Google Adwords saving Server Side conversion Tracking through Measurement Protocol

Question

I am using:

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/

for server side tracking.

This is the set-up:

Google analytics account.
Google adwords account.
Adwords account is linked to the analytics account.

I create an ad in adwords, the user clicks the ads, the user visits the third party website, the third party website make a https POST request with the visitor gclid from adwords. This is stored in a mysql database.

In the google adwords account I have an event for conversion created. (Using the offline tracking conversion works, but the only reason why I would prefer to use measurement protocol is because the offline tracking only accepts the conversions after 90 minutes. )

And I send the page views and conversion in this way:

/**
 * @param $gclid
 * @param $clientId
 * @return \TheIconic\Tracking\GoogleAnalytics\AnalyticsResponse
 */
private function sendPageView($gclid, $clientId){
    $this->analytics
        ->setProtocolVersion(1)
        ->setTrackingId(self::GLOBAL_TRACKING_ID)
        ->setGoogleAdwordsId($gclid)
        ->setAnonymizeIp(true)
        ->setClientId($clientId);

    return $this->analytics->sendPageview();
}

/**
 * @param $gclid
 * @param $clientId
 * @return \TheIconic\Tracking\GoogleAnalytics\AnalyticsResponse
 */
private function sendConversion($gclid, $clientId, $url){
    $this->analytics
        ->setProtocolVersion(1)
        ->setTrackingId(self::GLOBAL_TRACKING_ID)
        ->setGoogleAdwordsId($gclid)
        ->setAnonymizeIp(true)
        ->setClientId($clientId)
        ->setEventAction('s2s')
        ->setEventCategory('Lead')
        ;

    return $this->analytics->sendEvent();
}

Response:

object(TheIconic\Tracking\GoogleAnalytics\AnalyticsResponse)#1008 (3) {
  ["httpStatusCode":protected]=>
  int(200)
  ["requestUrl":protected]=>
  string(164) "https://ssl.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-1XXXXX-1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInvrxopLZ5gIVXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_BwE&aip=1&cid=1&ea=s2s&ec=Lead&t=event"
  ["responseBody":protected]=>
  string(35) "GIF89a�����,D;"
}

So the response is 200, however the conversion is not recorded anywhere, and I am not sure if I should be sending any other parameter, or how to debug the issue.

Dmytriy Voloshyn Dmytriy Voloshyn · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-11T16:04:19

To understand what happens with your query on google's side there is an option to debug measurement protocol. To do that just add /debug prefix right before /collect part of URL. It should look like: https://ssl.google-analytics.com/debug/collect?v=1&tid=UA-1XXXXX-1 After that, you will see the details if your request is valid.

Google Adwords saving Server Side conversion Tracking through Measurement Protocol

1 Answers