Manually import Google Ads conversions from Salesforce

Channel	Key event	Technical details
Online	A prospective customer clicks on your ad, which leads to your website.	Google passes the GCLID to the website.
Online	The prospective customer explores your web pages – they read descriptions, watch videos and download whitepapers. During that session, or a later one, they enter their information into your lead submission form that uses Salesforce's Web-to-Lead solution.	Using the JavaScript code samples below, the website stores the GCLID in a cookie and then passes the GCLID value (along with the lead information entered on the form) to Salesforce.com. Note: If you'd like to track this lead submission as a conversion, you could use Google Ads conversion tracking to track conversions on a website.
Offline	A lead is created in Salesforce.	Salesforce.com creates a new lead that stores the lead's information + GCLID
Offline	When the lead becomes "qualified", it's converted to an opportunity. Then an opportunity record is created, with the initial stage 'prospecting'.	Salesforce stores this conversion event in the opportunity history so that Google Ads can later retrieve exactly when the click resulted in a new opportunity (aka qualified lead)
Offline	When the opportunity is won and closed, the opportunity stage is set to 'Closed Won'.	Salesforce stores this conversion event in the opportunity history so that Google Ads can later retrieve exactly when the click resulted in a final sale, or "win".

1. Create a custom field called 'GCLID' (API name is GCLID__c) on the lead object as well as on the opportunity object. The field length is 255 characters. Make this field read-only, as this will be automatically populated.
2. Create a custom text formula field called 'Google Ads Action' on both the lead and opportunity object (the API name is Google Ads_Action__c). Enter the simple formula 'add'. This field will always contain the static value 'add', and is used later to simplify the creation of the data file that the admin feeds back into Google Ads.
3. In the Lead Custom Field Mapping screen, map the lead field GCLID to the opportunity field GCLID. That way, the GCLID is transferred from the lead to the opportunity automatically when a lead is converted into an opportunity.

If a visitor clicks on your ad, Google Ads will append the URL parameter 'gclid' to the URL that leads to your landing page.

You'll need to store this parameter's value in a cookie to retrieve it later when a prospective customer enters their data into the Web-to-Lead form.

If you embed the following JavaScript code immediately before the closing </body> tag of your landing page(s), the GCLID value will be saved in a cookie.

<script type="text/javascript">
function setCookie(name, value, days){
    var date = new Date();
    date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days*24*60*60*1000)); 
    var expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
    document.cookie = name + "=" + value + expires;
}
function getParam(p){
    var match = RegExp('[?&]' + p + '=([^&]*)').exec(window.location.search);
    return match && decodeURIComponent(match[1].replace(/\+/g, ' '));
}
var gclid = getParam('gclid');
if(gclid){
    var gclsrc = getParam('gclsrc');
    if(!gclsrc || gclsrc.indexOf('aw') !== -1){
	    setCookie('gclid', gclid, 90);
	}
}
</script>

 

We strongly recommend that you insert this code on every web page on your site. This way, you won't need to add it every time you create new ads with new landing pages. You also won't have to worry about losing GCLIDs if you start driving ads traffic to different landing pages. Consider adding this code to your web page template (or a shared page element, such as the footer), so that all of your new pages will automatically include the code.

To associate and store the GCLID with the lead information, you'll need to modify your Web-to-Lead submission forms so all new leads will include the GCLID value.

This means that after the GCLID has been saved in a cookie, you'll add a hidden field to your lead forms, and write the value of the cookie into that field so it can be transmitted to Salesforce.

Bear in mind: Your Web-to-Lead form needs to be located in the same domain as the rest of your web pages in order to make the cookie available.

1. Generate a standard Web-to-Lead form, and include all the fields that you want your prospects to submit. Also include the lead field "GCLID". The HTML generated by Salesforce will include this code (where xxxx stands for the ID of the field GCLID that you've created):

   GCLID:<input id="xxxx" maxlength="255" name="xxxx" size="20" type="text" />

2. Change this code to: <input id="xxxx" name="xxxx" type="hidden" />

   These changes mean that you're removing the attributes 'maxlength' and 'size', and changing the value of the type attribute to 'hidden'. Leave the attributes "id" and "name" as is (they'll be different for every Salesforce organisation).

3. Once you have created this new hidden input field, add it to your HTML form in between the <form> tags. On the same HTML lead submission page, add the following code between the head tags:

           <script> 
           window.onload = function getGclid() {        
                document.getElementById("xxxx").value = (name = new    
           RegExp('(?:^|;\\s*)gclid=([^;]*)').exec(document.cookie)) ? 
           name.split(",")[1] : ""; }
           // window.onload() may not be supported by all browsers.  
           // If you experience problems submitting the GCLID as a
           // hidden field, consider using an alternative method to
           // call this function on page load.
           </script>
        

   
   In this code replace 'xxxx' with the ID of your new field.

Salesforce and your web pages are ready to gather all the data. This script will populate the hidden field with the GCLID value, and populate the field Lead.GCLID__c when the web-to-lead form is submitted. Again, bear in mind that the fields 'ID' and 'name' will be different in your organisation.

This next step assumes that you're exporting and uploading your key event data every three days.

1. Use Apex Data Loader or Lexi Loader to export OpportunityHistory records using this query:

           SELECT Opportunity.Google Ads_Action__c, Opportunity.GCLID__c, 
           StageName, ExpectedRevenue, CreatedDate FROM OpportunityHistory 
           WHERE Opportunity.GCLID__c != null AND (StageName = 
           'Prospecting' OR StageName = 'Closed Won') AND CreatedDate = 
           LAST_N_DAYS:3
        

   This will output a row for every GCLID associated with an opportunity that has been set to the 'Prospecting' or 'Closed Won' stages. And it will contain all the fields necessary (and in the right order) to quickly create a Google Ads conversion import CSV. Alternatively, if you wish to automate the conversion import process by using the Google Ads API (AdWords API), then you can skip the next two steps and instead refer to our conversion import API guide.

2. Once you have the export file, replace the first row of the file with these two rows:

          Parameters:EntityType=OFFLINECONVERSION;TimeZone=HHMM; 
          Action,Google Click Id,Conversion Name,Conversion 
          Value,Conversion Time
        

3. Finally, update the 'TimeZone' value so that it reflects your Google Ads account's time zone (e.g. +0100 for BST). You can see what time zone your account is set to by signing into your Google Ads account and checking the footer.

This file is now ready to be uploaded into Google Ads. If you need guidance on uploading your files, read our article about tracking offline conversions.