Track LiveChat conversations as conversions in Google Analytics

Wondering how many of the leads coming in through your LiveChat widget are actually being driven by the various marketing campaigns you're running?

Whether you are pouring budget into Google Ads, running campaigns on Meta Ads, or building out content and SEO, having a clear picture of how many chat conversations each channel is producing can completely change the way you plan your marketing.

The good news is that there is a refreshingly simple way to set this up, and it does not require any developer skills.

In this guide, we are going to show you how to use Converly to fire a conversion event into Google Analytics every time someone starts a chat through LiveChat on your site. Once it is live, you will know exactly which campaigns, ads, and keywords are responsible for the chat conversations being started on your website.

4 simple steps for tracking LiveChat conversations as conversions in Google Analytics

Here is how to get conversion tracking for LiveChat conversations up and running in Google Analytics in just 4 steps:

Step 1: Build your Conversion Flow in Converly

Converly is a tool designed to make it easy to send conversion events to analytics tools and ad platforms (like Google Analytics) whenever someone takes a specific action on your site, such as starting a chat through your LiveChat widget.

The screenshot above shows the Converly workflow builder, which makes it easy to set up conversion tracking. Anyone who has worked with tools like Zapier or HubSpot Workflows will get the hang of it within seconds.

All you have to do is select a trigger (in this case, someone starting a chat through your LiveChat widget) and choose a destination for the conversion event (Google Analytics, for instance). That is genuinely the entire setup.

Step 2: Install Converly on your website

With your Conversion Flow built, Converly hands you a small code snippet that you can add to your website.

The exact way you install it will depend on the website builder you are running, but in most cases you can simply paste the snippet into your site settings under a section usually called something like Scripts, Header, or Custom Code. WordPress users can use a plugin like Insert Header and Footer Code as well. And if you happen to be a Google Tag Manager user, that path works just as well.

After the code is in place, Converly takes care of the rest in the background. It listens for new LiveChat conversations and automatically pushes the conversion data into Google Analytics (along with any other destinations you have set up in your flow).

Step 3: Test it's working

Now that everything is wired up, the next thing to do is make sure your chat conversations are being recorded the way they should be.

The simplest way to check is to fire up an incognito browser window, head to a page on your site that runs the LiveChat widget, and start a test chat.

Then jump into Google Analytics, head to the Real-Time dashboard, and check the Recent Events section. If you can see the chat_started event appear there, you can be confident the setup is working and tracking properly.

Step 4: Mark the event as a 'Key Event' (Optional, but recommended)

For the final step, we suggest flagging the chat_started event as a Key Event inside GA4. Doing so tells Google Analytics to treat it as a conversion, which unlocks a heap of additional reporting capabilities (like surfacing it in your acquisition reports or using it as a conversion point inside funnels and path analysis).

To do it, head into the Admin area of your GA4 property and click Events under the Data Display menu. Open the Recent Events tab, locate your chat_started event (or whatever name you gave it), and click the star icon next to it to mark it as a Key Event.

Why Converly is the best way to trigger conversions in Google Analytics

There is more than one way to track LiveChat conversations as conversions in Google Analytics. Some teams pipe the LiveChat JavaScript API into Google Tag Manager and build event triggers there, while others write custom JavaScript that listens for LiveChat events directly.

So why does Converly make the most sense? Here are a few reasons:

1. No code or complicated setup

The other approaches for tracking LiveChat conversations as conversions usually involve building custom event tags inside Google Tag Manager that listen to the LiveChat JavaScript API, or writing JavaScript that hooks into the LiveChat widget directly. For anyone who is not a developer, that can feel like an awful lot to take on.

Converly takes that complexity completely off your plate. The workflow builder is visual, intuitive, and feels much like the tools you probably already use every week, like Zapier or HubSpot Workflows.

You simply pick your trigger (a new LiveChat conversation) and decide what happens next (such as firing a conversion event into Google Analytics). That really is the whole job. No code, no Tag Manager headaches, no stress.

2. More accurate conversion numbers

Converly fires conversions into Google Analytics through the Measurement Protocol, which means the data is sent directly to their servers instead of through a tag running in the visitor's browser.

This sidesteps the things that typically break tag-based tracking. Stuff like ad blockers and the privacy controls baked into Safari, iOS, and other modern browsers.

And the impact is bigger than most people realize. In fact, a recent study covering more than 7 million conversions found that tag-based tracking was failing to capture about 30% of conversions. The breakdown was roughly 5% lost to ad blockers and 25% lost to browser privacy features.

But because Converly sends conversions directly to Google Analytics servers, all of those conversions make it through.

3. Supports multiple tools and platforms

Converly works with more than 50 different form builders, scheduling platforms, and chat widgets. It can also send conversion events to a long list of destinations, including Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and plenty more.

What that means in practice is that whenever you add a new tool to your stack or branch out and start advertising on a new platform, getting conversion tracking working is only ever a few clicks away.

4. Makes it easy to add conditional logic

Converly also makes it simple to set up smart rules that fire different conversion events depending on the actions people take across your site.

To give you an example, picture a marketing team at a B2B software company. They could create a conversion called Sales Chat Started whenever a visitor starts a chat from the pricing page (a strong buying signal), and a separate conversion called Support Chat Started whenever a visitor opens a chat from the help docs.

Tracking these two conversions independently gives a much sharper view of which campaigns are bringing in actual sales leads (I.e. chats started on your website versus those started on your help docs).

5. Great support provided for free

If you have ever tried reaching out to Google or Meta for help with conversion tracking, you will already know how tough it is to get a real answer.

Converly works very differently.

Our team brings more than 20 years of hands-on experience across advertising and analytics, and we genuinely take responsibility for getting you up and running. Whether you would prefer to sort it out by email or jump on a quick video call, we offer free support to make sure your tracking is configured correctly and running smoothly.

3 useful reports you can run when you track LiveChat conversations as conversions in Google Analytics

After spending the past 15+ years leading marketing teams, I have looked at a huge number of Google Analytics reports trying to make sense of where our visitors and leads were really coming from.

Out of all the reports I have put together over the years, the three below have consistently been the most useful. And once your LiveChat conversations are being tracked as conversions in Google Analytics, you will be able to run them too.

1. Conversions by Channel

This report breaks down how many chat conversations are coming in from each marketing channel, whether that is Organic Search, Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, or anywhere else.

It is a great way to understand which channels are genuinely generating new sales conversations for your business, and to identify the ones with room to generate more.

2. Conversions by Meta Ads Network

If you are running ads through Meta, those ads are likely showing up across several different networks, like Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Since each of those networks can perform very differently, it pays to know which ones are actually generating new sales conversations. This report makes that crystal clear, helping you push more budget onto the networks that are delivering and pull back on those that are not.

3. Conversions by Google Ads Campaign

If Google Ads is in your mix, you probably have several campaigns active at the same time. Some might be focused on different services you offer, others might be split between branded and generic keywords, and a few might be aimed at specific geographic regions.

Understanding which of those campaigns are actually generating new sales conversations is critical when it comes to deciding where to put your budget. This report shows it all, giving you conversions by campaign so you can confidently scale up the winners and cut back the ones that are not delivering.

Wrap up

With Converly, sending conversion events to Google Analytics every time someone starts a chat through LiveChat is fast and painless. No code to write, no complicated tools to configure, and no headaches along the way.

And if you decide to start advertising on Google Ads, Meta Ads, or any other platform later on, you can drop them into your existing Conversion Flow in just a few clicks. The same chat conversation data will start flowing into those platforms automatically.

Want to give it a try? Converly comes with a 14-day free trial, and most people are fully set up within 10 minutes. Give it a go and see just how simple conversion tracking can really be.