How to pass on Google Adwords gclid variable to other pages

Question

i need to track if people filled out any of my forms on my wordpress blog if they where coming from a Google Adwords ad. There are many forms on my website like for booking a demo presentation, contacting me or subscribing to the newsletter.

I receive the gclid varibale e.g. via www.domain.com/pagenameblablabla/?gclid=CILxsfsfsdiLMCsfaafaff33UAzw correctly on my page, but i see only the Conversion in Google Adwords if the user sends the contact form exactly on the same page he came to when he clicked on a Adwords ad.

When he makes one single more click on another page, wordpress looses the gclid variable and tracking stops.

How can I pass the Google Adwords gclid to further pages in wordpress?

Answer 1

This is a good question, a year back or so, even I was facing similar problems with a website at work. We wanted to track not only campaign and ads on conversions, but also which keywords are leading to higher conversions. Here's what we finally did.

1. Changed the Destination URL in all the ads to include the {keyword} parameter
2. On the landing pages of my ads, we create a SESSION and store information such as the gclid, the target keyword, country of origin
3. Now whenever the user clicks on the form or other lead capturing mechanisms, we access this session and retrieve all the required information

Using this method and tracking which leads are finally converting into purchases, we are now able to find out profitability of a keyword over a period and even the average Lead to Cash conversion time.

Answer 2

Like the previous answer, you can store the GCLID in a session. Google has a tutorial here, just go to the "enable your website and lead tracking system" section for the code -

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2998031?hl=en