While trying to set up Analytics goals as conversions in Google Adwords I came across a bug when using the “Import Google Analytics” option and thought I should share in case anyone else has the same problem and is trying to troubleshoot the issue.
This is how it panned out…
We had no unused Goals in any of our Goal Sets in Google Analytics for this particular Analytics Property (website), so to track some conversion events for a new campaign we were doing I renamed and reset some old goals.
Fyi… when importing from Analytics, in the Adwords Conversions “Import from Google Analytics” tab you can’t see your goals in the import list unless they have already been triggered in Analytics by Adwords visits.
I waited till the next day then checked: Adwords > Tools & Analysis > Conversions > Import from Google Analytics. At this point they were showing up in the list with the correct goal names: Stay 15 Seconds, Rebate Download, Click Internal Links.
I clicked on the three goals I was importing, identifying them via their correct goal names, then clicked the big blue “Import” button at the bottom of the screen. However, once they had imported the names reverted back to the previous goal names.
So now on my Google Adwords Conversions screen I see the old goal names, however it is actually the new goal data that is being tracked. This can be confirmed by hovering over the speech bubble under “Tracking Status” for each conversion listed, and by clicking on the linked goal conversion name which takes me to a screen that shows me the webpage url where the Goal is being triggered.
Since we’ve used up all our goals our only choice in the future will be to rename & re-set goals when we want to track new campaigns, so unless Google fixes this it will continue to be an issue every time we want to track Google Analytics goals as conversions in Adwords.
