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Google Ads Quick Start Guide

Send advertising events directly to Google Ads from Freshpaint

Optimize your Google Ads spend by attributing ad clicks to conversion and other key behaviors.

Destination Info

  • Supports Track calls

  • Supports HIPAA mode

  • Supports forwarding from the Google Tag Manager Integration

  • Refer to this destination as Google AdWords New in the Integrations object

    • If you've configured multiple Conversion IDs, you can choose a specific one by suffixing the Conversion ID, such as: Google AdWords New::123456789. You can retrieve this value from the Google Ads configuration page for the Conversion ID of interest.

When no suffix is specified, all configured Conversion IDs are selected for inclusion / exclusion.

  • Connection Modes:

Client-side
Server-side

Web

Mobile

Server

When using Server-Side connection mode you are using a Proxy Integration for Google Ads. This destination runs on Freshpaint's servers, but emulates a native installation of Google Universal Analytics Tag. That means the integration behaves the same as if you did a native installation of Google Universal Analytics Tag, but the data first flows through Freshpaint before it's sent to Google. See our docs on proxy integrations for more information.

Getting Started

What You'll Need

  1. Your Google Ads Conversion ID

  2. Conversion Actions configured in your Google Ads account

  3. Conversion Events configured in your Freshpaint account

To set up Google Ads with Freshpaint, first follow these steps:

  1. Get your Google Conversion ID. In your Google Ads account go to Tools > Conversions.

  2. Click on the relevant conversion action

  1. Select Tag Setup

  1. Select Use Google Tag Manager. This option will only be there for conversion actions created manually in Google Ads - click here for instructions on how to create this kind of conversion action in Google Ads.

  1. Get the Conversion ID from the instructions

  1. Go to the Google Ads configuration page in Freshpaint.

  2. Configure your Tag ID. Paste the value that you copied from the previous step.

  1. Configure your connection mode. If you are a HIPAA customer, configure connection mode to server-side. If not, you may choose either connection mode. Learn more about Connection Modes here.

  2. If you are NOT a HIPAA customer and have chosen client-side connection mode, you'll need to setup Conversion Labels from Google Adwords for the actions you want to attribute, as shown below. If you are a HIPAA customer, you can skip this step.

    Add transformations that map your Freshpaint events to Conversion Labels:

Next, you'll need to link your Freshpaint event to your Google Ads action

Each conversion action in Google Ads uses a conversion label to uniquely identify the conversion action. Follow these steps to link your Freshpaint event to your Google Ads Action:

  1. Go to Tools > Conversions and click on the conversion action you want to link

  2. Select Tag Setup, then select the Use Google Tag Manager option

  3. Copy the Conversion label under the instructions

  4. Attach the conversion label to the related event in Freshpaint by creating a Transformation in Freshpaint:

    1. Click on "Create New" in Transformations

    2. Click "Modify Data"

    3. Select your Freshpaint conversion event, select the Google Ads destination, then click Save & Add Transformations

    4. Select the Send Constant Property transformation option, copy the Conversion label value, and send it as the conversion_label property value

If you are a HIPAA account, you will need to add event properties to the allowlist. If you are not a HIPAA account, you can skip this step.

  1. Configure the HIPAA allowlist

  2. Edit the Event Properties allowlist and add the following properties:

    1. conversion_label

    2. $gclid

Freshpaint will only deliver events to Google Ads when a user arrives on your site by clicking on your Google ad, and the Google Click ID value ($gclid) is captured from the clickthrough url. Without a $gclid value, Google will not be able to attribute events to your ad campaigns.

That's it! Now all you need to do to send an event to Google Ads is enable the destination in the Freshpaint event definition:

Navigate to your Freshpaint event, and toggle the destination on to enable the event to be sent to the Google Ads destination.

If you've configured multiple Google Ads Conversion IDs, you'll need to toggle each Conversion ID individually for each Freshpaint event.

If you're using Google Tag Manager to send data to Google Ads, and you have multiple Conversion IDs enabled, you'll need to specify which Conversion ID(s) you'd like to enable the event for in the event tag.

Confirm and Validate Conversions in Google Ads

Data from the previous day may not be ingested and displayed by Google in your until 3:30pm ET the following day and can even take up to 24 hours to appear in your Google Ads conversion goals.

Congratulations! Once you have confirmed conversion in Google Ads, you have finished setting up this integration.

You can find more detailed documentation on this integration in the reference guide document.

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