Question from Reddit:
There doesn’t seem to be any inbuilt sort of conversion tracking for when you add an extension to the Chrome Web Store.
Meaning, if I run an ad campaign with 100 keywords, I seem to have no way of determining which keywords install/convert at higher rates than the other ones. It’s all just a mystery.
There has GOT to be some simple way to track this — what percent of people who searched Keyword A, then clicked on my ad, went on to install the Chrome Extension.
Has anybody figured out an effective way to do this?
Thanks
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
You are correct that the Chrome Web Store (CWS) doesn’t offer a built-in conversion tag for Google Ads, which makes direct attribution a mystery.
However, there is an incredibly effective and simple way to track this using Google Analytics (GA4) with a custom first-party data solution.
The solution involves setting up a GA4 property to receive two key Standard Events: one that records the visit to your CWS page, capturing the Google Ads click ID (gclid), and a second, custom event that fires from within your installed extension when a user first interacts with it.
By joining these two events server-side, you can link the initial ad click to the final install and attribute it to the keyword, campaign, and even geographic details you require.
The long answer is:
Your idea about using Google Analytics and its linking to Google Ads is the correct starting point, as this establishes the bridge for passing the campaign and keyword data.
When a user clicks your Google Ad, the auto-tagging feature appends a unique identifier, the Google Click ID (gclid), to the URL that lands on your Chrome Web Store page.
Although you cannot place Google Tag Manager (GTM) or the GA4 tag directly on the CWS page, the CWS platform does expose the referrer information, including the gclid, to your GA4 property if you’ve correctly implemented the GA4 tracking code on the CWS page itself – which the CWS allows you to do.
The key to the solution lies in a two-step data capture process using the Google Ads API for click data and the Google Analytics Data API for event data, orchestrated through a powerful server-side architecture.
First, you need to ensure your CWS listing page fires a page_view event to GA4, which captures the gclid from the referrer.
This links the user to the ad click.
Second, when the user successfully clicks “Add to Chrome” and your extension is installed, you need a way to send a second, highly reliable signal.
This is achieved by creating a custom function inside your extension that fires a custom Standard Event, such as extension_installed, the first time the extension is launched or the first time a unique user interacts with it.
This custom event must include the Client ID from the GA4 tracking on the CWS page to link it back to the first step.
To achieve the fine-grained reporting you mentioned – seeing the install rate of people in Campaign A, that typed Keyword B, and who live in India – you need to use a server-side solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This allows you to combine the data streams.
You can use the Google Ads API to pull a daily report of every gclid click and its corresponding keyword, campaign name, and geographic data.
Simultaneously, you use the Google Analytics Data API to pull all the extension_installed events, which contain the Client ID.
By joining these two datasets using the Client ID and the gclid, you can create a single, unified data set that accurately attributes every install back to its original keyword and location.
Finally, this clean, attributed data can be pushed to a visualization tool like Looker Studio using the Looker Studio API to create a custom dashboard that shows the precise metrics you need, giving you the detailed drill-down analysis (Campaign, Keyword, Country) that is otherwise impossible to achieve in the native Google Ads or GA4 interface alone.
This system moves you beyond simple GA4 reporting and into reliable, first-party cross-platform attribution.
About The Author
