TRACKING ID different in Google Ads & Google Analytics
Hi there,
it seems that I migth have setup Google Analytics before Google Ads, so the later gives me a tracking ID to setup on the website while that website has already been setup with the ID given by Google Analytics.
How do I make sure the two integrate well? If I go on either Ads or Analytics for integration, they don’t recognise each other.
Thanks!
The short answer is:
Your Google Analytics ID and Google Ads ID are designed to be different and should not be the same.
The Google Analytics ID (now called a Measurement ID for GA4) is what tracks all website traffic and behaviour, while the Google Ads Conversion ID is specific to a conversion action.
To integrate them, you do not use the Ads ID on your site alongside the Analytics ID; instead, you link the two accounts directly within the Google Ads and Google Analytics interfaces.
You also need to ensure Auto-Tagging is enabled in Google Ads.
This link allows Google Ads to automatically import conversions and use the rich user behaviour data from Google Analytics for better ad optimization.
The long answer is:
Your confusion is common because the old way of tracking required you to put multiple separate code snippets on your website.
Today, the core tracking is handled by the main Google tag, which is the code snippet that contains your Google Analytics Measurement ID (starting with G-).
You should only have this one primary Google tag installed on every page of your site.
The Google Ads Conversion ID and Conversion Label are not a primary website tracking code; they are just unique identifiers for a specific conversion goal, like a Purchase or Lead.
The solution involves three steps: linking the accounts, enabling auto-tagging, and using Google Tag Manager (GTM) for a clean setup.
First, you must link the two accounts.
You do this in the Admin section of your Google Analytics property under “Product Links,” where you will find the “Google Ads Links” option.
You must also check the “Linked accounts” section under “Tools & Settings” in Google Ads.
You need to have Administrator access in both platforms to complete this.
Once the link is established, you can choose to import your Google Analytics conversions (like a specific Standard Event you’ve marked as a conversion) directly into Google Ads.
Second, you must ensure that Auto-Tagging is enabled in your Google Ads account settings.
This is a critical feature because it automatically appends a unique identifier called gclid (Google Click Identifier) to your ad destination URLs.
When a user clicks your ad, the gclid is passed to your website, and your Google Analytics tag picks it up.
This is the mechanism that allows Google Analytics to attribute the user’s session and subsequent conversions back to a specific Google ad, campaign, and keyword.
Third, the modern, scalable, and most reliable solution is to use Google Tag Manager (GTM).
While GTM is free for the client-side container, you can combine it with a server-side environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform for an “excellent and cheap solution” to data loss issues caused by ad blockers and browser restrictions like ITP.
The GTM web container on your site sends a single, clean data stream to your GTM Server Container (hosted on Stape or GCP).
The Server Container then takes that single, high-quality data stream and forwards it to both Google Analytics and Google Ads, often via their more reliable server-side APIs (like the Google Ads API and Google Analytics Data API).
This approach future-proofs your tracking, significantly improves data quality by sending events directly from your server, and ensures all the necessary identifiers, like the gclid, are correctly managed for accurate attribution in both platforms.
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