Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager - what degree of tracking is supported?

[jackdunn]

Hi there,

My nonprofit org has been using C&P Connect donate forms to accept donations integrated into our Salesforce - we use the donate forms via both direct URLs, and via embeds using the C&P Wordpress plugin.
We want to start utilizing Google Analytics for conversion tracking, alongside Google Ads. I noticed there are fields for "Google Tag Manager" ID and "Google Analytics" ID when I setup a donation campaign in Connect -- my question is, can you tell me more about what those fields do?

More specifically --
Does this track people who land on the C&P Campaign home-page, or does it also track people who land on donate forms associated with the campaign?
If yes:
Does it just track if people come to the donate form at all - or does it also track what percentage who then actually make a donation successfully (conversions)?
Does tracking distinguish between multiple donate forms/widgets under the same C&P Campaign?
Are there any limits placed by C&P on what data can be tracked by Google Analytics by placing my ID in this Campaign field?
Will the tracking still function if I embed the donation form (using Wordpress plugin and/or iFrame HTML embed code), or does it only work with direct URLs?
Will tracking follow if I specify custom "thank you" donation URLs?

Thanks for your time, much appreciated!

[CnP.LiveSupport.AB]

Hi jackdunn ,

Google Tag Manager Id and Google Analytics Id are both available to tie a page to a specific Google Account. If you're designing a web page, you add this ID using a specific HTML tag.

By itself, adding a Google Analytics Id is going to provide very basic analytics - how many visitors came to that page? what web page did they come from? how long did they stay? etc.

Getting additional details with Google Analytics requires code customization so that the website can send that to Google Analytics It also requires configuration in Analytics to receive it and report on it as intended. For example, if you have a search on your site, and you want Analytics to tell you what words people are entering in the search - you have to configure Analytics so to understand the system that your web page uses to submit a search

For your specific questions:

Does this track people who land on the C&P Campaign home-page, or does it also track people who land on donate forms associated with the campaign?

Yes, both the C&P Community pages and your CONNECT forms are tied to that Google Analytics/Tag Manager account. Third party integrations are not - so Event forms, Gravity Forms integrations, etc, would not be included. If you were to embed a CONNECT form in your site - the form itself would be tracked based on the stats it gets from loading in the page frame.

Does it just track if people come to the donate form at all - or does it also track what percentage who then actually make a donation successfully (conversions)?

It only adds the Google Id to the page - for Analytics, this allows tracking people who visit the page.

It does NOT track "actually making a donation successfully" - like tracking a search query, you have to add code to your page to collect the results of the transaction, relate that to the specific visitor, and provide the data to Analytics or Tag Manager in the way it expects to receive it.. Conversion tracking is a whole different "can of worms".

We have ways you can create your own landing page once a site visitor submits the form, and provide variables that advanced developers can use to build a way to track conversions.

Google Tag Manager opens options for even more complex customization so that you can track any nuances and categorize them the way you want - but you have to build that infrastructure yourself. It's probably overload for web pages that just represent an organization's online presence, but could be incredibly useful for online cloud service programs - because they can track in detail how visitors use their online app.

If you've made any use of SKUs with our apps, that's a good "elementary" correlation for the kind of planning, complexity, and structure that is required for Google Tag Manager. It's not the SAME, but it's a similar concept. SKUs have a lot of power if you invest the time to create a good SKU Schema. Google Tags are similar but require a strong understanding of many aspects of web design.
If you're wanting to dive into Google Tag Manager - it will be a full time job to learn it.

If your organization wants to start tracking conversions at a basic level in Analytics, you'll probably need to hire a consultant that can write code to pick up the transaction variables on the page and send them to Analytics.