Track ROI in AdWords: Import your Google Analytics Goals directly into AdWords

If you are like most small and mid size businesses, you use Google Analytics in one way or another. But if you are unlike most small businesses, you are using Google Analytics in every possible way, including your AdWords program.

While this change is not very new, it is really useful as it allows you to track website ROI in AdWords by importing your Google Analytics goals. I wasn’t really using it a lot until recently – but now I am the biggest fan and loving it!

Of course, in order to get started, you would need to ensure that your GA goals correspond to a measurable action performed by your website’s visitors, for example, a visit to a “thank you” page. And if you could use improvement with your goals, here are some common examples:

Business Objective	Visitor Action	Success Measure
Generate Leads	Complete Contact Form	form_submitted.html
Drive Loyalty	Sign up for Newsletter	subscription_confirmed.html
Drive Revenue	Complete a Purchase	thank_you.html
Raise Awareness	Whitepaper Download	download_whitepaper.html

On top of that, do not forget about the goal funnel. Usually the action that a visitor takes involves multiple steps, which together make up a Goal Funnel.Like the Goal itself, each of these steps must correspond to a measurable action, such as a pageview of a specific page.

Now, how do you import these goals into AdWords? Here are the steps to get there:

1. Link AdWords and Google Analytics accounts:

• Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
• Select the Reporting tab and choose “Google Analytics.”
• Select “I already have a Google Analytics account.”
• From the Existing Google Analytics Account drop-down menu, select the name of the Analytics account you’d like to link to. If you don’t see it listed, you’ll need to first add your AdWords username to your Analytics account as an Account Admin.
• Keep the checkboxes selected on this page, unless you’re sure you’d like to disable auto-tagging. For importing cost data, read Google’s “How can I import my AdWords cost data?”
• Select Link Account.

2. Enable data sharing:

• Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
• Click “Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings.”
• Make sure you’ve selected at least the “With other Google products only” options under “Share my Google Analytics data.”
• Click “Save Changes” to finish.

3. Import your goals into AdWords:

• Navigate to the “Conversion Tracking” page from within your AdWords account.
• Click “Link your Analytics goals and transactions” from the Conversion Tracking table.
• Select the Goals or Transactions you want from the list.
• Edit the action name so you can identify the goals in your AdWords reports.
• Select “Link” from the bottom of the table to finish.

Done! Now your imported Goals and Transactions will show up in your account, along with AdWords conversion metrics. You can use this data to see which ads, keywords and campaigns are bringing in the best ROI and then optimize your campaigns based on this information.

Tagged as: adwords ga goals, adwords goals, adwords google analytics, ga goals, ga goals into adwords, import ga goals, import google analytics goals