Using Google's Click ID (GCLID) for B2B attribution to grow sales pipeline and revenue
Let’s face it, with over 86% of the global ‘search’ market share, Google Ads is the cream of search-based lead generation. Which explains why the digital marketer has made running and optimising Google Ads campaigns her bread and butter.
But there’s more to Google Ads than the act of demand and lead generation through marketers’ wizardry, important as though that is.
Beneath the Google Ads hood sits the Google Click ID (GCLID) which offers just as valuable a treat to sales pipeline and revenue growth as to optimising marketing campaigns. Or at least it does with revenue attribution.
In this post we’re going to cover how GCLID can be used to grow sales pipeline and B2B revenue. We’ll cover:
GCLID: a definition
The limits of GCLID in the Google Ads setup
GCLID and B2B revenue attribution
How Dreamdata uses GCLID for B2B Attribution
How to grow sales pipeline and revenue with the GCLID
Why not give B2B attribution a try right now?
Google Click ID: a definition
According to Google, “Google Click ID (GCLID) is a parameter passed in the URL with ad clicks, to identify the campaign and other attributes of the click associated with the ad for ad tracking and campaign attribution.”
In plain english, GCLID is a default feature of Google Ads that automatically tracks info when a user clicks your ads. *Google automatically applies GCLID to all ad-clicked urls. You can see how to check whether your auto-tagging is on here*
The GCLID url parameter carries all the relevant tracking info that Google Ads uses to transfer data to Google Analytics - or other analytics/attribution tool (more on this in a sec). Such as, traffic source, campaign, ad group, keywords, location, match type, search query, etc.
In other words, most of the data a digital marketer wants to help track, measure and optimise their campaigns. Which Google usefully compiles into the Click Performance Report. See more about click performance report here.
But it’s not without its limitations. Especially for the B2B setting.
The limits of GCLID and Google Ads
When it comes to GCLID (and Google Ads in general) most B2B users will have run into its shortcomings.
For starters, there’s the oft-repeated mantra that Google is in it for the clicks not the revenue. Meaning that everything about the Google Ads platform is guided towards showing how valuable your Google ads have been in generating X metric.
But beyond this, the GCLID and Google Ads limits can be broken down into three:
1. Data is tracked for no more than 90 days
Google Ads (and by extension Google Analytics) only tracks GCLID data for a maximum of 90 days.
Not exactly ideal for the B2B user, right?
From our own customer data, we’ve found that the average B2B buyer sits in the pipeline between 6 to 12 months - from the first touch to the deal being closed as won.
So tracking this vital data for no more than 3 months means most B2Bs are unable to ever see the true impact of their ad campaigns.
2. Tracking individual users and not multi-stakeholder accounts
Even if for a maximum of 3 months, GCLID does a great job in capturing the user behaviour behind events.
But again, this paints only part of the B2B picture.
A single user in the B2B setting is just one in a team participating in the B2B buying journey.
The typical B2B customer is not a single individual but a company (account) consisting of multiple stakeholders with different touches throughout the journey. Looking something like this 👇
3. Only Google data is incorporated into the GCLID mix.
I know I’m stating the obvious here, but GCLID, by definition, only takes into account information from Google ads. Which leaves the rest of your paid (and non-paid) activities to be tracked and measured independently, if at all.
The fact is, Google does tracking well, and it does it automatically. Because of this, and because it’s typically the paid channel that takes the lion’s share of the attention (and budget) other activities are tracked much more loosely, if at all.
Ideally, you want to be in a position where you’re tracking (and storing) all your activities with the same vigour and accuracy.
The thread running through each of these limitations is that GCLID and the Google Ads setup paints only part of the B2B customer story.
It’s like one of Da Vinci’s great unfinished works. A beautifully detailed corner on an otherwise empty canvas.
Meaning that while GCLID is effective in tracking and measuring info for the digital marketer to optimise his Google Ads campaigns, it is limited in how effective it can be in truly revving up the whole B2B revenue-generating engine.
To do this you need a solution which uses GCLID to help paint a complete B2B customer journey masterpiece.
More on Google Analytics limitations here.
GCLID and B2B attribution
A B2B attribution tool gives the B2B marketer the brush and palette to fill the entire customer journey canvas.
From start to finish.
Which means all your costs are connected to deals and revenue generated.
To do this a B2B revenue attribution platform will get the GCLID tracking data through the Click Performance Report and connect it with data from across your ecosystem (check out how Dreamdata does this below).
In doing so, a B2B revenue attribution tool will overcome each of three limitations set out above.
Let’s take a look at how.
Start your B2B attribution journey today
1. Tracking the B2B customer journey from start to finish
A revenue attribution tool will help B2B marketers break free from the 90 day tracking limit.
Your GCLID data will be added to a larger database storing data from across the ecosystem.
Meaning that by the point the 90 days are up all that data will still be there, AND, will have been added to the wider mix of your CRM, support, other ads data, etc. Offering enriched customer profile data.
2. Taking into account all stakeholders
By enriched customer profile we’re obviously talking about ‘customer’ in the B2B sense, i.e. multiple stakeholders.
A B2B-specific revenue attribution tool will be configured to accommodate all identified (more on identification here) stakeholders.
This means that marketers will be able to see how their campaigns have contributed to revenue even if the user closing the deal isn’t the same one that clicked on the Google Ad.
3. All paid and non-paid activities taken into account
Google’s auto-tagging and Click Performance Reports are par excellence. But, they’re not alone in the B2B marketer’s demand and lead gen arsenal.
Linkedin ads, Facebook ads, Capterra ads, etc. are all also important paid channels. Tagging in these platforms however, is, to differing degrees, challenging.
A B2B revenue attribution tool (with quality customer support to help set up) will not only have dedicated dashboards for all these paid channels, but also organic and direct channels too. What’s more, a revenue attribution platform like Dreamdata will be able to plot all touches from all channels into a customer journey map.
Check out this post on multi-channel attribution.
How Dreamdata uses Google Click ID for its Revenue Attribution platform
Dreamdata uses GCLID to connect marketers’ Google Ads to revenue and deals generated.
To achieve this, Dreamdata applies the following steps:
Introduces a tracking script on your website to track all anonymous_id/user_id and url (more on Dreamdata’s tracking script here)
Makes sure auto-tagging on your Google Ads platform is on - (Google has auto-tagging on by default, but you can double-check here)
Fetches Click Performance Report from Google Adwords API to link the GCLID with the relevant campaign, ad group and ad
Connects this data with data from across your ecosystem through integrations, such as Hubspot CRM.
Runs multi-touch attribution modelling (no more ‘original source’ from your CRM) on the data. This includes running reports by pipeline stage.
Displays analytics and reports on killer dashboards. Or alternatively, invites customers to pull their clean, modelled data, to their own preferred dashboards!
How to grow sales pipeline and revenue
Right. With your GCLID data added to the wider data mix and connected to revenue, you can now start focusing on optimising your Google Ads (and all channels) to grow your sales pipeline and revenue.
A heads-up: once your Google Ads is attributed to revenue you will never look at your data the same way again.
Your focus will shift from clicks and traffic to revenue and impact on pipeline. Check out what difference it made to this business.
Let’s take a look at a few concrete examples on how revenue attribution helps grow your sales pipeline and revenue.
Performance and scalability
Once you’ve got your Google Ads connected to revenue, you’re able to accurately calculate the ROAS on each of your campaigns and the LTV on every one of your ads.
No matter how long it takes from the ad click event to the deal closed as won by the account.
This means that you can finally take control and optimise your Google ad spend: scaling the campaigns that actually work and scrapping the ones that don’t. So you can wave bye-bye to optimising for clicks and traffic and all the funny branded ads trickery to keep these metrics up. Revenue is the name of the game.
What’s more, the beauty of revenue attribution is that it encompasses the entirety of your paid and non-paid activities - not just your Google Ads campaigns. That is, every recordable activity across marketing, sales and customer success.
The ultimate result, and the one the C-suit will be most happy with, is that you’re able to improve ROI across all revenue-generating activities.
Boost lead quality
Attributing your Google Ads data to deals and revenue gives you the tools to finally nail down the quality of your leads. After all, scaling is only possible if leads are first qualified. No use sending rubbish leads over to sales.
But it doesn’t end here, you’re able to assess performance on pipeline generated too. How effectively are your campaigns generating MQLs and SQLs. With Dreamdata’s attribution to pipeline stage filters you can attribute to MQL and SQL as well as New Bizz. Helping you with lead quality.
Dreamdata’s Journeys feature will allow the marketer to look at what is happening once the lead leaves the marketing funnel and enters the sales pipeline.
Experiment success
Testing experiments against revenue and pipeline generation can offer an infinitely more accurate reading on their success than clicks and traffic - much in the same way as performance set out above.
But the benefits of a revenue attribution platform like Dreamdata lie in not only determining whether or not an experiment is successful, but when you should even be making that assessment.
In other words, without knowing how long your average journey takes, i.e when you should see the fruits of your campaigns, you cannot decide on their success.
For example, if your average journey takes five months, you have to give your experiment AT LEAST five months to see if your campaigns generate desired results.
Too often are experiments put under the guillotine prematurely!
Remember the 90 days limit? Well, this applies equally to experiments. Once you’ve broken away from the limit and have found your actual time to revenue, you can benchmark how long to give your experiments.
Not just campaigns
It’s worth noting that the analytics can be sliced and diced beyond campaigns. At Dreamdata we’ve developed new reports that connect revenue to different GCLID attributes.
For instance we’re running Bid Goal performance reports, which allow users to compare the success of specific bidding strategies you’re using across campaigns.
Watch this space for an update on Dreamdata’s Google Ads dashboards. *Spoiler alert* we now have three dashboards and six new reports with new metrics… 🤐
Summary and Conclusion
Google’s GCLID is without doubt the best tracking tag out there. It tracks quality info, it tracks it automatically, and it conveniently compiles it in a Click Performance Report.
But, it’s not without some important limits, especially for the B2B marketer.
Its tracking stops at 90 days - most B2B’s sales cycle stretches far beyond this.
It tracks individual users - B2B deals are closed by accounts with multiple stakeholders.
It only tracks Google Ads (duh) - leaves the rest of your activities (paid and unpaid) unaccounted for.
So to really squeeze the best out of GCLID, and grow pipeline and revenue, B2B marketers need to look at a solution that breaks away from these limitations.
They need to look for a B2B revenue attribution solution like Dreamdata that:
Connects their ad spend to revenue, no matter how long the journey takes
Captures data from across the commercial techstack, breaking down silos in the process
Tracks accounts and not just users
Attributes to pipeline, deals and revenue to measure what’s working when
Why not see for yourself and sign up for Dreamdata free today?
