that, you must visit the page Insights »Settings and switch to the e-Commerce tab. From there you need to activate the option "Use Enhanced Ecommerce».
MonsterInsights will automatically detect your e-commerce software and enable advanced e-commerce tracking for your store.
Please note: The manual process of adding e-Commerce conversion tracking has a lot of room for errors, so we highly recommend using a plugin like MonsterInsights.
Viewing Ecommerce Conversion Tracking Reports
Now that you've enabled eCommerce Conversion Tracking on your website. Let's take a look at how to view these reports and use them to make informed decisions about your business.
MonsterInsights Ecommerce Conversion Reports
You just have to go to the page Insights »Report inside the WordPress admin area, then switch to the eCommerce tab.
Above you will see your most important conversion metrics such as: conversion rate, transactions, revenue, and average order value.
Below you will see a list of your top products with quantity, percentage of sales, and total revenue. This shows you which products are doing well in your online store.
Then you will see your main sources of conversion with the number of visits, conversion share and revenue. You can see which sources are bringing you more income and which traffic sources are not very effective.
MonsterInsights will also show you buyer behavior reports with the number of times products have been added and removed from the cart.
This is not all the data. You can dig deeper into these reports inside Google Analytics.
E-commerce conversion reports in Google Analytics
Just visit your Google Analytics dashboard and click on the Conversions »Ecommerce on the left column.
This section offers the most important statistics such as revenue, conversion rate, transactions and average order value.
You can drill down to view different reports. For example, you can switch to purchasing and payment behavior reports to see how users are reaching the convert page. You can also understand what kept them at the last minute from completing the transaction.
Disable form conversion tracking in Google Analytics
Not all websites use an eCommerce platform to conduct business. For example, a restaurant website can use a Order form, or a living room can use a booking form.
Many businesses use contact forms to capture leads from their website. Many blogs use a newsletter to convert website visitors into subscribers.
To track them, you need to enable form conversion tracking in Google Analytics.
MonsterInsights comes with a forms addon that allows you to easily track form conversions on your WordPress website. It works with all WordPress plugins popular forms, including WPForms, Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, and more.
Just go to the page Insights »Addons. Scroll down to the addon 'Forms', then click on the button Install.
When activating, you must visit the page Insights »Settings and switch to the tab 'Conversions'.
MonsterInsights will automatically detect your plugin WordPress form and will also begin to follow the various WordPress forms on your website.
Viewing your form conversion reports
You can now view your form conversion reports inside your WordPress admin area.
Go to the page Insights »Reports and go to the " Forms " .
You will see a list of forms on your website with their impressions, conversions, and conversion rates.
You can also click on the " View full forms report Which will take you to the Google Analytics website. It will show all of your form conversions as individual events.
Setting up conversion tracking goals in Google Analytics
So far, we've covered how to track e-Commerce and form conversions.
What if you want to manually set up conversion goals and track them in Google Analytics?
For example, you can think of users visiting a specific page as a conversion. Since this is not a form submission or e-Commerce transaction, it will not appear as a conversion in your reports.
Google Analytics allows you to create your own goals and track their conversion. Let's see how to set them up and track them on your website.
Go to the Google Analytics dashboard and click on the tab 'Admin'. Then in the column View, click on Goals.
Now you have to click on the button + New Goal to configure a new goal.
If you have already selected the industry for your website, you can see a template section here. You can skip that and click on the Radio button Custom below. Then click on Continue.
- Destination : This feature tracks whether a visitor has gone to a specific page. This could be a thank you page, or any conversion page on your website.
- Duration: Allows you to track the time a visitor has spent on your website. More time spent on the website means more engagement.
- Pages / Screens per session: Tracks the number of pages an average visitor views on your website.
- Event: Can track all kinds of things like button clicks, video plays, and downloads. It requires a bit more configuration than the other options.
The Destination and Event types are the most common goal types used for most businesses.
For this tutorial, we will create a goal " Destination" to track visitors who see our thank you page after filling out a form.
First, provide a name for your goal. It needs to be something meaningful so that you can easily identify it in your Google Analytics reports. Choose "Destination" as the type of objective and click on the button Continue.
Now you can just provide the last part of the URL that you want to track as the destination.
For example, if your page is:
https://www.example.com/thank-you-for-booking/
So you must enter:
/ thank-you-for-booking /
Below you can add a value for the conversion. It makes sense if people fill out a checkout form, or if you know how much each lead is worth to you on average.
If you want to track a funnel, such as a customer moving through a checkout process, then you can do that as part of the destination goal as well. This can help you identify areas that you might want to improve.
Once you are satisfied with your goal, click the button Save. You should then see your goal listed in a table. You can change it, turn it off and on, or create more goals here.
Viewing your goal conversions in Google Analytics
Now that you've created your goal that Google Analytics collects data, you can view your goal conversion report under the Google Analytics dashboard.
Just go to Conversions »Goals, then click overview.
Like all Google Analytics reports, you can drill down to see the movement of visitors and get more in-depth information.
Google Ads tracking in Google Analytics
If you run Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), to bring targeted traffic to your website, you can track these conversions.
It's a bit complicated to set up, but we'll walk you through it step by step.
Step 1. Link Google Ads to Your Analytics Account
Log into your Google Analytics dashboard and click on the admin button in the lower left corner of the screen. Then click on 'Google Ads Linking'under the column 'Property'.
Next, you will be asked to select your Google Ads account. The Google account you use for your analysis must also have access to your Google Ads account.
Under section 'Link setup', provide a title for this link group, then activate all website data.
Finally, you can also check the option " Share my Analytics data with linked Google Ads accounts ". This will allow you to track your Google Analytics goals in Google Ads.
Click the link account button to save your changes.
Once you've linked to your Google Ads account, Google Analytics will automatically start tracking your Google Ads.
Step 2. Enable conversion tracking in Google ads
If you're running an online store, you'll also need to turn on conversion tracking in your Google Ads account. This will help you compare your ad budget with the revenue generated from those ads.
Log in to your Google Ads account and click on the 'Tools & Settings'in the top bar. From there you need to select the link " conversions »Under the section Measurement &.
Then you need to select 'Website' when asked what you want to track.
After that, you will be asked to set up your conversion tracking. There are a bunch of options available. For example, you can track purchases, add to cart, leads, registrations, and so on.
You can also provide a fixed value for each conversion or an average value.
Once you are satisfied with your settings, click on the " Create and Continue ».
Then you will be asked to install the tracking code on your website. You must select the option 'Install the tag yourself '.
From there you need to choose the option ' The global site tag isn't installed on all your HTML pages' option.
After that copy the code you see on the screen and paste it into a text editor like Notepad.
Then you need to install and activate the plugin Insert Headers and Footers For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After activation, you must go to Settings »Insert Headers and Footers. From there, you need to paste the code you copied earlier into the header section.
You can now Save to store your settings. Your Google Ads account is now enabled for conversion tracking.
Viewing Google Ads Conversion Reports in Google Analytics
Your Google Ads conversion tracking will now start showing up in your Google Analytics reports. You can consult them in the section Acquisition »Campaigns» Paid Campaigns
Use UTM parameters for conversion tracking in Google Analytics
UTM parameters are special tags that you can add to URLs to convey important information to Google Analytics.
For example, if you want to track users coming from a particular ad, you can add UTM parameters to your ad URL like this:
https://yourwebsite.com/special-offer/?utm_source=ads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=bfad
You can also use UTM parameters where you want to share your urls. For example, your newsletter, Tweets, SMS campaigns, and more.
https://yourwebsite.com/special-offer/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jan_sale
MonsterInsights makes it easy to generate URLs with UTM parameters. You just have to go to Insights »Tools and add your url under the url generator.
Just enter the UTM parameters you want to use and it will automatically generate the URL which you can then use in your campaigns.
Viewing UTM Parameter Reports in Google Analytics
You can now track your campaign conversions under your Google Analytics dashboard. Just pass on the report Acquisition »Campaigns» All Campaigns.
Your campaigns will appear here and you can click on any of them to take the campaign further.
Setting up Facebook conversion tracking in WordPress
Facebook is the largest social networking website on the planet with billions of active users. This is why Facebook ads are sometimes the easiest way to reach an audience.
Now if you are running Facebook ads then you might need to see how your ads are doing well by implementing conversion tracking for your Facebook ads.
Let's go and set up Facebook conversion tracking on your WordPress website.
Installing Facebook Pixel in WordPress
First of all, you need to visit the website Facebook Ads Manager and select the option " Event Manager»In the top menu.
Then you have to click on the 'Add New Data Source'in the left column, then select'Facebook Pixel'.
Facebook Ads Manager will create a unique Pixel for your advertising account. You must now click on the 'Pixel set-up' to continue.
This will bring up a pop-up where you need to select the option 'Manually add pixel code to website'.
Then you will see a code snippet that you need to copy and paste into a plain text editor like Notepad.
Now you need to leave this browser tab open and go to your WordPress website admin area in a new tab.
Then you need to install and activate the plugin Insert Headers and Footers
After activation, you must go to Settings »Insert Headers and Footers. From there, you need to paste the basic Facebook Pixel code into the header section.
You can click the button Save to store your settings.
Once you've installed the Facebook Pixel Base Code, go back to the tab facebook pixel set up.
You can now click the continue button to get the following code. The easiest way to do this is to just enter your website URL and then choose which events you want to follow.
Facebook will open your website in a new browser tab. You can follow the onscreen instructions to configure the events you want to track.
Viewing Facebook Conversion Tracking Reports
Facebook offers in-depth analysis of your ads and the Facebook Pixel. Just visit the website Facebook Analytics and select your Facebook Pixel to view the conversion reports.
Setting up Twitter conversion tracking in WordPress
If you run Twitter ads to promote your business, then you will need to set up Twitter conversion tracking to measure the success of your ads.
Just log into your account Twitter ads and click the link Tools »Conversion Tracking.
This will take you to the conversion tracking configured for your Twitter ads. Click on the button 'Generate website tag for conversion tracking'.
On the next screen, you will see the website beacon code. You need to copy this code and paste it into a text editor like Notepad.
Now you need to go back to the admin area of your WordPress website.
If you haven't already, go ahead and install and activate the plugin Insert Headers and Footers
Upon activation, you must visit Settings »Insert Headers and Footers. Now you can paste the Twitter conversion tracking code into the body section.
Remember to click on the "Save" button to store your settings.
Once you have successfully installed the conversion tracking code, you will be able to view the reports under the conversion tracking page on your Twitter Ads account.
Optimize conversion rates to drive sales
Once you start tracking conversions on your website, the next step is to improve those conversion rates.
You would be surprised how few things can have a huge impact on your business.
The best way to improve your conversions is by using OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market and it helps you convert more visitors into customers.
It integrates with any email marketing service and works with all popular e-commerce platforms.
OptinMonster's display rules allow you to show targeted messages to your customers at specific times and push them to make a buying decision.
For example, if you notice that customers are leaving a product page without taking any action, then you can offer them a discount when they are about to leave.
Likewise, you can run time-sensitive campaigns to trigger the FOMO effect and give customers a nudge in the right direction.
For more practical tips, see our guide on how to recover abandoned WooCommerce cart sales.
Recommended Resources
Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.
- How to prepare your blog for traffic overload
- How to increase traffic from Twitter
- 10 simple methods to increase traffic on WordPress
- 5 sources of traffic you probably know
Conclusion
Here ! That's it for this tutorial. We hope this guide has helped you set up conversion tracking in WordPress. Do not hesitate to share with your friends on your favorite social networks.
However, you can also consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on WordPress blog creation.
If you have suggestions or remarks, leave them in our section Comments.
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