This article is the second in a series about Enhanced Conversions for Google Ads.

This article is about Enhanced conversions for leads, which allows Google to match offline conversions to Google Ads clicks.

If you are looking for information on Enhanced conversions for web, which allows Google to match more website conversions to Google Ads clicks, see Part 1 of this series.

Enhanced conversions for leads is used in a specific situation – when you are using Google Ads to bring people to your website, then some of these people fill out a form on the website and become a lead, and then that lead is followed up and closed offline (it could be on the phone or in a physical location).

Attributing an offline conversion to an ad click has always required sending offline data back to Google Ads.  For a long time, you have been able to import a file of offline conversions to Google Ads. The difference with Enhanced Conversions for Leads is that user-provided data is used to supplement cookie-based matching. Previously the gclid was sent with the offline conversion data (when available). With Enhanced Conversions for Leads, email address or phone number are additional ways to find data matches for users who were logged on to their Google account when they clicked a Google Ad.

This is a benefit when traditional cookie-based attribution is becoming less reliable, as some users choose to block cookies and some browsers limit cookie lifespan.

Enhanced Conversions for Leads has similarities to Enhanced Conversions for Web, in that a conversion is set up in Google Ads, and user data is sent to Google Ads through Google Tag Manager (you can also use gtag, but I prefer Google Tag Manager). The user data is sent when the lead is captured, and this lead may later become a conversion offline. The lead data is like the glue in the middle, linking a specific ad click with an email address.

However, there is an extra component – because the conversion  happens off  the website, conversions are sent to Google Ads as a spreadsheet or an online feed. Often, a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) is involved – the web leads are recorded in the CRM and subsequently updated when a sale happens – and the CRM will be the source of the spreadsheet or feed. In this guide, I will describe the steps for sending the offline conversions from a Google Sheet.

I recommend you also read Google’s general information about enhanced conversions and their guide on setting up enhanced conversions for leads with Google Tag Manager.

As at April 2025, Google seems to be rolling out changes to the Google Ads conversion set-up interface. Some accounts still have the old interface and some have the new.

The workflow I chose in the old interface was first to set up the conversion in Google Ads (skipping any option to connect the data source until I had finished creating the conversion), then to connect the data source, then to create the tag in Google Tag Manager. In the new interface, I found that I couldn’t separate the first 2 parts – you set up the conversion and the data source in a single workflow.  Some of the screens look exactly the same and some are a bit different.

• Choose the Goals menu item and select ‘New conversion action’ or ‘Create conversion action’. Choose to ‘Import’ and then choose ‘CRM, files or other data sources’ then ‘Track conversions from clicks’.

• The next step is ‘Data source’. To  make this guide easier to follow, let’s choose ‘Skip this step and set up a data source later’. We will do this in Step 2 from Tools > Data Manager > Connected products.
• Click ‘Continue’.
• Next you will create the conversion action. First choose a category. We will choose ‘Converted lead’ since, in this scenario, our conversion is a sale. Name the conversion, e.g. Sale from lead.  Click ‘Add’.

• On the next screen, you could proceed to set up the data source or you could leave this for now and click ‘Done’. To make this guide easy to follow, I am going to click ‘Done’ and set up the data source in Step 2.

• I can  now see my new conversion in the Goals Summary. From here you can edit the conversion’s settings by clicking on the name. There is also an option to set up the import, which is another way of saying connect the data source.

• There are 3 further settings to check in Google Ads.
  • Go to Goals > Settings. If the row ‘Enhanced conversions for leads’ is ‘Not configured yet’, expand the section and tick the box ‘Turn on enhanced conversions for leads’ and select the option ‘Google Tag Manager’.
  • In Goals > Settings, make sure ‘Customer Data Terms’ is ‘Accepted’.
  • Go to admin > Account settings and make sure Auto-tagging is set to ‘Yes’.

Pre-requisite: I am using a Google Sheet to store my converted leads data, so this already exists and has columns including:

• • Date-time – the format must be one of the following: (Sourced from Google Ads help)

• • Email address OR phone number (email address is preferable) OR gclid.

• In Google Ads, go to Tools > Data Manager and click ‘Connect product’. Search for and choose ‘Google Sheets’, then ‘Direct connection’ then ‘Conversions’.
• Because you will be sharing customer data with Google, you will need to confirm that you are complying with Google’s policies. Click ‘Continue’.
• You will need to give permission for the data connector to access the Google account that has access to the Google Sheet.
• Click ‘Next’

• Browse to find the  file containing the converted lead data.
  • If the Google Sheet contains rows other than converted leads, you can specify conditions for the rows to want to import.

• • Next you will need to map the fields in your Google Sheet to the fields expected by Google Ads. You will need to map:
    • Date-time
    • Email address and/or phone number and/or gclid. Email address and phone number will need to be hashed at the step. You can do this from within the workflow:
      • Click the 3 dots to the right of the field and choose ‘Transform’
      • Click ‘Add transformation’ and select ‘Compute hash (Hex)’.

• • •  Click Save.
  • Optionally, you can map fields for conversion value, currency code and order id.
• Once you have mapped the fields, click Next.

• Review your set-up and click Finish. During this step you will be able to edit settings, including the schedule for uploading  the data (most frequent is daily). After you have set up the import, you will be able to see it and edit it in Tools > Data manager >  Connected products.

• To connect this data source to the conversion you set up in Step 1, go back to the Goals summary, click on the conversion and click on ‘Connect source’.

Pre-requisite: I am using a Google Sheet to store my converted leads data, so this already exists and has columns including:

• • Date-time – the format must be one of the following: (Sourced from Google Ads help)

• • Email address OR phone number (email address is preferable) OR gclid.

• In Google Ads, choose the Goals menu item and select ‘New conversion action’ or ‘Create conversion action’.
• In the next screen, shown below, check the box beside ‘Conversions offline’ and click ‘Add data source’.

• Select ‘Connect a new data source, then choose ‘Google Sheets’, then ‘Direct connection’.
• Check the box ‘Enhanced conversions for leads’ and chose Google Tag Manager (this might not appear if you have already done this in the Conversions settings area).
• Check the box to accept Google’s Customer Data Policies.
• Click ‘Done’.

• You are returned to this screen, where you can now click ‘Continue’.

• Choose a conversion category and click ‘Save and continue’.

• On the next screen click ‘Set up’.

•  You will be prompted to give permission for the data connector to access the Google account that has access to the Google Sheet.
• Then on the next screen, click ‘Next’.

• Browse to find the  file containing the converted lead data.
  • If the Google Sheet contains rows other than converted leads, you can specify conditions for the rows to want to import.
  • Click ‘Next’.

• • Next you will need to map the fields in your Google Sheet to the fields expected by Google Ads. You will need to map:
    • Date-time
    • Email address and/or phone number and/or gclid. Email address and phone number will need to be hashed at the step. You can do this from within the workflow:
      • Click the 3 dots to the right of the field and choose ‘Transform’
      • Click ‘Add transformation’ and select ‘Compute hash (Hex)’.

• • •  Click Save.
  • Optionally, you can map fields for conversion value, currency code and order id.
• Once you have mapped the fields, click ‘Next’.

• You will be returned to this screen, where you now can click ‘Save and continue’.

• Click ‘Finish’.

• Review your set-up and click ‘Finish’ again. During this step you will be able to edit settings, including the schedule for uploading  the data (most frequent is daily). After you have set up the import, you will be able to see it and edit it in Tools > Data manager >  Connected products.

• Create a Conversion Linker tag, using the Conversion Linker tag type and ‘all pages’ trigger.
• Create a ‘Google Ads User-provided Data Event’ tag.  This has fields for ‘Conversion ID’ and ‘User-provided data’.

• • For the Conversion ID, provide your Google Ads customer ID (this is different from what is used in a conversion tag)
  • User-provided Data is the variable that you will create in the next step.
  • Use a trigger that will fire this tag when the user data is available (usually the form submit event).

• Create a ‘User-Provided Data variable’, which is a variable type in GTM. Choose ‘Manual configuration’; this prompts you to specify further variables for your user-provided data.

• I prefer the manual method because you manually set up GTM variables to extract the data you need, and therefore you can test it in GTM Debug and Preview mode and see what data is being extracted from the page.
• When you use this variable, the data will be hashed with the SHA256 algorithm before it is sent. In this scenario (enhanced conversions for leads), you need to send either the email address or phone number supplied in the lead form. Email  address is preferred.
  • You will need a variable to pull that data from the input of the form field on the web page. This might be done with a DOM Element variable that includes a CSS selector, or a custom javascript variable.
  • Email address: the DOM Element variable might look something like this, but it will depend on your form:

• • Phone number: this needs to start with a plus sign and country code, followed by the number, with no dashes, parentheses or spaces.
  • This is an example of a custom java script variable that extracts a mobile phone number and formats it.  It first trims any leading or following spaces and removes all brackets and spaces from the number. If the number starts with ’00’, it assumes this is an international prefix and replaces it with ‘+’ (if the number already had ‘+’ at the start, it would leave this alone).  If the number starts with ‘0’, it removes this and replaces it with the country code ‘+61’.  In this case, I was safe to assume that all numbers without country codes were Australian numbers. Your variable will differ, depending on the inputs you expect in the form.

• Test this tag in Google Tag Manager’s Preview and Debug mode. You should be able to see the user-provided data in 2 places:

• • In the Tags tab, double-click on the tag and you will see the parameters sent (note that hashing occurs  when the data is sent to Google servers, so you will still see it unhashed here).
  • In the Variables tab, you will see the values of individual variables.

1. You have set up a Google Sheet data source, with columns for Date/time and at least one of hashed email address, hashed phone number or gclid.
2. You have created an  offline conversion in Google Ads (or, in the old interface, an ‘Import’ to ‘track conversions from clicks’).
3. In Google Ads, you have created a data source to access data in this Google Sheet, and made this the data source for the conversion.
4. You have created a Google Ads User-provided Data Event tag, triggered when a lead form is submitted. This tag has the Google Ads customer ID as the conversion ID.
5. You have set up a variable to pick up the user-provided data you want to send (email address is the preferred one).
6. You have set up a User-Provided Data variable and, in it, referenced the variable from the previous step.
7. You have added the User-Provided Data variable to the Google Ads User-provided Data Event tag.
8. You have a Conversion Linker tag.

User-provided data is encrypted using SHA-256, a popular hashing algorithm that irreversibly converts an input into a 256-bit value that is not readable.

Google uses the same algorithm to encrypt email addresses, phone numbers, etc ,belonging to Google accounts. Google can look for matches between the 2 sets of hashed data, and identify a set of Google accounts that can be associated with your conversion data.

Google promotes enhanced conversions with the term ‘privacy safe’. This policy  explains how they use this data . The sections on Limited data use, Limited data access, Limited data sharing and Data Security are clear that the data is used only for the purpose it was provided for. However, I don’t believe that enhanced conversions are right for every advertiser. I think every advertiser needs to consider whether their clients would expect them to send their hashed email addresses to Google for the purpose of improving the effectiveness of advertising. I think the answer will be different for different businesses.

Check the Conversions summary table in Google Ads, where problems will be indicated in the Status column. If it says ‘Needs attention’, go to the Diagnostics tab where you will be able to drill down to further details.

In setting up enhanced conversions, you are required to accept the Customer data terms (that was one of the steps when you set up the data source).

You are agreeing to the following terms:

• Ensure that you disclose to customers (for example, in your privacy policy) that you share their information with third parties to perform ad measurement services on your behalf, and that you obtain customer consent for such sharing and use where legally required.
• Comply with all applicable laws and regulations including any data protection or privacy laws, as well as self-regulatory or industry codes that may apply. Data that you upload to Processor Services will be subject to Google Ads Data Processing Terms.
• Comply with Google’s EU User Consent Policy to the extent applicable.
• You may not upload information that is prohibited by law, including information about minors. Don’t upload any data (1) that you know relates to individuals under the age of 13 or (2) that was collected from any site or app directed to children under the age of 13.
• You may not upload conversion information related to the sensitive categories, described below. You may only use Google’s approved API or interface to upload customer information.
• If you instruct Google to automatically generate Customer Match lists using the data you upload, you must also comply with Customer Match policies.
• Conversions related to sensitive categories can’t be used for measurement in enhanced conversions, or store sales (uploads).
• Sensitive categories include: Interest or participation in adult activities such as gambling, sexual encounter dating, sexualized theme dating, sexual entertainment, pornography etc.

Conversion tracking usually refers to online conversions, but sometimes this is not the ‘ultimate’  conversion. In situations where potential customers complete a lead form online but then only some go on to purchase offline, the sale is the ultimate conversion. Enhanced conversions for leads allows Google to understand which ad clicks led to actual sales, and optimise the ad delivery for that ‘ultimate conversion’.

Enhanced conversions make use of user-provided data and therefore is a leap from traditional cookie-based tracking. It might not be for every advertiser, so please take the time to understand it before using it, and make sure you are aware of and comply with your responsibilities regarding data privacy.

Enhanced conversions  allows Google to match more conversions to Google Ads clicks. Why is this more important than ever before?  Because unavailability of 3rd party cookies for some users, and shortened cookie expiry dates, have meant reduced matching and less accurate attribution.

Attribution isn’t just for reporting to advertisers, it  also underpins the self-optimising nature of Google Ads. Matching people who clicked the ad with people who subsequently completed a desired action helps Google to find better audiences for the ads.

Modelling is also becoming more important in advertising systems, both for reporting and for predicting and optimising. Modelling needs observed data to work with, so enhanced conversions contribute to this pool of observed data.

Enhanced conversions involves sending hashed user-provided data, e.g. email address, phone number, name, address, for people who complete a conversion action. Google attempts to match this with user records from its vast database of people, specifically people who have clicked on the advertiser’s ad while logged into their Google account.

To drill down further into the why and how, we need to understand that there are 2 types of enhanced conversions.  Each of these has a different purpose and is set up differently:

• Enhanced conversions for web –  allows Google to match more website conversions to Google Ads clicks.

• Enhanced conversions for leads – allows Google to match offline conversions to Google Ads clicks.

Enhanced conversions for web allows Google to match more <websiteconversions to Google Ads clicks, particularly when the conversion happens in a later session than the click.

This technique is suitable for website conversions where some user data is collected. For example,  contact form submissions, newsletter sign-ups and purchases. Email address is the preferred piece of user data, but you can send phone numbers and physical addresses also to increase the likelihood of a match.

Google offers several options to set this up, but I am going to focus on the method where user-provided data is collected manually using Google Tag Manager.

I don’t use the other methods for these reasons:

‘Automatic collection’ of user-provided data  is an option when using either Google Tag Manager or the Google tag. You can’t see what data is being extracted from the page, nor do you have an opportunity to sense-check that this is the right data.

• The ‘code’ method requires you to add code to your web page to save the user-provided data as variables.  I avoid website changes unless the web developer is making them. I prefer to use Google Tag Manager for its testing and debugging capabilities.

I recommend you also read Google’s general information about enhanced conversions  and their guide on setting up enhanced conversions for web with Google Tag Manager – I found them a bit confusing, but it’s always good to refer to the official documentation!

Enhanced conversions is an add-on to tracking conversions with Google Ads Conversion tags. You can’t do it in conjunction with imported conversions from GA4. Part of the set-up is done in Google Ads and part in Google Tag Manager.

The steps below describe setting up the conversion from scratch.  If you already have a Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag set up, and you want to add enhanced conversion capability to it, you can  skip ahead to ‘Two ways to send user-provided data’ .

In Google Ads:

• Choose the Goals menu item and select ‘New conversion action’ or ‘Create conversion action’. Choose a ‘Website’ conversion – you will be prompted to scan your website, and then you should choose to ‘Add conversion action manually’. There will be some fields to fill – more detailed steps can be found in my article on Google Ads conversion tracking.

• You will see a checkbox ‘Turn on enhanced conversions’. There are 3 options to choose from – Google tag, Google Tag Manager or Google Ads API.  In this guide I am using Google Tag Manager to pick up the user-provided data,  so I choose that option.  You will also be prompted to accept ‘Customer data terms’.

• When the steps to set up the conversion in Google Ads are done, you will be able to open a section named ‘Tag Setup’.

• Here, click on Google Tag Manager, then you can copy the conversion ID and label. Important note: If you can’t see the option to implement the conversion tracking with Google Tag Manager, refer to my article on Google Ads conversion tracking. Over the last year or so, changes in the Google Ads interface and workflow have made this more difficult.
• There is one more setting to check in Google Ads – Go to admin > Account settings and make sure Auto-tagging is set to ‘Yes’.

In Google Tag Manager:

• Create a Conversion Linker tag, using the Conversion Linker tag type and ‘all pages’ trigger.

• Create a new tag of type ‘Google Ads Conversion Tracking’ and add the conversion ID and label that you copied from Google Ads in the previous step.

• User-provided data is sent in a ‘User-Provided Data variable’, which is a variable type in GTM. This variable has fields for each of the types of user-provided data that you might send, and you will add further variables to these fields:

Before we get into more detail about how to construct these variables, there is another important decision to make. There are 2 ways to send the user-provided data with the tag, and you have to use the right one for your situation:

• if the user-provided data is available on the page where the conversion tag is triggered, then you can add the User-Provided Data variable  to the Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag, by checking the box ‘Include user-provided data from your website’ and selecting the variable.

• if the user-provided data is not available on the page where the conversion tag is triggered, then you should create a ‘Google Ads User-provided Data Event’ tag to send this data.  Use a trigger that will fire this tag when this data is available. This tag has a field for conversion ID. This will  be used by Google Ads to match this data with the conversion event that is sent on a subsequent page.

• • For example, if the conversion is a form submission, and the conversion tag can be triggered by a form submit event, the user’s data is available at the time this tag is triggered. On the other hand, if the conversion is a form submission and the conversion tag is triggered by a pageview of the thank you page, then the user’s data is probably not available on the thank you page.  Another example is a purchase – the user’s data is usually not available when the purchase event is triggered, as it will have been entered on an earlier page. In these cases, you will need a trigger that will fire the ‘Google Ads User-provided Data Event’ tag at the point when the user-provided data is available.

When you use this variable, the data will be hashed with the SHA256 algorithm (bookmark) before it is sent.

The variable must include at least one of:

• Email address (this is preferred)

• Address – First name, last name, postal code, and country are required; the other fields are optional.

• Phone number (can be used alone, but it is better if it is sent with an email address)

For each of the fields you send, you will need a variable to pull that data from the input of the form field on the web page. This might be done with a DOM Element variable that includes a CSS selector, or a custom javascript variable.

Email address: the DOM Element variable might look something like this, but it will depend on your form:

Similar variables could be used to pick up the First name and Last name entered in the form.

Country: this should be sent as a 2-letter code (see https://www.iban.com/country-codes)

Phone number: this needs to start with a plus sign and country code, followed by the number, with no dashes, parentheses or spaces.

This is an example of a custom java script variable that extracts a mobile phone number and formats it.  It first trims any leading or following spaces and removes all brackets and spaces from the number. If the number starts with ’00’, it assumes this is an international prefix and replaces it with ‘+’ (if the number already had ‘+’ at the start, it would leave this alone).  If the number starts with ‘0’, it removes this and replaces it with the country code ‘+61’.  In this case, I was safe to assume that all numbers without country codes were Australian numbers. Your variable will differ, depending on the inputs you expect in the form.

1. You have a Conversion Linker tag
2. You have a Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag
3. You have determined whether the user-provided data is available when this tag fires or on an earlier page.
4. You have set up variables to pick up the user-provided data you want to send (this could be email address OR phone number OR first name + last name + country +  postcode OR  more than one of these three (email address is the best one to start with).
5. You have set up a User-Provided Data variable and, in it, referenced the variables from the previous step.
6. You have added the User-Provided Data variable to EITHER your Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag (if the user-provided data is available on the page where the conversion tracking tag fires) OR to a Google Ads User-provided Data Event tag (if the user-provided data is available on an earlier page).
7. The Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag has a trigger that fires when the conversion happens.
8. Google Ads User-provided Data Event tag (if you have one) has the same conversion Id as the Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag and has a trigger that fires when the user-provided data is available on the page.

Test your tags in Google Tag Manager’s Preview and Debug mode.

If you have used the Google Ads User-provided Data Event tag , when you step through the workflow leading up to the conversion event, this tag will fire. In the left-hand panel of the debug view, click on the message/step where the tag fired, and you should be able to see the user-provided data in 2 places:

• In the Tags tab, double-click on the tag and you will see the parameters sent.

• In the Variables tab, you will see the values of the individual user-provided data variables.

Hashing occurs  when the data is sent to Google servers, so you will still see it unhashed in Google Tag Manager’s Preview and Debug mode.

User-provided data is encrypted using SHA-256, a popular hashing algorithm that irreversibly converts an input into a 256-bit value that is not readable.

Google uses the same algorithm to encrypt email addresses, phone numbers, etc ,belonging to Google accounts. Google can look for matches between the 2 sets of hashed data, and identify a set of Google accounts that can be associated with your conversion data.

Google promotes enhanced conversions with the term ‘privacy safe’. This policy explains how they use this data. The sections on Limited data use, Limited data access, Limited data sharing and Data Security are clear that the data is used only for the purpose it was provided for. However, I don’t believe that enhanced conversions are right for every advertiser. I think every advertiser needs to consider whether their clients would expect them to send their hashed email addresses to Google for the purpose of improving the effectiveness of advertising. I think the answer will be different for different businesses.

Check the Conversions summary table in Google Ads, where problems will be indicated in the Status column. If it says ‘Needs attention’, go to the Diagnostics tab where you will be able to drill down to further details:

The problem will usually be because there is insufficient user data, or the data is not in the correct format. This is when I’m glad I have used Google Tag Manager to send the user-provided data! ( I said earlier in this post that I prefer the Google Tag Manager method because of its testing and debugging capabilities).

If everything is working correctly, in the Tag Settings you will see ‘Recording Enhanced Conversions’.

In setting up enhanced conversions, you are required to accept the Customer data terms (that was one of the set-up steps completed in Google Ads).

You are agreeing to the following terms:

• Ensure that you disclose to customers (for example, in your privacy policy) that you share their information with third parties to perform ad measurement services on your behalf, and that you obtain customer consent for such sharing and use where legally required.

• Comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including any data protection or privacy laws, as well as self-regulatory or industry codes that may apply. Data that you upload to Processor Services will be subject toGoogle Ads Data Processing Terms.

• Comply with Google’s EU User Consent Policy to the extent applicable.

• You may not upload information that is prohibited by law, including information about minors. Don’t upload any data (1) that you know relates to individuals under the age of 13 or (2) that was collected from any site or app directed to children under the age of 13.

• You may not upload conversion information related to the sensitive categories, described below. You may only use Google’s approved API or interface to upload customer information.

• If you instruct Google to automatically generate Customer Match lists using the data you upload, you must also comply with Customer Match policies.

• Conversions related to sensitive categories can’t be used for measurement in enhanced conversions, or store sales (uploads).

• Sensitive categories include: Interest or participation in adult activities such as gambling, sexual encounter dating, sexualized theme dating, sexual entertainment, pornography etc.

Over the time I have been preparing this post, I have received multiple emails from Google ‘reminding’ me to set up enhanced conversions in Google Ads accounts. So, it appears that Google sees it as an important part of advertising attribution in the future.

Creating the variables in Google Tag Manager is a bit fiddly, but it becomes easier after you have done it a couple of times. I think this is a better way of doing it than using ‘automatic’ data collection, which you can’t thoroughly test.

Finally, make sure you are aware of and comply with your responsibilities regarding data privacy.

[UPDATED Apr 25] If you have tried to answer this question, you will have come across the terms conversions and attribution. In this article, I am going to break down these terms and give you some pointers to help you with Google Ads conversion tracking.

Let’s look at the flow when someone clicks on your ad. Depending on your ad’s goal, the destination might be the home page of your website or it might be another purpose-built page. Getting someone to click on your ad and visit your website is one thing. A more valuable outcome will be a specific action taken on your website – it could be buying a product, booking an appointment or providing an email address. These desired actions can be measured as ‘conversions’. You decide what actions you want to measure because they have value to your business. Measuring conversions is known as ‘conversion tracking’.

Terminology varies depending on the tool you are using. In Google Analytics, the term ‘key events’ is used for the events that you flag as having business value.

Google Ads uses the term ‘conversions’.  However, when you first go to create a conversion, you must click on the ‘Goals’ menu item. After that, the terminology reverts to ‘conversions’.

As at April 2025, Google seems to be rolling out changes to the Google Ads conversion set-up interface. Some accounts still have the old interface and some have the new.

I will cover 3 methods:

• Old interface – import conversions from GA4.
• Old  interface – create a conversion from your website using Google Tag Manager. This has 2 parts to it – you need to create the conversion in Google Ads and you need to create a tag in Google Tag Manager to send conversion events to that conversion.
• New interface – create a conversion from your website using Google Tag Manager. This has 2 parts to it – you need to create the conversion in Google Ads and you need to create a tag in Google Tag Manager to send conversion events to that conversion (the GTM part is the same, whether you are using the Google Ads old or new interface).

The Google Ads Conversion screen is accessed through the Goals icon. Choose ‘New conversion action’ to create a new conversion.

If you already have some conversions, the screen will look a little different. Choose ‘Create conversion action’ to add a new conversion action.

On the next screen, click ‘Import’. You might choose this method if you are already recording your goals and transactions in Google Analytics. This is the simplest way to set up some conversions in Google Ads, but it will give you a slightly different outcome, which I will explain later in the article. In order to import goals from Google Analytics, your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts must be linked.

After you have clicked ‘Import’, choose ‘Google Analytics 4 properties’ and ‘Web’ and click Continue.

You will be shown a list of key events from the linked Google Analytics account. Select the analytics events you want to import and click ‘Import and Continue’. Click ‘Done’.

This is a good choice for simple pageview-based goals that have been set up within GA4. For event-based goals, I prefer to use the Google Tag Manager method. You may have already set up the triggers in Google Tag Manager to send these events to Google Analytics, and you can re-use these for the Google Ads conversion tracking tags.

Once you have imported the events (they will now be conversions), you can edit their settings.

Choose ‘Website’. In the ‘Website’ pathway you are creating the conversions from the ground up.

After choosing ‘Website’, you will be prompted to scan your website. Enter your website’s URL and click ‘Scan‘.

After you have scanned the website, your next steps will depend on whether Google Ads is linked to GA4. If these are linked, you will see the following message. If you are going to use Google Tag Manager, it is important that you click ‘Use Google Ads only‘.

Then click ‘Switch to Google Ads‘.

Then, scroll down to the section ‘Create conversion actions manually using code‘. If Google Ads and GA4 are not linked, the previous messages are not visible and you should scroll down to ‘Create conversion actions manually using code‘.

Click ‘Add a conversion action manually‘.

Note: Below this is an option to turn on enhanced conversions. It is checked by default. I uncheck it, unless I have had instructions from the client to implement enhanced conversions and the client is aware of the required privacy disclosures.

Next, you will need to make a few selections to complete the form. Some of them deserve a bit of elaboration:

• Category – choose the category from the drop-down list that most accurately describes the conversion.
• Name – type a name for the conversion (this can be anything).
• Value – if the conversion is an ecommerce transaction (online purchase), choose ‘Use different values for each conversion’, because you will want to track the actual transaction amount. Otherwise choose ‘Use the same value for each conversion’. If the action doesn’t have a monetary value, make an estimate of what you think the action is worth to you. You can always change the value later if you decide it wasn’t the best one to pick.
• Count – the choices are ‘Every’ or ‘One’. This is the scenario – after clicking on your ad, a person might complete the same conversion action more than once, either in the same session or a later session (cookies on their browser continue to identify them as an ad clicker for a period after they have clicked on the ad). If this particular conversion action has value to you every time it is completed by the same person, choose ‘every’. If it only has value to you once, then choose ‘one’. For example, an online purchase has value every time it happens, while providing an email address for your list has value once for each person.
• Click-through conversion window – this is for the scenario when someone clicks on your ad and then might complete the conversion action later. Choose the maximum period after the ad click that you want a conversion to count as attributable to the ad.
• Engaged-view conversion window – this is for the scenario when someone sees your video ad on YouTube and watches for a specified period of time before converting later. Choose the maximum period after the video view that you want a conversion to count as attributable to the ad.
• View-through conversion window – this is for the scenario when someone sees your display ad (doesn’t apply for search ads) but does not click on it. Choose the maximum period after the ad impression that you want a conversion to count as attributable to the ad.
• Attribution – the attribution model determines how much credit each ad interaction gets for your conversions. ‘Google paid channels’ will be pre-selected if you have used the steps described above. The next field is defaulted to ‘Data-driven’. You an leave it as is. Generally you can choose any and it won’t make or break your conversion tracking.

After you click ‘Create and Continue’, you will see 3 options – ‘Install the tag yourself’, ‘Email the tag’, ‘Use Google Tag Manager’.

If the Google Tag Manager option is missing when you create a conversion in Google Ads, it is probably because Google Ads and GA4 are linked and you did not click ‘Use Google Ads only’ in the earlier  step. You will need to delete this conversion and create the conversion again, this time clicking ‘Use Google Ads only’ after you have scanned the website (see screenshot above).

For a ‘Website’ conversion, you have now completed the part that is done in the Google Ads interface. You still need to do the other part, which is done in Google Tag Manager.

After you have chosen the option to use Google Tag Manager, you will get a Conversion ID and a Conversion Label that you can copy. Click ‘Next’ and then ‘Done’. You will then need to go to Google Tag Manager to create the corresponding tag that will track the action.

In Google Tag Manager, create a new tag using the ‘Google Ads Conversion Tracking’ tag type. Give the tag a name (a good convention is to start it with the name of the destination system, e.g. ‘Google Ads’). Paste the Conversion ID and Conversion Label into the appropriate fields. You don’t need to specify a Conversion Value here if you have already specified a constant value in the Google Ads conversion set-up process. All other fields can be left as-is.
The trigger is the part that requires the most thinking. What is the action that identifies that this conversion has happened? For accurate tracking, the set of conditions you specify for the trigger must uniquely identify that this conversion has occurred.
If it is a view of a specific page, then the trigger will be a Page View trigger type, with a condition based on Page URL.
If it is a form submission, then things get more complicated. Depending on how the form works, the trigger could be a Form Submission trigger type, a Custom Event trigger type or an Element Visibility trigger type. Analytics Mania has written a very good article on form tracking which helps you to figure out which option to choose (or, if you prefer to hand this off to an expert, I can help you with Google Tag Manager services).

You will also need to add a Google Tag (see the Google support article ‘Set up your Google Tag‘) and Conversion Linker tag (the GTM interface will guide you if it doesn’t detect one).

In the new interface, after clicking to set up anew conversion, the next screen looks like this:

‘Conversions on a website’ is already ticked by default. If there is no red warning beside the words ‘via Google tag’, you can just click ‘Continue’.

If, on the other hand, you see this warning that the Google tag is not installed…

… you will need to add a Google tag with your Google Ads ID to your Google Tag Manager container. Click ‘Edit’ and follow the prompts.

When all is well with the Google tag, clicking ‘Continue’ will bring you to this screen where you will need to choose a conversion category.

In the next screen, you will see your website as a conversion source with ‘No event selected’. Click ‘Set up’.

Choose the radio button ‘Create a manual event’, give it a name and click ‘Use event’.

At this point you might want to click Settings and check that you are happy with the default settings, or change some of them. The options are very similar to those in the old interface (see above).

Then click ‘Save and continue’.

In the next screen, click ‘Use Google Tag Manager’.

Copy the Conversion ID and Conversion label, as you will need these in the next section.

Click ‘Finish’.

Follow the steps as for the old interface.

In the Conversion table, you will see the list of conversions you have created, grouped by Category:

The Conversion action column contains the name of the conversion.

The Action optimization column can contain Primary or Secondary. When you first create a conversion, it will be ‘primary’, which means it is used for bidding optimization. In the conversion’s settings, you can change this to Secondary, which means the conversions will be recorded but not used for bidding optimization.

The Conversion source column tells you whether the conversion has been imported from Google Analytics or generated from your website.

All conv. counts the conversions attributable to Google Ads. All conv. value is the value you have assigned to this type of conversion multiplied by the count for the period.

The Status column could include values:

• Active – Google Ads has seen this conversion in the last 7 days.
• Inactive – Google Ads is yet to receive data for this conversion.
• No recent conversions – Google Ads has not seen this conversion in the last 7 days.

Google Ads is notified every time one of these conversion actions happens on your website, even when the visitor did not come to the website from an ad. Status tells you whether Google Ads is receiving data about this conversion, irrespective of whether the website visitor had clicked on your ad.

If you hover over the value in the Status column, you will see some more detail on when the conversion was last seen. This differentiates ‘Activity’ (a conversion event was received, even it was not preceded by a Google ads click) from ‘Last conversion recorded’ (a conversion attributed to Google Ads).

Conversion data will also be included in the tables in the main area of Google Ads, so you will be able to see conversions by Campaign, by Ad Group Reports, by Ad and by Keyword.

If ‘Campaign A’ brings website visitors who complete various types of conversion actions, all of these conversions will be counted for Campaign A. In some cases, you might not want this. If ‘Campaign A’ was designed to entice people to complete one particular conversion action, and you only want to count that, you can specify the particular conversion (or conversions). Do this in Campaign settings, in Conversions Goals, by choosing campaign-specific conversions.

Of course, you won’t need to do this if your landing page design makes it impossible to complete ‘irrelevant’ conversions when you click on Campaign A’s ads.

In setting up the Conversion Action, you were asked to choose an Attribution Model.

The big change here is that now only ‘Data-driven‘ and ‘Last-click‘ are available to be chosen.

If you said that one conversion was worth 1 unit of value, the attribution model determines how that credit should be spread across your campaigns (or across Ad groups or across individual ads) if more than one of these precedes the conversion action.

‘Last click’ assigns all the value to the campaigns(or Ad group or across individual ad) that was last clicked before the conversion happened.

‘Data-driven’ is a calculated assignment of value, taking into account the contribution of each ad interaction that occurred on this user’s pathway to conversion.

Note that choosing an attribution model in Google Analytics is different; here, the attribution model determines how that credit should be spread across channels that bring people to your website, not just across ads.

The choice you make between importing conversions from Google Analytics and sending them from your website with Google Tag Manager may make a difference to the conversions you see in Google Ads.

Google Analytics is aware of all the channels by which people come to your website, and will attribute conversions accordingly. If someone comes to your website from a Google Ad, then comes from organic search and converts, Google Analytics will know about the sources of these 2 visits and calculate the spread of attribution accordingly. When the key event is imported to Google Ads as a conversion, this attribution share stays with the conversion. Google Ads  and Google Analytics will report the same number of conversions attributed to Google Ads.

On the other hand, a conversion send by Google Tag Manager to Google Ads will only know the source of website visits when that source was Google Ads. Therefore, in the scenario given above, Google Ads would attribute this conversion to Google Ads. Hence, a higher number of conversions will be reported in Google Ads.

GA4 has introduced a setting where you can change the way imported conversions are counted. In ‘Attribution settings’, the default is that paid and organic channels receive credit for conversions shared with Google Ads. You can change this to ‘Google Paid channels’. This will make the imported conversions behave more like conversions sent from the website with Google Tag Manager.

So, that is how to measure conversions. Now that you have conversion tracking set up and you’ve verified that conversions are being recorded, you can see this data in your Google Ads interface.
Conversion data columns can be seen in the tabular reports for Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads and Search terms. If you want to add or re-order columns, click on the ‘Columns’ icon.
You’ll notice that these numbers are for all conversions. Individual conversions can be seen in any of the Overview reports. Many of the cards within the Overview reports let you choose the metrics you want to see, including individual conversions.

Another place to look is ‘Attribution’ reports, found under the Goals menu. The ‘Conversion paths’ report gives you a clear picture of metrics for all conversions or by individual conversion. You can also choose to see the data broken down by Campaign, by Ad group, by Keyword, by Creative or by Device. A really handy report!

If you’ve read this far, you’re obviously passionate about getting your Google Ads conversion tracking right. But I know how time-consuming it can be! If you’re ready to outsource conversion tracking, check out my Google Tag Manager services.