Google AdWords user conversions not showing up

Question

I am running an AdWords campaign and I am having trouble with the conversion tracking code. Basically, I believe I know what the problem is but just do not know how to fix it. When a user signs up for the website, they have to fill out the registration form. After they fill out the registration form, it will take them to PayPal where they have to make their payment.

Once they make their payment on PayPal, the user is returned back to the website and greeted with a "Thank You for Registering Message". On this page, the "Thank You for Registering Message" page, I have the Google AdWords conversion tracking code installed at the bottom of the page before the closing </body> tag. For some reason though, in my AdWords account, the conversion data does not show up.

The reason I believe this is happening is because the user is leaving the website to checkout at PayPal and is then returned to our website. We know that the users are coming from our online AdWords campaigns but we would like to see this data in our reports. Is there a setting or something that needs to be added/changed to the conversion tracking code to get this to work?

Answer 1

When you provide your "thank you" page link to PayPal, try adding the utm_nooverride=1 parameter to the URL. This should tell Google Analytics not to give PayPal credit for the referral, but rather attribute the conversion to the original channel that it came from (in this case AdWords)

Example: http://example.com/purchase/thankyou.html?utm_nooverride=1

Answer 2

You need to exclude the paypal host from your google analytics settings, otherwise it si considered as the "referral". settings / property / exclude hosts.