Google Ads Tracking with Narrowbeam

Track Google Ads performance with 100% visitor coverage and zero cookie banners. Get accurate conversion data without compromising privacy or requiring consent prompts.

The Privacy-Data Quality Dilemma

If you're running Google Ads campaigns today, you're likely facing a tough choice: either deploy cookie consent banners and lose 20-30% of your tracking data, or skip the banners and risk compliance issues.

Google Analytics 4 with consent mode enabled can underreport conversions by 20% or more because visitors reject tracking cookies. That means you're making advertising decisions based on incomplete data—spending money without knowing what's actually working.

Narrowbeam solves this problem. By tracking sessions server-side without cookies or personal data, you get complete, accurate campaign performance data while staying GDPR and CCPA compliant—no consent banners required.

Why Narrowbeam for Google Ads?

How Google Ads + Narrowbeam Works Together

Narrowbeam's Google Ads tracking is built on four key principles:

1. Automatic UTM capture: UTM parameters (source, medium, campaign, term, content) are automatically extracted from every URL and tied to sessions.
2. Custom event tracking: Define conversions using simple button clicks, form submissions, or page views—no complex configuration.
3. Session-based attribution: Last-touch attribution connects conversions to the campaigns that drove them, all without tracking individual users.
4. Real-time visibility: See campaign performance instantly in your dashboard—no data sampling, no delays.

Setting Up Google Ads Tracking

Step 1: Install Narrowbeam

First, make sure Narrowbeam is installed on your website. If you haven't already, follow our Quickstart Guide to get the tracking script on your site.

Verify that page views are being tracked by checking your Narrowbeam dashboard—you should see visits appearing in real-time.

Step 2: Configure Google Ads Tracking Template

Narrowbeam automatically detects Google Ads traffic via click IDs (gclid, wbraid, gbraid), but to track individual campaigns, keywords, and ad groups, you'll need to add a tracking template. This is a one-time setup that takes less than 2 minutes.

Recommended: Account-Level Tracking Template

The best approach is to set a tracking template at the account level in Google Ads. This automatically applies to all current and future campaigns—no per-campaign configuration needed.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Log into Google Ads at ads.google.com
2. Click on Admin (in the left sidebar or main menu)
3. Click Account Settings
4. Expand the Tracking section
5. In the Tracking template field, paste the following URL template:

{lpurl}?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaignid}&utm_term={keyword}&utm_content={adgroupid}

What this template does:

• {lpurl} - Inserts your final landing page URL
• utm_source=google - Identifies traffic as coming from Google
• utm_medium=cpc - Marks it as paid cost-per-click traffic
• {campaignid} - Automatically inserts the Google Ads campaign ID
• {keyword} - Captures the keyword that triggered the ad
• {adgroupid} - Captures the ad group ID for granular analysis

5. Click Save
6. Test the setup (see verification instructions below)

Alternative: Campaign-Level Tracking Template

If you prefer to configure tracking per-campaign (or if your Google Ads account doesn't allow account-level templates), you can add the same template at the campaign level:

1. In Google Ads, select a campaign
2. Click Campaign Settings
3. Expand Campaign URL options
4. Paste the same tracking template in the Tracking template field
5. Click Save
6. Repeat for each campaign

Step 3: Set Up Conversion Tracking

Define what counts as a "conversion" for your Google Ads campaigns. Narrowbeam supports multiple conversion types:

Page view conversions: Track when visitors reach a specific page (e.g., "/thank-you" or "/checkout/complete"). These are automatically tracked—just filter your dashboard by the page path.

Custom event conversions: Track button clicks, form submissions, or any custom action using Narrowbeam's event tracking. See our Custom Event Tracking guide for details.

Example: Track a "Sign Up" button click:

<button data-narrowbeam-action-name="signup-clicked">
  Sign Up
</button>

Step 4: Analyze Your Campaigns in the Dashboard

Once your campaigns are running and conversions are being tracked, create dashboard widgets to analyze performance:

1. Create a Campaign Performance widget:
   • Add a "Top List" widget
   • Group by utm_campaign
   • Measure: visits and visitors
   • Filter: utm_source equals google
2. Track conversions by campaign:
   • Add another "Top List" widget
   • Group by utm_campaign
   • Measure: actions
   • Filter: action_name equals signup-clicked AND utm_source equals google
3. Create a conversion funnel:
   • Add a "Funnel" widget
   • Step 1: utm_source equals google (ad click landing)
   • Step 2: url_path contains /pricing
   • Step 3: action_name equals signup-clicked
   • See conversion rates between each step

Analyzing Your Ad Performance

With UTM tracking and conversion events in place, you can answer critical questions about your Google Ads campaigns:

• Which campaigns drive the most conversions? Group by utm_campaign and measure actions.
• What's my conversion rate by campaign? Compare visits vs. conversion actions for each campaign.
• Which landing pages convert best? Group by url_path and filter by utm_source=google.
• Where do visitors drop off? Use funnel analysis to see step-by-step conversion rates from ad click to final conversion.
• How is performance trending over time? Create timeseries widgets filtered by campaign to track performance day by day.

Multi-dimensional analysis example: Group by both utm_campaign AND url_path to see which campaigns are driving traffic to which landing pages and how those combinations perform.

Best Practices

Campaign Naming Conventions

Use consistent, descriptive campaign names that will make sense in your dashboard:

• Bad: campaign1, test, new-campaign
• Good: brand-keywords-2024, competitor-terms-q1, spring-sale-shopping

Understanding Campaign IDs vs. Campaign Names

Narrowbeam tracks campaign IDs (e.g., "12345678") rather than campaign names because IDs are stable—if you rename a campaign in Google Ads, the ID stays the same, preserving your historical data.

How to map IDs to campaigns:

1. In Google Ads, go to Campaigns and find your campaign
2. The campaign ID appears in the URL when you click on the campaign (e.g., campaignId=12345678)
3. Keep a simple spreadsheet mapping campaign IDs to descriptive names:
   • 12345678 → Brand Keywords Q4 2024
   • 23456789 → Competitor Terms Holiday Sale
   • 34567890 → Product Launch Broad Match

Alternatively, use Google Ads' campaign naming as your source of truth—when you see an ID in Narrowbeam, just reference your Google Ads dashboard to see what that campaign is currently named.

Testing UTM Tags Before Launch

Before launching a campaign, test your UTM-tagged URLs to make sure parameters are being captured:

1. Visit your landing page with the full UTM-tagged URL in a browser
2. Check your Narrowbeam dashboard (filter by recent visits)
3. Verify that utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign appear correctly

Dashboard Organization Tips

• Create separate dashboard views for each major campaign or campaign group
• Set dashboard-level filters (e.g., utm_source=google) to isolate Google Ads traffic
• Use timeseries widgets to monitor performance trends over your campaign duration
• Set up funnel widgets early so you have historical conversion data to analyze

Regular Reporting Cadence

Check your Google Ads performance in Narrowbeam at consistent intervals:

• Daily: Monitor overall spend, visits, and conversion volume
• Weekly: Analyze campaign-level performance, identify winners and losers
• Monthly: Deep-dive into funnel performance, landing page effectiveness, and multi-dimensional analysis

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