Google Ads Launches No-Code Conversion Tracking: What You Need to Know

Google has recently released a new functionality that allows users to set conversion tracking for ads without the use of code. This is similar to GA4 codeless setup for the creation of events. Instead of having to set up code in your page source, or add tags to Google Tag Manager, you can just tick a couple of boxes, choose a parameter, and you’ve set your conversion event.

This is great news for small businesses that don’t have a budget for a more technical implementation, but should you change all your events to codeless? Let’s break it down.

Codeless Conversion Tracking

When creating a new conversion action on Google Ads, you can now choose to Use website events to create conversion actions or create them manually. For the codeless version, choose Add conversion action, then select the Conversion goal and the URL where that conversion should happen.

You can, as with manual conversions, edit the conversion settings to set it as primary or secondary, change its name, value, count method, and other settings. Once you save and finish the setup, if the Google Tag is already installed in all pages of your website, the conversion should start working shortly.

This setup is indeed extremely simple and, apart from having to add the Google Tag to your website, there’s no need for extra code at all to start measuring your conversions. Although on the surface this seems like it could substitute the other types of setup, and as mentioned, for smaller businesses this can be a good option to start using Google Ads, there are issues with implementing tracking this way that might not be obvious at first glance.

Limitations of Codeless Tracking

As of now, the only Event type available for this setup is Page load. Google will definitely add more options for it, as we can see Anna Simpsons announcement on LinkedIn, an option for Form submission should also be available. I believe in the future they’ll release even more options of how to target a specific event, but as of now, with only Page load available, your possibilities are quite limited. You can’t create a conversion on the click of a button, on the visibility of an element, or on any page interaction that doesn’t lead the user to a specific page.

Even when we’re allowed to select something like Form Submission as the Event type, anyone that uses GA4, and uses or has used the Enhanced Measurement functionality for Form Submission, knows that the automatic tracking is not the most reliable one. It is prone to false positives and duplicated events, meaning you can end up with a lot more events than a more accurate setup would give you. We don’t know how exactly Google Ads would track the event type Form Submission, but if GA4 is any indication of how it’s going to be, it’s not the most reliable option.

In addition to the limitations in implementation of the codeless tracking, there are also limitations on how you can set up your conversion. As of now you can’t choose different conversion values for your conversions, meaning that if your website sells products with different values, there’s no way of sending a different value depending on what the user has purchased. This makes the purchase event a lot less powerful for optimization purposes.

The same is true for additional parameters you may want to send to Google Ads, like transaction ID, which can help eliminating duplicate transactions and give you more accurate conversion data:

Lastly, a big issue with using a codeless solution like this, which is also related to using things like the enhanced measurement options in GA4, is the lack of flexibility and debugging power. We don’t know the exact inner workings of how these events are tracked, and we can’t edit them like we can manually create events, to track exactly what we want. This means that if the event is not working as you expect it to, there’s not much you can do about it.

Alternatives to Codeless Tracking

How much coding is actually involved in setting conversions?

If you’re using a Google Tag and implementing it directly in your website, then a web developer would have to add each conversion to each relevant page according to Google’s instructions. This can be time consuming, prone to errors, and web developers do have a lot of different responsibilities that don’t involve setting up conversion tracking.

If you’re using Google Tag manager though, there’s literally no more coding required to set up simple conversions than setting up the codeless tracking version (if you want the same functionality as the codeless version). All you need is to have GTM installed on every page of your website. From there, you can use pre-made tags on it, like the Google Ads Conversion Tracking one, and set it to fire when your purchase event has been confirmed (on a purchase confirmation page for instance). Then, if you’d like a more robust implementation, GTM also offers you that option. You can edit your tag to send data to Google Ads as the purchase event value, the transaction ID, the currency code, and much more. This can be done by either getting the information from the rendered page, or by accessing the information added to the datalayer, which is the most robust and reliable way of setting up tracking. You can also track conversions triggered by various on-page interactions, such as newsletter sign-ups, file downloads, specific element views, and many other user actions.

I understand that setting this up might sound a bit daunting, but a little investment in accurate, reliable and scalable tracking can bring significant returns in the form of improved campaign performance, lower costs, and a deeper understanding of your customers. And the best part is, you don’t have to do it alone. At Space & Time we have ample expertise in setting up user and conversion tracking, setting up and managing campaigns, and the know-how of how to display it to your business in the most clear and efficient way. Get in touch with technology@spaceandtime.co.uk to discover more.