We have prepared this playbook to help you achieve the most ideal Google Ads data analytics setup on your Shopify store. We will also touch base on some of the most common problems & their solutions.
This playbook offers you a high-level understanding and strategic guidance for each element of Google Ads.
Google Ads Assets
You need to know some of Google Ads' assets and how they work together in order to make the correct setup. You can skip to the next section if you already know what these are. You will find the best methods to set them up for your Shopify store down below.
Product Feed
What product feed does is provide information about your products to the Google Merchant Center, and creating one is an obligatory first step before you can set up your Product Ads. Make sure to keep your product data up to date for your ads to be relevant.
Google Merchant Center
For your shop and products to be available for shopping ads, Google Merchant Center is the main tool that will help you upload your shop and product data to Google.
Remarketing Pixels
Remarketing Pixels (through gtag.js or GTM) send your visitors' data dynamically to Google Ads, such as:
- Visitor X visited Product A's product page,
- Visitor Y added Product B to the cart,
- Visitor Z purchased Product C.
Conversion Tracking
Google Ads conversion tracking sends the purchase (and possibly other micro-conversions) related information to Google Ads so that you & Google's machine learning can identify the ads that bring purchases and optimize the Ads setup accordingly. Get more information on: Google Ads Conversion tracking on Shopify.
Google Ads Enhanced Conversions
The new conversion tracking method for Google Ads. You can learn more about it in this article.
Best Practices & Toolset
As a globally trusted analytics partner of Shopify merchants, we have completed over +1000 data analytics setups. Here is our recommended Shopify - Google Ads setup:
Official Google App (for Product Feed + Remarketing Events)
We strongly recommend using the official Google app for the Product Feed and Remarketing Events setup. Analyzify's setup is fully compatible with the official Google app setup. There are also alternative apps for Google Ads in the market if you don't want to use the official one.
Analyzify's Google Tag Manager Setup (for Conversion Tracking)
GTM renders conversion tracking much better than the other methods. We strongly recommend using Analyzify's Conversion Tracking (through GTM) as a primary conversion source. What is primary conversion?
Manual Google Ads Enhanced Conversion Setup
Analyzify’s first version covered Enhanced Conversion by the checkout code and was not reliable at first because of Google's technical process. However, we developed Version 2 for better measurement, and yes it covers and we believe the accuracy of data here.
As we mentioned above, at first it was unreliable and gave some technical errors but Google improved this feature to set this conversion type as a primary. You can follow this instruction for setting up the Enhanced Conversion.
Google Analytics & Google Ads Integration (as a backup)
It is always great to have a backup - even multiple. We strongly recommend integrating your Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 purchase tracking as a backup with your Google Ads conversion tracking. Don't forget to set these conversions as secondary conversions. How to link GA4 with Google Ads & Search Console?
Shopify - Google Ads Setup Guide & Checklist
Make sure to follow Analyzify's Shopify & Google Ads setup guide and checklist. This interactive guide will help you set up all Google Ads assets properly and detect & fix any possible problems on your existing setup.
Common Mistakes & Errors
During the setups we have done, we have observed the following mistakes are most commonly done by Shopify merchants or their developers.
Missing or Duplicated Conversion Tracking
You should make sure that you have proper conversion tracking in place and only have one primary conversion so that your conversions aren't counted twice.
There are two most common issues : the first one is conversion labels not imported to the GTM container and the second one is about leaving two purchase conversions as primary.
Not Connecting Google Analytics with Google Ads
You should connect both your Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics properties with Google Ads for the best results, and you should also make sure to import the purchase tracking as a secondary conversion. Check out this guide to learn how.
Product ID Mismatch
You will receive an error if the product IDs on remarketing events don’t match your product feed. Check out this guide to make sure you have everything on track.
There is a quick way to check the mismatch in your Google Ads account, go to Tools and Settings -> Audience Manager -> Your Data Sources -> Click on Google Ads -> Download the Excel file.
You can check the type of product ID that your Ads account received. Most of the time, either the ID is sent as SKU or the country code does not match.
Wrong Attribution Model
Most Shopify merchants aren't aware of the attribution models - and they stay with the default “Last Click” option. Check out this guide to get more information and learn about how you can pick the best model for your store.
Basically, the Last Click cannot track first or middle attributions, so we do not recommend choosing it. If your Ads account is brand new, you should start with Position Based. There should be enough data for the Data-Driven Model, so after a while, this setting can be converted to Data-Driven Model.
Conflict Between Native Integrations & GTM Tags
You shouldn't use the GTM tags together with the native integrations for the same tags. As an example, if you are using the official Google App for remarketing events, Google Ads remarketing tags shouldn't be active on GTM.
You can also consider using one of the Shopify Google Ads Apps to have an accurate tracking.
