You use Formidable Forms to collect leads from YouTube ads, but you can’t match those leads with the ads that generated them. Similarly, when leads convert, their connection to the ad disappears.
Tracking gaps make analyzing the performance of your YouTube ads and identifying successful ones a challenge. Consequently, ineffective ad spending becomes inevitable.
Fortunately, you can track every lead back to the YouTube campaign, ad group, and ad that brought it in.
Let’s simplify things with a step-by-step approach!
How to track YouTube Ads in Formidable Forms
Step 1: Add Leadsources in the head tag of your website
Leadsources is a simple tracking tool that identifies lead origins. Once set up, it records up to 7 data points for every lead generated.
➡️ 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
Embed UTM parameters in your ad URL to track YouTube campaigns, ad groups, and ads. Here’s a setup example for you:
UTM_source=youtubeUTM_campaign=campaign-nameUTM_term=ad-group-nameUTM_content=ad-name
Here’s the appearance of the completed URL:
https://www.yourdomain.com?UTM_source=youtube&UTM_campaign=campaign-name&UTM_term=ad-group-name&UTM_content=ad-nameImportant reminder: Leadsources automatically gathers lead source data, ensuring complete tracking even in the absence of UTM parameters.
Step 3: Add the hidden fields in Formidable Forms
In forms, hidden fields hold data that is sent with the form, although users do not see them.
When a Formidable Forms submission occurs, Leadsources automatically populates the hidden fields with YouTube ad data. The YouTube ads data is subsequently stored in your Formidable Forms once the form is submitted.
Step 4: Capture the YouTube Ads data in Formidable Forms
Upon users clicking your ads and landing on your site, Leadsources automatically fetches the YouTube campaign, ad group, ad data (and more).
The YouTube ads data is placed in the hidden fields of Formidable Forms by Leadsources, as seen in the examples.
Upon completing and submitting the form, the YouTube ad data and lead details appear directly in Formidable Forms.
How does Leadsources work?
When a user visits your site, Leadsources collects YouTube Ads data and places it in the hidden fields of your form. Once the form is submitted, this data, along with lead details such as name and email, is transferred to Formidable Forms.
All source data for each lead is monitored by Leadsources:
| 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 outlined above, when UTM parameters aren’t applicable—like with organic sources such as Google search or referrals—Leadsources still captures some lead source data:
- Channel
- Source
- Campaign
Content(UTM parameter required)Term(UTM parameter required)- Landing page
- Landing page subfolder
Leadsources tracks lead sources from both paid and organic marketing channels, unlike most other tools.
Choose a channel to look at the lead source data that Leadsources adds to your form.
Performance reports: Lead, sales, and revenue by source
With the tracking of YouTube Ads data in Formidable Forms, performance reports like these can be produced:
- 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 approach, you can adjust your YouTube budget to invest more in the campaigns, ad groups, and ads that result in the highest leads, sales, and revenue.
Let’s check out the reports you can create!
1. Lead source reports
Produce reports that show how many leads were created 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
By reviewing this report, you can determine which channel produces the highest lead count.
Example #2: Leads by YouTube campaign
Now, you can track leads for a specific lead source (e.g., YouTube) and analyze the performance of each YouTube campaign.
Example #3: Leads by YouTube ad
Once you identify the YouTube campaign that produces the most leads, you can investigate which ad group or ad was the top performer.
2. Sales and revenue source reports
With the YouTube campaign, ad group, and ad that generate leads known, we need to evaluate whether these leads are converting into sales and contributing to our revenue.
By using a CRM like GoHighLevel to send your leads, you can track sales and revenue generated by different channels, YouTube campaigns, landing pages, and their subfolders.
This data makes it easier to modify your YouTube ad strategy to focus on the channels, sources, campaigns, ad groups, and ads that drive the most sales and revenue.
Creating multiple sales and revenue reports, such as:
- 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 |
Following the ad launch on Google (Search Paid) and YouTube (Social Paid), the first “Leads by Channel” report revealed that YouTube ads produced more leads than Google Search ads.
When examining the sales and revenue data from your CRM, you identified that the Search Paid channel was yielding more revenue with fewer leads than Social Paid. Based on this, you adjusted your budget to allocate more towards Search Paid.