Contact Us Conversion Tracking

by David Bird | Jul 21, 2022 | Conversion Tracking, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager

Contact us conversion tracking counts the number of sales leads your business generates from your website. Just about every website offers a method for people to connect. How does your website ask people to connect with your business – A form, clicking an email or phone number, maybe all three?

If you want to know how many times these connection methods are used, this post is for you. It will show you step by step how to track form completions, phone and email clicks using Google Analytics.

Prerequisite of Contact Us Conversion Tracking.

Before getting into the details, make sure you have properly installed Google Analytics 4 and in Google Tag Manager you have set your GA4 configuration tag. If not follow the instructions on Google Analytics Installation Guide and then return to this post.

Phone and Email Click Tracking

Let’s start with phone clicks. Before we configure this in Tag Manager, we need to ensure your phone number is clickable.

Steps summary:

• Check phone number on your website is clickable
• Configure Tag
• Set Trigger
• Test the tags work

Check phone and email links are clickable

Before we open Google Tag Manager, we need to check that there is a phone and email link on your website. On a desktop computer, move the mouse over the phone number, and if it changes from an arrow to a finger pointing, the link is clickable. That’s good!

Do the same with an email address on your website. Hover over the email, and if the mouse becomes a pointing finger, the link is clickable. Again, this is good.

If the links are not clickable

If your email and phone number are not clickable, contact your website developer ask them to make these assets clickable. Be sure they make all instances your phone number and email address clickable!

Create your phone and email tags

Once you are certain your phone and email links are clickable, you are ready to make your tags. Here’s how:

1. Log into your Google Tag Manager. You should be taken to the ‘Workspace’ area. On the left menu, click ‘Tags’ and then ‘New’ on the right.
2. A new tag configuration will appear. At the top left, give the tag a name: you can name it what you wish. For this example, I chose ‘Contact Phone Number’.
3. Next, click the ‘Tag Configuration’ area. A menu appears to choose your tag type. This will be a Google Analytics GA4 Event, so we will click that.
4. Configuration Tag is your Google Analytics Measurement ID, which should be set up. Click the drop down, and then click the ID. This tells Tag Manager to send the click information to your Google Analytics 4 account.

Name the event: You can use any name you wish, but I recommend something you will recognize when analyzing data in Google Analytics. For this example, I use ‘phone_lead,’ because that identifies the click as a ‘lead’ and the lead came by ‘phone’.

Since this is a simple tag, I usually skip Event Parameters, User Properties, and Advanced Settings.

Set the Triggers for the phone and email tags

This brings us to ‘Triggering’. Most tags have a trigger. The trigger identifies the rules, or criteria, that must be met for the tag to work.

5. Click in the ‘Triggering’ section where you will probably have a few triggers, including the ‘All Pages’ trigger, showing. These triggers were created automatically by Google. For what we are doing, we need to create a new trigger:
6. Click the blue ‘+’ (plus) sign in the top right corner. We are now creating the trigger for the phone call clicks tag.
7. In the top left corner, give the trigger a title. To make triggers easy to associate with tags, I suggest using the same name as your tag. Since the tag is called ‘Contact Phone Number’, give the trigger the same name.
8. Next, click the ‘Trigger Configuration’ area, and the ‘Choose trigger type’ menu appears. This menu contains Google Tag Manager’s pre-configured trigger types. As you can see, there are several of them to choose from.
9. Since the phone number is a link (remember, we had to hover over the phone number to see if a link existed?) We will choose ‘Just Links’.
10. Skip ‘Wait for Tags’ and ‘Check Validation’.
11. Under ‘This trigger fires on,’ the ‘All Link Clicks’ option is checked by default. However, we only want our trigger to fire on links related to the phone number, so check ‘Some Link Clicks.’
12. There are three boxes that need to be completed: In the first box, click the dropdown menu and select ‘Click URL’. In the second box, click the drop down and select ‘Contains’, and then in the far left box, enter: ‘tel:’. This is the html code that makes your phone number clickable.
13. Click ‘Save’ to save the trigger, then click ‘Save’ in the upper right corner.

You have completed making a Phone Click Tag!

Test that the Tags Work

1. Click the ‘Preview’ button, and then the blue ‘Connect’ button.
2. Once connected, find a phone number on your website, and click on it.
3. Move to the ‘Tag Assistant (Connected)’ tab that automatically opened. Look for the ‘Phone Lead’ tag in the ‘Tags that fired’ section.
4. If the tag fired, close the two preview browser tabs.

Email Link Tag

The email link tag will be almost identical to the phone tag. In fact, you can copy the phone tag and phone trigger.

Start with copying the trigger

1. Change the trigger name in the top left to ‘email_lead,’ and then open the click URL box. The box on the right says ‘tel:’. Change that to ‘mailto:’ and click save in the top right. Your email trigger is complete.
2. Return to the main workspace screen and in the left menu click ‘Tags’.
3. Find the ‘phone_lead’ tag and open it. Find the three stacked dots on the right and click ‘Copy’.
4. Change the tag name to ‘Email Lead’.
5. Change the event name to ‘Email_lead’
6. Click on the ‘triggering’ area and you will see the phone trigger appear. Remove that by clicking the minus sign.
7. Click the plus sign, and then click on the email trigger. Click save.

Now perform a preview to ensure the tag works.

If the tag works, click the blue ‘Submit’ button in the top right.

Form Tagging

You probably have some type of contact form on your website. This section shows some ways to tag your forms, so the number of completions is reported in your Google Analytics.

The form tracking shown in this post is for very simple forms that can use Google Tag Manager’s pre-configured form variables, such as Form ID and Form Class.

What you need for Form Tagging

Before we start, you should be using a Chrome browser because that makes it easier to find elements of code we will need.

1. Have your website open on a page with your form.
2. Open another tab and make sure you are logged into your Google Tag Manager Account and on the Workspace screen.

Check what you can see behind the form

We need to determine if we can create the form tag ourselves, or if a developer needs to become involved. This requires looking at the code managing forms on your website. Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds.

1. Go to any form on your website and locate the submit button.
2. Right click on the submit button
3. If you are using the Google Chrome browser, at the bottom of your screen will be a lot of code.

Look through that for either ‘form ID, or ‘form class’. If you find either of those items, we should be able to build the form tag.

Cannot find either Form ID or Form Class

If you cannot find either ‘form ID’, or ‘form class’, this post will not be able to help you. You should contact your website developer and engage their assistance. Most developers can get this type of thing done in a couple of hours.

You Found either form ID or Form Class

Keep reading! You are almost finished setting up conversion tracking, and your form can easily be tracked. Follow the instructions below:

Enable Google Tag Manager Built-In Form Variables

We need to enable all the form variables ‘Form ID’ and ‘Form Class so we can use them as needed to configure our trigger.

From the Google Tag Manager ‘Workspace Screen’:

1. Click ‘Variables’ in the left menu.
2. A new menu pops out on the right side of your screen. Scroll down that menu until you see ‘Forms’. This shows you all Tag Manager’s built-in form variables that can be used to capture information.
3. It’s harmless to check off all the form boxes, but you really only need ‘Form Class’ and ‘Form ID’. Notice to the left, each of the checked form variables are added to the list of enabled variables. These are all ready for use.
4. To close the variables menu, click the ‘X’ at the top of this menu.

Build the From Trigger

1. On the left menu, click triggers. We are going to build the rules for the form tag.
2. Click ‘New’ in the upper right
3. Name the trigger ‘Lead Form Trigger’
4. Click the ‘Trigger Configuration’ area; the ‘Choose trigger type’ menu pops out.
5. Click ‘Form Submission’.
6. Leave the ‘Wait for Tags’ box unchecked.
7. Check the ‘Check Validation’ box, which opens an additional configuration. The check validation means the form must be completed, or the tag will not work/fire. It prevents the tag from firing when users do not properly complete the form.
8. Now we are going to set up the ‘Check Validation’ boxes. Starting with the far left box, click the down arrow and find ‘Page URL’. If you cannot find ‘Page URL’, click ‘Choose Built-in Variable’ at the bottom of the dropdown menu, and then find ‘Page URL’.
9. In second box, click the down arrow, and find ‘matches RegEx’.
10. In the third box, enter ‘.*’ (that’s a dot with an asterisk).
11. The next section is ‘This trigger fires on’. Check ‘Some Forms.’
12. Starting with the left box, select either ‘Form Classes’ or ‘Form ID, whichever one you found when looking at the form code.
13. In the next box, select ‘Contains.’
14. Open the tab with your website form and go to the form submission button.
15. Return to your website form code, and copy either the form class or form Id, whichever one you have. Paste this into the last box on the right.
16. Click save at the top.

Build The Tag

1. Next, we need to make the tag. Click on ‘Tags’ on the left menu and then ‘New’ in the upper right.
2. Name the tag ‘Lead Form’.
3. Click the tag configuration area, and from the menu on the right, select ‘Google Analytics: GA4 Event.’
4. Add your GA4 Configuration ID
5. Under ‘Event Name,’ input ‘form_submission_lead’.
6. Click the ‘Trigger’ area and click on the form trigger we just made ‘Lead Form Trigger.’
7. Click save.

Form Testing

So, let’s see if what we did works, like we did with the phone and email tags.

1. In the top right corner, click ‘Preview’, then ‘Connect.
2. Navigate to the page with your form and complete the form.
3. Go to the ‘Tag Assistant [Connected]’ tab and see if the tag fired.

If the tag fired, congratulations, tag is working!

If the tag did not fire, we need to revisit the trigger and try a new input:

1. Close the preview tabs and return to your Tag Manager workspace home.
2. Click ‘Triggers’ in the left menu.
3. Open the form trigger.
4. In the box where we have ‘Form Classes,’ click the drop down and select ‘Form ID.’
5. Return to the tab with your web form open, right click the submission button, and look for ‘id=’ and copy the words / numbers that follow. Paste that information in the far right box back on the form trigger.
6. Save the trigger and click the preview button and repeat the process of completing your form and identifying if the tag fired.
7. If the tag fired, click save. And then ‘Publish’ in the top right corner.

What to do if struggling to get form tracking to work

If the tag did not fire, it is alright. Remember, forms are the trickiest item to configure. You may want to consider hiring someone to build your form tag or change your form provider.

On the other hand if you insist on learning how to do this yourself Analytics Mania has a very helpful blog. One post in particular is all about forms. There’s lots of helpful information on the website.

For WordPress websites, Gravity Forms is an excellent form management choice. There is a ton of flexibility to collect valuable information, and it’s very easy to track form completions with Tag Manager. However, it’s not free!

Setting Conversions in GA4

The good news is, that technical ‘heavy lifting’ is now done. The final step in conversion tracking set up is to ‘tell’ Google Analytics your conversions. When someone on your website clicks your phone number or email address, or completes your form, we want Google to count those actions as conversions.

We just need to tell that to Google Analytics, and that’s easy.

Before you can set your conversions in GA4, go on your website and click a phone number, click an email, and complete a form. This ensures that all three happened on your website. Then, wait 24 hours.

After 24 hours, you’re ready to set your conversions:

Log into your Google Analytics Account. Make sure you are looking at the GA4 Property. The ID number will be only numbers, no letters.

1. On the far left menu there are icons. Hover your mouse over those icons and click on ‘Configure’.
2. You should now see all the events from your website. We are only interested in those we configured in Tag Manager. Remember, we gave each of those events a name:

• Phone Clicks: phone_lead
• Email Clicks: Email_lead
• Form Completions: form_submission_lead

Look for each of these event names in the chart.

3. In the far right column, you will see ‘Mark as conversion’. Make sure that button is turned on for phone clicks, email clicks and form completions.
4. If you do not see these events listed, return to your website and perform each of these events on your website. Wait 24 hours, and then return to this page and mark the conversions.

Congratulations, now you are all set with conversion tracking!

Google Analytics 4 Installation Guide

by David Bird | Jul 17, 2022 | Conversion Tracking, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager

Google Analytics installation is the first step to conversion tracking. You need conversion tracking to understand if your marketing is making money or wasting money. Without concrete data you’re left guessing and hoping that your online campaigns are working. And you know the old saying: Hope is not a strategy.

This post shows you how to install Google Analytics using Google Tag Manager and together these two products make conversion tracking much easier. We’ll cover installation of Tag Manager and Google Analytics (GA4).

Let’s get Google Tag Manager on your website and then install Google Analytics. Here’s how it works:

Identifying your Google Analytics Installation

There are currently two versions of Analytics available:

• Universal Analytics, which has been around for several years and will be deprecated in June 2023. Data currently in your UA account cannot be transferred to GA4. The databases are completely different.
• GA4, which is the replacement version and is available now.

Your Google Analytics situation will fit one of these scenarios:

1. You have GA4 installed on your website. If so, skip down to the Google Tag Manager Section.
2. You have the old version Google Analytics, but are unsure if you have GA4, or know you do not have it.
3. You do not have a Google Analytics account.

You have the old version of Google Analytics but you’re unsure if you have GA4

Let’s check to see if you have a Google Analytics 4 property:

1. Log into your Google Analytics account.
2. In the bottom left corner, click the admin or ‘gear’ icon.
3. A three-panel screen will open—Account, Property, and View. Look at the center panel, ‘Property’. You will see your Universal Analytics (older version) at the top. We know it’s Universal Analytics because the ID number is prefaced by ‘UA-‘. If you see a down arrow over to the right, it means you have multiple properties (which is a good sign for GA4).
4. If you see a down arrow, click on it to
5. You will see a list of all your properties. GA4 properties will have all numbers in the ID and are NOT prefaced by ‘UA-‘.

Create a GA4 Property on Your Existing Analytics Account

If you do not see a GA4 property, we can create one right now in just a few minutes:

1. Click the blue ‘Create Property’ button. If that button is greyed out it means you do not have Administrator level access. You will need to ask the person who manages your Analytics account to upgrade your authorization.
2. After clicking on ‘+ Create Property,’ follow the ‘Property setup prompts on the next screen: Property Name (use your website domain name); Set Time Zone and Currency, then click ‘Next’.
3. The next screen asks for information about your business; check the appropriate boxes and click ‘Create’. You now have a Google Analytics GA4 property!
4. You will be presented with the ‘Google Site Tag,’ which has some code to be installed on your website. To reduce the number of tags on your website, we will be installing your Analytics using Google Tag Manager. You can close out the code on your screen.

Leave this browser tab open, we will need it shortly.

Now go to the Google Tag Manager Section below.

I do not have a Google Analytics Account

If you do not have a Google Analytics account, you will need to create one. It’s easy, and only takes a moment.

1. Go to https://analytics.google.com and follow the create account prompts. The system will automatically create a GA4 property for you.
2. After clicking on ‘+ Create Property,’ follow the ‘Property setup’ prompts on the next screen: Property Name (use your website domain name), Set Time Zone and Currency, then click ‘Next’.
3. The next screen asks for information about your business; check the appropriate boxes and click ‘Create’. You now have a Google Analytics GA4 property!
4. You will be presented with the ‘Google Site Tag,’ which has some code to be installed on your website. To reduce the number of tags on your website, we will be installing your Analytics using Google Tag Manager. You can close out the code on your screen.

Leave this browser tab open, we will need it shortly.

Now go to the Google Tag Manager Section below.

Leave this browser tab open, we will need it shortly.

Now go to the Google Tag Manager Section below.

Create Google Tag Manager Account

You can skip this section if you already have a Google Tag Manager Account with a GA4 configuration tag.

Gmail account

In order to create a Google Tag Manager account, you must have either a free or paid Gmail account. If you don’t have a gmail address, create one before taking away further steps.

Create Account and Container

Installing Google Analytics begins with Installing Google Tag Manager.

Go to https://tagmanager.google.com and click the ‘create account’ link. On the ‘Add New Account’ page complete the form:

1. ‘Account name’ should be your business name.
2. Country; the country of your business.
3. ‘Container Name’ should be your website address.
4. Target platform should be ‘Web’.
5. Click ‘Create.’

Read the terms, and if you agree, click through.

You have created your Google Tag Manager account!

Load Tag Manager on Your Website

The next step is to load Tag Manager on every page of your website.

Tag Manager presents you with a screen containing two sets of code. To a non-coder, this does not mean very much. But don’t worry, you don’t have to understand the code, you just have to copy and paste one in the <head> of each website page and post the other in the <body> of each website page.

For non techies like me, if you did not understand about the head tag and body tag, do not attempt to insert the code to your website. You could bring down your site.

There are easier ways:

1. Ask your website developer to load the code.
2. Use a website plugin. Most popular website platforms like WordPress, Shopify, etc. have created simple ways to install Google Tag Manager without being bothered with code. For WordPress websites,
3. add a header / footer ‘injection’ plugin and paste the Google Tag Manager code.

Option 1 – Ask your website developer to install the code

This is the simplest option. It should take your website manager only a few minutes to install the code. In fact, it’s very rare for a developer to charge for such a simple task.

Here’s what you need to prepare for your developer

Web code can be finicky, and sometimes applications like MSWord and email applications change the code’s symbols when pasted to their application.

For this reason, DO NOT paste this code directly into these applications.

Instead, open a text program, such as Notepad, and paste the Tag Manager code in there. Save the file. These programs will preserve the integrity of the code. Include the installation instructions in your message to your developer.

Option 2—Install Tag Manager with a Plugin

If you are using a plugin, you likely won’t need that code. Instead, you will need your Google Tag Manager Container ID.

To find your Container ID, click on ‘Admin’ in the top navigation menu. On the upper right side of the screen, you will see an alpha numeric code that begins with ‘GTM-‘. Copy that ID.

Go into your website plugin and find the place to enter that code. If you use WordPress, download a Google Tag Manager Plugin, and activate it.

If you are using Shopify, go into the ‘Marketing’ area and you will find a place to insert the ID number.

Most website platforms have a place to load Google Tag Manager for you. If needed, use the platform’s support to find the spot.

Paste the Google Tag Manager ID in the designated place and save the work.

We are now ready to go inside Tag Manager and make a few tags.

WordPress websites: Installing Tag Manager with a ‘Header / Footer Plugin

The Tag Manager code instructions tell us to insert the code into the ‘head’ of each page. There are WordPress plugins that will do just that.

Here’s how to find and configure a header/footer plugin:

1. Log into your WordPress website and click on ‘Plugins’ on the left menu and then click ‘Add New’. If you do not see Plugins listed in the left menu, this means you do not have administrative access to your website. Contact your web developer or whoever has administrative access and ask them to increase your user access to ‘Administrator’.
2. Click ‘search,’ and in the search box write ‘Head / Footer injection.’ Download and activate a plugin you like. Here’s a tip: Try to find a plugin with a high number of ‘active installs,’ good ratings, and has been updated recently. All this information is visible in the plugin details.
3. Install and activate the plugin.
4. Find the plugin information, which in the left menu. Some plugins create a new menu item, others get added under Tools.
5. In the plugin setup, there will be a spot to paste the code and then save.

Google Tag Manager is now installed on your website!

GA4 Configuration Tag

Now that Google Tag Manager is installed on your website, let’s connect it to your Google Analytics account. All we need to do is insert your Analytics Measurement ID into Tag Manager. Here’s how:

Return to Analytics to get your Measurement ID

1. In your open Google Analytics browser tab (or a new browser tab), return to your Google Analytics account.
2. In the bottom left panel, click ‘Admin’.
3. On the right panel under ‘Property’ click the ‘Data Streams’ menu item.
4. You will see your Analytics account. Click the arrow on the far right to open the ‘Web stream details’ screen.
5. In the top right corner, you will see ‘MEASUREMENT ID’. We will need that ID to put Google Analytics on your website. Copy the ID to your clip board.
6. Return to your Google Tag Manager tab and Click on the ‘Tags’ in the left side menu and then click ‘New’.
7. Name the tag in the upper left: Google Analytics [paste your Google Analytics measurement ID].
8. Click in the ‘Tag Configuration’ area, which opens a menu. Choose ‘Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration.’
9. The next screen shows a box called ‘Measurement ID’. Paste your Google Analytics measurement ID there. Make sure the ‘Send a page view event when this configuration loads’ box is checked.
10. Scroll down to ‘Triggering,’ and click in the white space there. Select the ‘All Pages’ Trigger.
11. Click ‘Save’.

Make sure the tag words with a quick test

Before we can call this tag complete, we need to test it. Here’s how:

1. Go to the ‘Tags’ screen.
2. In the top right corner, you will see ‘Preview’ and ‘Submit’. Click ‘Preview.
3. On the next screen, input your website URL, including the prefix ‘https://’ and then click ‘Connect’.
4. Two browser tabs open; one titled ‘Tag Assistant [Connected]’, the other your website name. Go to the ‘Tag Assistant’ tab and click ‘Connect’. You should see ‘Tags Fired,’ and under that you should see the tag you just created. It will be the name of the tag.
5. Close this tab and return to Tag Manager. Click ‘Submit’ in the upper right corner.

You have just loaded Google Analytics to your website!

If the tag did not fire, go back through these instructions.

Congratulations!

You have successfully installed Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 on your website. Now you are ready for website tagging and tracking important conversions like form completions, phone call and email clicks and a whole lot more!