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Google Ads campaign guide for leadgen and conversion

This guide covers the steps you need to follow for Google Ads campaign set-up, including the campaign in Salesforce, correct campaign tracking, naming conventions required, EN page set up and necessary testing.

Please see accessibility criteria for your ads campaign in our guide.

Please name your EN page, Google Campaign and SF parent campaign with identical names.

Ensure that you have completed the below list before sending your campaign for Digital Sign Off.

  1. My Google Ad Campaign, EN Landing Page and Parent SF Campaign all have identical names.
  2. In Salesforce I have used a DRG code for Leadgen, or a DRD code for Direct to Donate.
  3. My ad links have no utm tracking.
  4. I have not used the text version of the CIWF logo in my ads.
  5. My creatives are accessible, with limited text. Any text on images is large enough and with sufficient colour contrast to the background.
  6. I have given my campaign a Campaign-specific Conversion goal (when suitable).
  7. I have created as many variations of headlines and descriptions as possible to help Google learn.
  8. I have reviewed any warnings shown by Google
  9. I have no duplication in my headings and descriptions.
  10. I have tested the full journey of my campaign, including all share links and thank you email links.

Campaign Structure

Create a parent campaign in Salesforce and child campaigns below. Please create a parent campaign and child campaign structure even if there is only one child campaign code used in all of the ads.

Each Google campaign should have one parent campaign in Salesforce (1 to 1 relationship):

  • In the hierarchy under the parent campaign should be all child-campaigns that are related. This includes share codes, welcome codes and follow-up codes etc.
    Here is a good example of the structure.
  • If you want to group the Google campaign with other related campaigns (e.g the email campaign), the structure with multiple levels of parent campaigns can be established:

Parent Campaign 2

                                ↓

Parent Campaign 1 + other campaigns that you would like to group together but not include in fb reporting

Google Ads campaigns that would all be included in reporting

Please name your EN page, Google Campaign and SF parent campaign with identical names.

Google campaign codes for EN pages

Google campaign codes should be created following the below structure. Google ads within one campaign can all use the same code, however, share or follow-up links require unique codes.

Currently, you can create one appeal code per social channel and use these codes for all locations where you have share buttons for your campaign. E.g donation page 2, thank-you email. Note that this advice might change when the upcoming campaign code guide is complete

Google Ads Lead Gen

  Google Ad Share Buttons Follow-up email (e.g. part of a sequence
Type

Donor Recruitment = DR

Donor Recruitment = DR Donor Recruitment = DR
Sub-type

Lead Generation (action) =G

Lead Generation (action) =G Lead Generation (action) =G
Channel

Google Ads = GA

E.g. TW Twitter Email = EM
Country

e.g France = FR

e.g France = FR e.g France = FR
Initial/ Reminder/ Follow up/ Shared?

N/A

Shared = _S Follow up = _F

Direct to Donate or Lead Conversion

  Google Ad Share Buttons Follow-up email (e.g. part of a sequence
Type

Donor Recruitment = DR

Donor Recruitment = DR Donor Recruitment = DR
Sub-type

Direct to donate =D

Or

Lead Conversion (e.g. retargeting leads) = C

Direct to donate =D

Or

Lead Conversion (e.g. retargeting leads) = C

Direct to donate =D

Or

Lead Conversion (e.g. retargeting leads) = C

Channel

Google Ads = GA

E.g. TW Twitter Email = EM
Country

e.g France = FR

e.g France = FR e.g France = FR
Initial/ Reminder/ Follow up/ Shared?

N/A

Shared = _S Follow up = _F

Campaigning

  FB Ad Share Buttons Follow-up email (e.g. part of a sequence
Type

Campaigning = CA

Campaigning = CA Campaigning = CA
Sub-type

Petition = P

Or

ETT = CAET

Petition = P

Or

ETT = CAET

Petition = P

Or

ETT = CAET

Channel

Google Ads = GA

E.g. TW Twitter Email = EM
Country

e.g France = FR

e.g France = FR e.g France = FR
Initial/ Reminder/ Follow up/ Shared?

N/A

Shared = _S Follow up = _F

Link tracking

CIWF managed Google Ads account have auto-tagging enabled. This means that you do not need Google tracking, you only need to include tracking for EN pages, and the tracking will look like this:

https://actie.ciwf.nl/page/111215/petition/1?ea.tracking.id=google&supporter.appealCode=DRGGA_NL0822

ea.tracking.id and appeal code is all that is needed.

Engaging Networks pages

Please create a new EN landing page to be used throughout this campaign. Any TY donate pages should also be new if possible. 

Name the EN landing page and any TY donate page per the page naming spreadsheet here: Engaging Networks Pages.

  • Action landing pages should be named like this

DRGGA_US0322~FFM~LeadGen~0322 ETCA Google Ads:

  • Donation thank you pages should be named like this:

DRGGA_US0322~FFM~LeadCon~0322 ETCA Google Ads

  • Direct to Donate donation pages should be named like this:

DRGGA_US0322~FFM~D2D~0322 ETCA Google Ads

The parent Salesforce campaign and EN landing page names should match. 

  1. Building an action landing page to donate page redirect in EN
    • When setting up the redirect link, be sure to include ‘?chain’ at the end of the URL which will make sure that URL parameters and supporter data is carried across to the donation page. Make sure that the URL does not contain ‘?mode=DEMO’.

Campaign in Google

Create the campaign in Google, using appeal codes on the ads for EN pages, from the child campaign for the ads in point 1 above. Name the campaign exactly the same as Salesforce Parent Campaign and EN Page.

Asset Guidance

Please read the Google criteria for editorial content and Image quality requirements as this is what we will be checking your ads against.

  • No text on images
  • No photoshopped backgrounds
  • No logos overlaid on images
  • No collages
  • No repetition
  • No emojis or excessive capitalisation
  • No videos with illegible text

Logos

Do not use URL versions of our logo, or text versions of our logo where the text is too small to read. Ensure that you preview the ads that Google generates and check that the logos look good, and adhere to our brand guidelines.

Objectives & Conversions

These are the primary conversion goals we set up in the account via Google Tag Manager. Where possible, you should always choose your Campaign's Conversion Goals to be Campaign-specific, not Account-default. This helps Google to Optimize bidding to your important KPIs.

  • Category - Purchase
    • Purchase (donation)
    • Overall Objective - Sales
  • Category - Submit Lead Form
    • Action Taken
    • Overall Objective - Leads
  • Category - Sign up
    • Taken Action & Opted in
    • Overall Objective - Leads
  • Category -  Other
    • File downloads
    • Video views
    • Overall Objective - Leads/Website traffic/Awareness and consideration - Depends on campaign type and the objective in your mind.

Conversions are managed by Digi, please send any conversion requests our way!

END.IT Petition Pages

If pointing to End.It petition pages, you will not get data on the Taken Action related conversion events.

Test the campaign

  • Complete a full test of the user journey, from the Ad URL through to action and then re-direct donation page (or just donation page if D2D campaign).
    • Check all thank you emails received from action and donate pages,
      • Are links going to correct page?
      • Do links have correct appeal code?
      • Do links have correct tracking?
      • Are share links working and have correct appeal codes?
    • Check share link on page 2, do they work, do they have correct appeal codes and bitly links?

Digital Team sign-off

Once you have completed this test and fixed any issues, you must create a testing case in Salesforce for the Digital Team to check if the campaign has been set up and named correctly and to complete final testing of the campaign. If you have one, provide a link to a tracking spreadsheet with your case. Wait for approval on this before going live.

Globe

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If you have any further questions regarding this, or any other matter, please get in touch with us at supporters@ciwf.org.uk. We aim to respond to all queries within two working days. However, due to the high volume of correspondence that we receive, it may occasionally take a little longer. Please do bear with us if this is the case. Alternatively, if your query is urgent, you can contact our Supporter Engagement Team on +44 (0)1483 521 953 (lines open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm).