How to Set Up Conversion Tracking for Form Submissions

From newsletter sign-ups to contact requests, form submissions are one of the most common and valuable conversion actions you can track. Tracking form submissions allow you to trace referrers back to their origin so that you are accurately attributing the success of your conversion.

If you have multiple forms across your site or landing page, conversion tracking also allows you to identify which forms are performing better. This can help you test and make decisions about the best area to place a form or the right number of questions to include.

In this post, we’re sharing the step-by-step process for setting up form submission tracking through Google Tag Manager.

Note: If you haven’t yet set up a Google Tag Manager account, please refer to our article, “How to Get Started With Google Tag Manager.”

1. Identify the Form ID

To set up form submission tracking, first identify the ID of the form you’d like to track. You can do this by right-clicking on the form and selecting “inspect.” This will bring up a window of code, where you can find the form ID. In the following example, you’ll see that “gform_7” is the ID of the contact form below:

 

2. Create a new tag

Next, open up your Google Tag Manager account and click into the dashboard view of the site you’re working on. Click on “Add a new tag.”

A window will pop up that looks like this:

First, rename the “Untitled Tag” to “Contact Form Submission” so you can easily identify it later.

3. Configure the tag type

Under “Tag Configuration,” click on “Choose a tag type to begin setup” and a sidebar menu will pop up. Select “Universal Analytics.”

This is what the Tag Configuration area should look like now:

Select “Event” as your Track Type, and a few additional options will show up. Here’s what you will be changing:

• Type “Contact Form Submission” in the Category field.
• Type “{{Referrer}}” in the Action field.
• Check “Enable overriding settings in this tag.”
• Add your Google Analytics Tracking ID.

This is what the screen will look like after setting up the tag type:

4. Set up the tag trigger

Now that you’ve set up the tag type, it’s time to establish the tag’s trigger. Under “Triggering” click on “Choose a trigger to make this tag fire…” You will be directed to a page that shows all your current triggers, including your “All Pages” trigger. Click on the blue plus sign in the top right corner next to the magnifying glass:

On the next screen, rename “Untitled Trigger” to “Contact Form Submission Trigger.” Then click on “Choose a trigger type to begin setup…” and select “Form Submission.”

The next screen that pops up will ask you to configure the trigger. Click on “Some Forms,” and three fields will pop up. Select the “Form ID” variable, select “contains,” and then input the Form ID that you gathered from inspecting your form (in our example, it is “gform_7”). With these components together, the conditions for the trigger will be “Form ID contains gform_7,” as demonstrated below:

5. Save and publish the tag

Once you’ve configured the tag and set up the tag trigger, your tag should now look like this:

Once you’ve satisfied with your tag, there’s a multistep process to push it live. First, click “Save” in the upper right-hand corner. You will be brought to the main Tags dashboard. Click on “Submit” to continue the process:

You will be brought to a screen that looks like this:

This page allows you to document the changes you’ve made to your tags. Simply explain what you’ve done in this version. In this case, just write “Added ‘Contact Form Submission’ tag” in the name and description, then click on “Publish.”

The next page will give you a brief rundown of information about your new tag version:

Congrats! Your form submission tracking tag is now set up in Google Tag Manager! With this tag, you can now track conversions through your Google Analytics account.

To retrieve the form submission data you are now tracking, open up your Google Analytics dashboard. In the left sidebar, follow the following path: Behavior > Events > Top Events. The resulting page will show you the new conversion data you’re collecting from the date you began collecting it.

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