If you run a medical practice using Google Ads to get patients, this one’s for you. It’s also for clinics that want to start optimizing their ads for Jane bookings instead of phone calls or contact form submissions.
This is easy to set up. There are only two steps. And tracking your bookings can make a big difference, not just in lead quality, but in the overall profitability of your campaigns when you’re trying to bring in new patients.
Why tracking Jane bookings matters
When I take over a campaign for a new client, most clinics are only tracking what I call the big three: contact form submissions, calls from the number on the website, and calls from the phone number in the call extension. That’s the little number that shows below the ad on mobile.
Tracking those is good and important. But remember, when you use smart bidding, Google goes out and finds you whatever you ask it for. If you ask for phone calls, it shows your ads to people who like to call. Same with contact forms.
So if you want your ads to reach more people who’ll book into your calendar through Jane on their own, you need to track those bookings as conversion events. Once you do, Google starts building a picture of who those people are, and it puts your ads in front of more of them, more often.
A quick example
Earlier this year we took over a campaign for a physical therapy clinic in Miami. When they came to us, they weren’t tracking Jane bookings as conversions. We were only tracking contact forms and phone calls. So we set up booking tracking too.
Within the first 6 weeks, the share of patients who self-booked after clicking the ad went from about 10% up to nearly 40%. And the cost per lead actually came down.
Think about what that means. This client now pays less per lead, the patients are more motivated and bought into the process, and they aren’t tying up the front desk with calls and form follow-ups. That’s why this is worth setting up.
What you need
Just two things:
- A Google Ads account
- Your Jane account
That’s it. You don’t need Google Analytics for this, and you don’t need your own Tag Manager setup.
We’ll do this in order, because you have to create the conversion event first and grab its conversion ID before you can set up the integration in Jane.
Step 1: Create the conversion action in Google Ads
- Open your ad account and click Goals. Under conversions, click Summary, then Create conversion action.
- Deselect everything except the last option, Import conversions from other sources (offline).
- If it prompts you to connect a data source, choose to skip that step for now.
- Check the box, click Done, then Save and continue.
- You can set this up as a purchase or a qualified lead. In this context it doesn’t matter, so pick Qualified lead.
- Click Edit settings. Make sure it’s set to Primary, not secondary.
- Give it a name so you’ll recognize it later.
- Scroll down and check Don’t use a value for this conversion action.
- Set the count to One, then click Done.
- Click Save and continue, then Finish.
Now grab the conversion ID:
- Scroll down and open the qualified lead conversion you just made.
- Look at your browser’s address bar. Somewhere in the URL you’ll see the conversion ID, in the part labeled
ctId. Copy that string. You’ll need it in a minute over in Jane.
Step 2: Set up the integration in Jane
- Open your Jane account. Click Settings, then Integrations.
- Scroll to the bottom and click Get started next to Google Tag Manager.
- Click Add a tracker, then choose Google Ads. A small window opens.
- Paste the conversion ID (the string you copied from the URL) into the conversion ID field.
- Now you need your customer ID, which is a different number. Head back to your Google Ads account. Your customer ID is the 10-digit number shown for the account. Copy it.
- Back in Jane, paste that into the customer ID field.
- Give it a name. I just call mine “Google Ads.” Click Next.
That’s it. You’re done.
Your Google Ads account is now tracking your Jane bookings as conversions, so it can start optimizing for those bookings and put your ads in front of more people who are ready to book.
Want help with your Google Ads?
If you would rather someone else ran them, here is Google Ads management for local service businesses. If you are an agency, we also run white label PPC under your brand.
Prefer to run them yourself? Join Practical PPC, my Google Ads course for local lead generation.