The Google Ads WhatsApp conversion tracking guide

Optimising your Google Ads campaigns for a click on a WhatsApp button on your website is a waste of money.

You can't sell to a click.

That's why I built Convertista. It allows for tracking WhatsApp leads and sales as Google Ads conversions.

Since building it I've spoken with hundreds of business owners and PPC professionals about conversion tracking. The same questions keep coming up:

• How should I structure my conversions?
• Which conversion should Google optimise for?
• Why did performance look worse after changing from tracking button clicks to tracking WhatsApp leads?

After having the same conversations over and over, I decided to write this guide.

Match your conversion tracking to your sales funnel

If you're not familiar with the term, a sales funnel is a way of describing how a lead becomes a customer.

For example, somebody might click the WhatsApp button on your website and send you a message. After speaking with them, you decide that they're a good fit and prepare a quote. Eventually they become a customer.

The sales funnel might look like this:

1. Contact
2. Qualified lead
3. Customer

Google has conversion categories that cover most stages in typical sales funnels.

• In this case we'd put the WhatsApp message received conversion in the Contact category. If we got leads via calls and forms they'd probably also go in the Contact category.
• When a lead was marked as qualified that'd go in the Qualified lead category.
• And the sale conversion action would go in the _Converted lead _category.

This gives you a clean view of how leads progress through your sales funnel. It also makes remembering what each conversion means much easier.

And, Google has been dropping hints about journey-aware bidding. If I understand it right, it uses the whole conversion process as part of it's algorithm. Having a logical conversion structure that maps 1-1 to your business should help if you decide to use this.

Track every stage of the funnel

I find it helpful to track a lead's progress through the entire sales process.

I've had people push back on this. They argue that they don't get enough conversions at each stage for it to be useful.

That might be true for optimisation, but it's still useful for troubleshooting and diagnosis.

If you know how many people:

• clicked the WhatsApp button
• sent a message
• became a qualified lead
• bought from you

it's much easier to get to the bottom of problems than if you're guessing what happened.

Convertista includes built-in conversions for:

• WhatsApp button clicks
• WhatsApp messages received (Lead created)
• Qualified leads
• Sales

Together they provide a complete picture of what happens after somebody clicks your ad.

Why I still track WhatsApp button clicks

You might be wondering why the first conversion in the list above is a WhatsApp button click. Earlier I said optimising for a click was a waste of money.

I stand by that.

A button click isn't a valuable business outcome. But knowing that a button was clicked or wasn't, can be useful in some cases:

If you get lots of clicks on your ads but few clicks on your WhatsApp button it suggests:

There could be a mismatch between the message in your ad and the landing page. Someone clicks an ad for a commercial pizza oven and gets to a generic catering equipment page. Many people will hit the back button instead of trying to find the pizza oven.

If there isn't a mismatch, it might be that the page isn't convincing, or that the WhatsApp button isn't easy to find.

If you get lots of clicks on your WhatsApp button but few messages that's often a sign of spam or bot traffic.

Bots will happily click your ad and then click links on the page. They stop short of actually sending a WhatsApp message. This tends to happen with Performance Max campaigns and Search campaigns that include Search Partners or the Display Network.

In both cases tracking the button-click is key to knowing that the problem exists.

Give your conversions useful names

I've reviewed too many accounts where the conversion names were gibberish. What the heck does "submit-landing-youtube-ads" or "click-call-test-2" even mean?

Future-you will appreciate a clear naming convention.

As an example this is the default naming convention in Convertista:

• Convertista.com: WhatsApp button clicked
• Convertista.com: WhatsApp lead created
• Convertista.com: WhatsApp qualified lead
• Convertista.com: WhatsApp converted lead

The name doesn't affect performance, but it makes it much easier to figure out what it does half a year from now.

Clarity ages better than cleverness.

Upload real values, not made-up ones

Google allows you to upload conversion values. This is useful if you're going to use a value-based bidding strategy.

Use real values whenever possible. For example, the actual value of a sale when the customer buys.

Some advertisers assign synthetic values to different conversion stages. Something like a clicks is worth $1, a lead is worth $10 and a sale is worth $100.

It can work if it's based on real ratios, and kept updated. But in practice, a few months down the line, nobody remembers why the values were chosen. Real values tend to be easier to understand and maintain.

That covers the setup. We'll look at how to improve your results using the WhatsApp conversion tracking data in a minute. But first, in case you need a reminder, here's how Google learns from your conversions.

Google repeats what you reward

Conversions can be set to primary or secondary.

• Primary conversions are used for optimisation.
• Secondary conversions aren't.

When somebody says they're "optimising for leads" or "optimising for sales", it means that those conversions have been set as primary.

Google learns like a puppy does. Give a puppy a treat when it does something good and it repeats that behaviour.

For Google, primary conversions are puppy-treats.

• If you reward button clicks, Google tries to find more button clicks.
• If you reward qualified leads, Google tries to find more qualified leads.

Two factors that influence how well Google learns from your primary conversion actions:

• How many conversions you get every month. The more conversions, the better. Some people say 15 conversions per month is enough. Others say you need at least 30.

• How long it takes for someone to convert after seeing your ad. Someone could see your ad, click it and send you a WhatsApp message in a minute or two. But, it might take a weeks or even months before they finally buy. The sooner the conversion happens the better.

These factors become important when deciding which conversion to optimise for.

Start with leads

Before using Convertista most advertisers were tracking WhatsApp button clicks as conversions. If the button-clicked conversion was primary, Google will have learned to get as many button clicks as possible.

We need to undo that training.

The fastest way is to set the the WhatsApp message-received conversion (a lead) to primary and the rest to secondary. This will train Google to show your ads to people who are likely to message. It cuts down on bots, spammers and curiosity clicks.

The message-received conversion is a stong signal because it has the highest volume and shortest lag.

Optimising for leads is better than optimising for clicks. But it's only a starting point.

Just because someone sent you a message doesn't mean they're a good fit. They could be out of your area or want something you don't sell.

Where possible, optimising for qualified leads is better.

Then optimise for qualified leads

A qualified lead is somebody who wants what you sell and could realistically become a customer.

Using our commercial pizza oven example, a restaurant owner is a qualified lead. A homeowner probably not.

Qualified leads are usually a good signal because there are more of them, and the lag is low. You know fairly quickly if someone is a good fit or not.

I've had good results starting by optimising for leads and then switching to qualified leads when we're consistently hitting 15-20 qualified leads a month.

Optimising for sales isn't always right

Theoretically you could train Google to move down the sales funnel. Optimising for button clicks, then leads, then qualified leads and onto sales.

But in practice optimising for sales is tricky. Especially if you don't get a lot of sales every month, or if there is a long lag before the sale happens.

And, a lead can be perfect and still not become a sale:

• A slow response because of an operational problem in your office.
• The salesperson having an off day.
• You can't meet the lead's deadline. Our pizza place needs an oven tonight. You can only supply in a week.
• Timing issues. A wedding photographer might not be available on the chosen day.

None of these things mean that Google showed your ads to the wrong person. But, if you're optimising for sales these unrelated factors become part of the signal.

I've seen better results where people stick with optimising for qualified leads instead.

What to expect when you change goals

Whenever you change your optimisation goal, expect a period of instability.

When moving from one stage to the next it's common to see:

• Fewer impressions
• Fewer clicks
• Higher cost per click
• Changes in conversion rate

These changes are normal. Google is changing who it shows your ads to and how much it's willing to bid.

Google needs time to relearn. A good rule-of-thumb is allow at least two weeks, or three conversion cycles as a ramp-up period. (A conversion cycle is how long it takes between someone seeing your ad and converting.)

After that, evaluate performance over at least 50 conversions or a full month after the ramp-up period. Exclude the ramp up period from your evaluation.

Raise your Target CPA when you move down the funnel

This is for you if you've set a Target CPA. It catches people out surprisingly often.

Imagine you spend $1,000 and generate:

• 100 leads
• 20 qualified leads
• 5 sales

Your cost per conversion would be:

• $10 per lead
• $50 per qualified lead
• $200 per sale

If you were optimising for leads with a Target CPA of $9.50, that target is reasonably close to your actual cost per lead.

But if you switch to optimising for qualified leads, the $9.50 Target CPA is much lower than the actual cost of generating a qualified lead ($50). Google is unlikely to be able to hit that target and your ads won't show very often.

Start by setting the Target CPA to close to the actual cost of generating a qualified lead or sale. Once the campaign is stable and generating enough conversions you can test lowering the Target CPA if you want.

Don't ask your dog to chase two sticks at once

Sometimes you don't get enough conversions every month to optimise for the next stage in the sales funnel. You might get 100 leads but only 10 qualified leads.

I've seen people try to work around this by optimising for both stages at once. Usually it's done by setting relative values for the conversion e.g. a lead is worth $1 and a qualified lead is worth $10.

The thinking is that Google will see the higher value and optimise towards that. In practice what tends to happen is that you get mostly the low value conversions (a lead in this case).

In cases like this it's better to stick to one conversion goal and use other ways to improve the lead quality.

The end and an invitation

This is a complex subject and I wouldn't be surprised if some of my explanations are muddy. Let me know if any of the concepts are unclear and I'll do my best to improve the guide. Your feedback helps everyone.

If you have a WhatsApp button on your website and advertising on Google you might find Convertitsa useful.

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