Last checked against Google’s documentation on 29 September 2026.
Google Ads conversion tracking: the short answer
Google Ads conversion tracking records what people do after they click or see your ad: buy, submit a form, call, or become a customer later offline. You set it up by creating a conversion action under Goals > Summary, then connecting it to a data source: the Google tag, Google Tag Manager, a Google Analytics (GA4) event, or an offline import. Only actions marked primary count in the Conversions column and feed Smart Bidding.
Getting it working is half the job. The other half is getting it right: one primary action per real business outcome, a sensible counting setting and window, data-driven attribution, enhanced conversions where you collect customer data, and a routine check that the tag still fires. This guide covers each part, with links to the deeper guides where a topic needs more room.
What a Google Ads conversion action is
A conversion action is one specific thing you want to count, with its own settings: category, value, counting, window, and attribution model. Google’s conversion tracking overview lists four sources:
- Website: purchases, sign-ups, form submissions and other actions on your site.
- App: installs and in-app actions.
- Phone calls: calls from ads or from a number on your website.
- Offline: sales or qualified leads that happen after the click, imported from your own records.
Keep the list short. Each action should map to something the business would pay for. A newsletter sign-up and a paid order are both conversions, but they should not carry the same weight in bidding.
How to set up conversion tracking in Google Ads
Google’s web conversion setup guide starts every path from the same place:
- Go to Goals > Summary and select + Create conversion action.
- For “Conversions on a website”, select Edit data sources, enter your domain, and select Scan. Google checks whether a Google tag or a linked Analytics property already exists.
- If nothing is found, Google prompts you to set up a Google tag now or later. If an unlinked Analytics property is found, you can link it.
- Choose a conversion category, then create the conversion from either a Google tag event or a Google Analytics event.
Option 1: the Google tag
Google recommends the Google tag if you don’t use Google Analytics or need Ads-specific features. From the create flow you can set a conversion Automatically without code (for example, a visit to a URL you specify) or Manually using code, where Google gives you an event snippet to place on the page or fire when the action happens. Adjust Conversion settings before you save.
Option 2: Google Tag Manager (the Google Ads conversion tag)
In the same flow, the Use Google Tag Manager tab lets you add the suggested tags straight into a Tag Manager container and workspace. To set it up by hand, Google’s Tag Manager article describes the steps: create a tag of type Google Ads Conversion Tracking, paste in the Conversion ID and Conversion Label from the conversion action, attach a trigger for the moment the conversion happens, and make sure a Conversion Linker tag is in place. Then preview and publish the container. An unpublished container is one of the most common reasons a new conversion never records.
Option 3: import from Google Analytics (GA4)
If GA4 already tracks the right events, choose Google Analytics events as the source and select the events to import. You can also create a new GA4 event from the flow, either from a URL rule or from code. Google calls this the most efficient choice when you want to reuse existing tracking. The trade-off is that GA4 and Google Ads attribute and date conversions differently, so the numbers won’t match exactly.
You can use the Google tag for some actions and GA4 for others. What you should not do is make the same event primary from both sources, because each sale will then count twice.
Goals, primary and secondary actions
Google groups conversion actions into goals by category, such as Purchases or Submit lead forms. Its conversion goals article sets out the rules that decide what your campaigns optimize for:
- Account-default goals are used by every campaign unless you choose otherwise.
- Campaign-specific goals let one campaign optimize for a different set of goals.
- Primary actions are used for bidding and reporting and appear in the Conversions column.
- Secondary actions are observe-only. They appear in All conv. but not in Conversions, and bidding ignores them.
A practical setup for a lead-gen account: the qualified lead (ideally imported from your CRM) is primary; page views, clicks on an email link, and raw form starts are secondary. For an online store, the purchase with its value is primary; add-to-cart is secondary. If you change a primary action, your bidding target changes with it.
Counting and conversion windows
Count: every or one
Google’s counting settings article recommends Every for purchases, since each sale adds value, and One for leads, so a person who submits a form twice after one click counts once. The full reasoning is in one vs every conversion counting.
Conversion windows
The conversion window is how long after an ad interaction a conversion can still be credited. According to Google’s conversion windows article:
| Window | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Click-through | 30 days | 1 to 30, 60 or 90 days, depending on the source |
| Engaged-view | 3 days | 1 to 30 days |
| View-through | 1 day | 1 to 30 days |
Google recommends windows of at least 7 days. Match the click-through window to how long your customers take to decide. A window change applies only to conversions going forward, not to past data.
Attribution model
Google’s attribution models article says data-driven attribution is the default for most conversion actions. The only alternative is last click. First click, linear, time decay and position-based are no longer supported, and actions that used them were upgraded to data-driven. To change it, go to Goals > Summary, open the conversion action, select Edit settings, and choose the Attribution model. The change applies going forward.
Enhanced conversions
Enhanced conversions add hashed first-party data, such as an email address from a form or checkout, to your conversion data. Google matches it to signed-in Google accounts to recover conversions that cookies miss. Google’s update on enhanced conversions settings says that starting in April 2026 Google Ads accepts user-provided data from website tags, Data Manager and API connections at the same time, and that starting in June 2026 enhanced conversions for web and for leads become a single on/off setting. Existing users who agreed to Google’s customer data terms are migrated automatically. Setup, diagnostics and privacy are covered in the full enhanced conversions guide.
Offline conversion tracking and lead imports
If the sale happens after the click, over the phone, in a meeting, or when a lead is approved, the website tag only sees the lead. Offline conversion tracking closes that gap by importing the later outcome. Google’s offline conversion import overview describes the main approaches:
- Enhanced conversions for leads (Google’s recommended option): your site sends hashed lead details when the form is submitted, and you later import the outcome with the same hashed details, plus the click ID where you have it.
- GCLID import: you store the Google Click ID with each lead and upload it with the outcome when the lead converts.
- Data Manager, which Google calls the fastest way to set up enhanced conversions for leads, accepting both click IDs and user-provided data as match keys.
- File uploads (legacy) and connectors.
The Data Manager API change
On the same settings update page, Google states that starting June 15, 2026, offline conversion imports and enhanced conversions for leads uploads are migrated to the Data Manager API and blocked in the Google Ads API. It adds that developer tokens that sent no such request between January and June 2026 are not allowlisted for legacy access. If you upload offline conversions through a script, an agency tool or a CRM integration that calls the Google Ads API directly, confirm with whoever maintains it that it now uses the Data Manager API.
An imported qualified lead or closed sale is usually the best primary action a lead-gen account can have, because bidding then learns from outcomes, not form fills.
Consent mode basics
If your site uses a cookie banner, consent mode is how the Google tag learns the visitor’s choice. Google’s consent mode article describes two setups. In basic mode, Google tags are blocked until the visitor interacts with the banner, and nothing is sent before consent. In advanced mode, tags load immediately and, when consent is denied, send cookieless pings instead of storing cookies, which supports more detailed conversion modeling. Either way, test that the banner passes the choice to Google’s tags: a banner that blocks the tag entirely, or never updates consent, can cut reported conversions sharply.
How to check that tracking works
- Read the status. In Goals > Summary, each action shows a status. Google’s tracking status troubleshooter explains each one; anything other than Active needs a look.
- Run Tag Assistant. Hover over the status, select Troubleshoot, connect to a landing page, and complete a real test conversion. Google’s Tag Assistant steps walk through it.
- Compare Conversions with All conv. A gap shows secondary actions; a sudden gap can mean a primary action was switched to secondary.
- Compare with your own records. Ads will never match your CRM or store exactly, but the trend should agree. Remember Google Ads reports against the click date.
- Check after every site release. Redesigns, new form tools and moved thank-you pages break tags silently.
If an action has stopped recording, work through why Google Ads conversions dropped to zero.
Common conversion tracking mistakes
- Too many primary actions. Page views and button clicks as primary teach Smart Bidding to buy cheap, low-value actions.
- Double counting. The same purchase tracked by the Google tag and a GA4 import, both primary.
- “Every” on lead forms. Repeat submissions inflate lead counts and lower apparent cost per lead.
- No value, or a flat value, on purchases. Value-based bidding can’t tell a small order from a large one.
- Tracking the form, not the outcome. Without offline imports, bidding optimizes for leads that may never buy.
- A thank-you page trigger on a form that no longer loads a page. The trigger never fires.
- Judging the last few days. Conversion lag makes recent days look worse than they are.
Tracking also shapes bidding. If you use target CPA or target ROAS, read how Smart Bidding works and, when a campaign stops spending after a tracking change, why target CPA is not spending. For a wider account review, use the Google Ads audit checklist.
Boxoo’s tracking and measurement agent reviews your conversion actions every day: which are primary, their status, counting and window settings, and daily conversion counts. When something is off it files a case with the evidence. It can change a conversion action’s counting and conversion window when you press Apply; tags and the rest of conversion setup can’t be changed through the Google Ads API, so for those the case gives you the exact steps. To see it on your account, run a free Google Ads audit.
