Can I test Google adwords conversion tracking on my local environment site?

Question

First time setting up google conversion tracking for my client's custom form. I'm working locally on my localhost.

I created a new conversion goal, configured custom tracking event, linked through google tag manager, etc.

Google Tag assistant sees and "greens" all my tags. When I submit the form, I can see in the tag manager console that custom event gets added to the dataLayer as expected.

So far so good, but I see in the Adwords account "no recent conversions".

I don't know if this is because I set something up incorrectly, or because Google only tracks events on the actual domain and not on localhost (this would make sense).

So is there any way to test this end-to-end while developing locally?

Answer 1

Not really - because you'll get no "real" conversion on the localhost.

But, you can test, whether your implementation was error-free. Set your GA account into debug mode, or use a debug extension. Using it you'll get all the information, which is sent to GA, into the console.

Answer 2

Instead of a localhost install, why not try a dev.yourlivesite.com? That would still be on your domain so most of your settings and site verifications should work.