Question from Reddit:
Hey everyone, noob seeking some help here.
Conversion Goal (GTM-linked) not registering on Google Ads for some reason, even though the trigger and tag in GTM has been tested and is registering clicks.
Background: For our website, our main conversion channel for most of our GAds campaigns has been our ‘Contact Us’ chatbot to track incoming leads. Recently, we have introduced a WhatsApp AI Chatbot option (which has been receiving incoming conversations). Initially, having issues using this as a point of conversion for GAds, we have now tried to track the ‘Clicks’ (via GTM) to serve as a conversion goal.
When testing the trigger on GTM, it seems to be working fine, however, once linked to GAds it shows ‘No Recent Conversions’ though we find that hard to believe as some leads have specifically mentioned coming in via search ads.
Consulting freelancers to help figure this out, some mentioned that because its ‘cross-platform’ (website to WhatsApp), the usual methods of setting up tracking this way wouldn’t work. Thus, we thought tracking button clicks, while not the cleanest method, would work to some extent in tracking conversions.
Hope I’ve explained this well enough to be understood. Would appreciate any help rendered! Thank you.
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Your freelancers are right that cross-platform tracking from your website to an external service like WhatsApp is problematic for the browser-based Google Ads conversion tag because it loses the user’s Google Click ID (gclid) when the user leaves your domain, which is essential for attribution.
The current method of tracking button clicks in GTM is a poor proxy for conversions and often results in zero data because the click event cannot successfully pass the gclid to Google Ads before the user is redirected.
The only reliable and accurate solution is to implement server-side tracking using the Google Ads API and the WhatsApp Business API to bypass these client-side limitations and send the actual conversion event directly to Google Ads.
The long answer is:
It is extremely common for the Google Ads conversion tag to show ‘No Recent Conversions’ for clicks that redirect users to an external platform like WhatsApp.
When a user clicks your WhatsApp button, the browser instantly redirects them away from your domain.
For the Google Ads tag in GTM to report a conversion, it needs to capture the Google Click ID (gclid) from the landing page URL and successfully send a signal back to Google’s servers before the page unloads, and the redirect happens.
This window is often too narrow, and the redirection process itself frequently interrupts the tag or discards the necessary attribution data, resulting in the tag firing successfully in GTM’s test mode but failing to register the conversion in Google Ads.
Furthermore, simply tracking the click is not a true conversion; it’s just an intent to chat.
The most accurate conversion is when a conversation starts or a lead is identified on WhatsApp.
To track this accurately, you must shift your tracking from the client-side (the user’s browser) to the server-side.
An excellent solution involves using the Google Ads API and the WhatsApp Business API with a server-side tagging environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
The workflow involves these steps: first, on your website, you use Google Tag Manager to capture the gclid from the user’s URL and pass it to your server-side environment.
You store this gclid temporarily.
Second, you integrate the WhatsApp Business API with your server environment.
When a user initiates a chat and you confirm a lead or a conversation threshold is met within WhatsApp, the WhatsApp Business API sends a signal back to your server.
Finally, your server environment uses the previously stored gclid and the confirmation from the WhatsApp API to formulate a conversion event.
It then sends this event directly to Google Ads using the Google Ads API’s Offline Conversion Upload service or Enhanced Conversions.
This approach is superior because it uses first-party, validated data from the source of the conversion (WhatsApp) and ensures the conversion is accurately attributed using the gclid, completely bypassing browser-side failures, redirect issues, and loss of attribution data.
This will reliably show conversions in your Google Ads account, accurately reflecting the leads who mentioned coming in via search ads.
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