Track Bookings in Google Analytics and Google Ads

Booklink sends a GA4 purchase event and a Google Ads conversion event. The value is the full price of the booking, not just the deposit, and each event carries the booking or package ID as its transaction ID so the same booking is never counted twice, even if the client refreshes the page.

Bookings paid by bank transfer (EFT) are not reported to Google automatically. Events are only sent while the client is on the confirmation screen, and an EFT booking is still unpaid at that point, so marking it as paid later does not send anything. The client stays on the confirmation page so they can see your bank details, and is not sent to your thank you page. To count EFT bookings, use the ad click IDs saved with each booking (see Ad click IDs on your bookings below) to import them into Google Ads as offline conversions once they are paid.

Open Settings, choose Embed and find the Tracking card. In Google Analytics, go to Admin, then Data streams, open your web stream and copy the Measurement ID. It starts with G-. Paste it into GA4 measurement ID and save.

In Google Ads, go to Goals, then Conversions, and create or open a conversion action for your website. Under Tag setup, choose Install the tag yourself and look for the event snippet. Copy the send_to value. It looks like AW-123456789/AbCdEfGhIj. Paste it into Google Ads conversion on the Tracking card and save.

If you have a thank you page on your own website, enter its address under Thank-you page. It must start with https://. After a counted booking, Booklink shows a short message and sends the client there, which lets you run other tracking tags on your own site. On your booking page the message reads Taking you to followed by your business name. After an online payment it reads Taking you back to the business’s website. Both include a Continue link in case the client is not sent on automatically.

Booklink adds these details to the address:

• booklink_booking_id (or booklink_package_id for a package purchase)
• booklink_service, the name of the service or package
• value and currency, only when the booking counted

For example: https://example.com/thanks?booklink_booking_id=abc123&booklink_service=Haircut&value=350&currency=ZAR

No personal details about the client are added to the address.

When your booking flow is embedded on your website, the page around it can listen for a booklink:booked event on the window. Add this to your page if you already load Google tag (gtag.js) there:

<script>
  window.addEventListener('booklink:booked', function (e) {
    // e.detail: { kind, id, item_name, value, currency, counted }
    if (e.detail.counted) gtag('event', 'purchase', { transaction_id: e.detail.id, value: e.detail.value, currency: e.detail.currency });
  });
</script>

The event can fire again if the client refreshes the confirmation, so use the id to avoid counting a booking twice. The event works on every plan.

Add a ref or the usual utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content tags to your booking link, for example bklnk.co.za/your-slug?ref=flyer&utm_campaign=spring. Booklink saves them with every booking made from that visit and shows them under Source on the booking, so you can see which link, partner or campaign it came from. This works on every plan, with or without Google tracking.

When a client arrives from an ad, Booklink saves the ad click IDs in the link (gclid, gbraid, wbraid, fbclid and msclkid) with the booking. They are included in your webhooks and shown under Source on the booking, so you can match bookings to ads in your own tools. This is also how you count bookings that are not reported automatically, such as EFT bookings: send the gclid and the booking value to Google Ads as an offline conversion import. This works on every plan.