You capture YouTube leads with the help of Cognito Forms, but associating those leads with a precise ad is not feasible. Likewise, when they turn into customers, tracing them to the original ad is unachievable.
Without tracking, you’re unable to monitor the effectiveness of your YouTube ads or identify those that generate conversions. This often results in overspending on unproductive campaigns.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to align each lead with the specific YouTube campaign, ad group, and ad that led to it.
Let’s take it one step at a time for clarity!
How to track YouTube Ads in Cognito Forms
Step 1: Add Leadsources in the head tag of your website
Leadsources is a simple solution for tracking lead origins. Added to your website, it collects up to 7 data points about the source of each lead.
➡️ Sign up to Leadsources.io for free
➡️ Add the Leadsources tracking code to your site
Step 2: Add the UTM parameters to your YouTube Ads
Attach UTM parameters to your ad URL to monitor details about the YouTube campaign, ad group, and ad. Here’s a sample setup:
UTM_source=youtubeUTM_campaign=campaign-nameUTM_term=ad-group-nameUTM_content=ad-name
Here’s how your finalized URL should appear:
https://www.yourdomain.com?UTM_source=youtube&UTM_campaign=campaign-name&UTM_term=ad-group-name&UTM_content=ad-nameDon’t forget: Leadsources handles all lead source tracking automatically, ensuring nothing is missed, even without UTM parameters.
Step 3: Add the hidden fields in Cognito Forms
Though invisible to users, hidden fields store information that is submitted alongside the form data.
Leadsources automatically fills the hidden fields with YouTube ads data when the Cognito Forms is submitted. As a result, the YouTube ads data is stored directly in the form at the time of submission.
Step 4: Capture the YouTube Ads data in Cognito Forms
Upon clicking your ads and entering your site, Leadsources automatically fetches the YouTube campaign, ad group, ad data (and more).
Then, Leadsources automatically inserts the YouTube ads data into the hidden fields of Cognito Forms, as seen in the examples.
Once the form has been submitted, you’ll be able to see the YouTube ad data and lead details directly in Cognito Forms.
How does Leadsources work?
When someone lands on your site, Leadsources collects YouTube Ads data and inserts it into the hidden fields of your form. Upon submission, this data, along with lead details like name and email, is forwarded to Cognito Forms.
Leadsources monitors and tracks all source data for every lead:
| Lead source data | Fetched automatically |
| Channel | ✅ |
| Source | ✅ |
| Campaign | ✅ OR use UTM_campaign for paid ads |
| Content | UTM_content parameter is required |
| Term | UTM_term parameter is required |
| Landing page | ✅ |
| Landing page subfolder | ✅ |
As shown in the table above, even without UTM parameters—such as with organic sources like Google search or referrals—Leadsources still records some lead source data:
- Channel
- Source
- Campaign
Content(UTM parameter required)Term(UTM parameter required)- Landing page
- Landing page subfolder
Leadsources distinguishes itself by tracking lead sources from all marketing channels, both organic and paid.
Select a channel to explore the lead source data that Leadsources incorporates into your form.
Performance reports: Lead, sales, and revenue by source
With YouTube Ads data in Cognito Forms, you’re able to create detailed performance reports, like:
- Leads, sales, and revenue by channel
- Leads, sales, and revenue by source
- Leads, sales, and revenue by campaign (aka. YouTube campaign)
- Leads, sales, and revenue by term (aka. YouTube ad group)
- Leads, sales, and revenue by content (aka. YouTube ad)
With this, you can reallocate your YouTube budget to the campaigns, ad groups, and ads that drive the most leads, sales, and revenue.
Let’s go through some of the reports you can create!
1. Lead source reports
Build reports that highlight how many leads were generated by:
- Channel
- Source
- Campaign (aka. YouTube campaign)
- Term (aka. YouTube ad group)
- Content (aka. YouTube ad)
- Landing page
- Landing page subfolder
Example #1: Leads by channel
Use this report to analyze which channel is driving the most leads.
Example #2: Leads by YouTube campaign
Now, you can target a specific lead source (e.g., YouTube) and follow the number of leads created by each YouTube campaign.
Example #3: Leads by YouTube ad
Once you’ve determined which YouTube campaign generates the most leads, you can further analyze which ad group or ad plays a key role in that success.
2. Sales and revenue source reports
Having identified the YouTube campaign, ad group, and ad that produce leads, it’s time to evaluate if those leads are converting into sales and generating revenue.
To monitor sales and revenue, direct your leads to a CRM like GoHighLevel. This will provide insights on different sources, channels, YouTube campaigns, and landing page subfolders.
With this information at your disposal, you can adjust your YouTube ad strategy to focus on the channels, sources, campaigns, ad groups, and ads that drive the most sales and revenue.
You can produce different types of sales and revenue reports, including:
- Sales and revenue by channel
- Sales and revenue by source
- Sales and revenue by campaign (aka. YouTube campaign)
- Sales and revenue by term (aka. YouTube ad group)
- Sales and revenue by content (aka. YouTube ad)
- Sales and revenue by landing page
- Sales and revenue by landing page subfolder
Example Scenario:
| Channel | Search Paid | Social Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Leads | 50 | 75 |
| Sales | 5 | 6 |
| Average Order Value | $150 | $100 |
| Revenue | $750 | $600 |
Once the ads were live on Google (Search Paid) and YouTube (Social Paid), the first “Leads by Channel” report revealed that YouTube ads brought in more leads than Google Search ads.
After reviewing the sales and revenue data in your CRM, you saw that the Search Paid channel was producing higher revenue with fewer leads than the Social Paid channel. This has led you to shift your budget towards Search Paid.