How do you set up Google Ads conversion tracking?

The first step is what should count. A purchase, a newsletter signup, a button click and a phone call are different actions. Google’s guidance is a separate conversion action for each. If the site should record both sales and signups, those are two actions. One does not stand in for the other.

Calls, app events and in-store results are separate sources too. This article stays with the action on the website. How the source changes the number in a report is covered in why the conversion count looks different.

The action sits in a category, the one closest to what you measure. Grouping related actions into one conversion goal gathers the signal optimization looks at. The category name does not prove the action happened.

You create the conversion action from Summary in the Goals menu and scan the site domain as a data source. If the scan finds a Google tag or an Analytics property, you can use it. If it finds neither, the tag is added during setup or afterwards.

A page load without a transaction id or a variable amount can use the no-code path. The trigger can be a page load or a form submit. The URL matches in one of three ways: the URL is exactly this, the URL contains this, or the URL starts with this. A rule that contains “thanks” can also fire on any other page where that string appears.

A button, an order value, a currency or a transaction id needs the code path. The snippet is given in the summary step for the Google tag or Tag Manager. The value has to be available on the page where the tag fires. If a third-party plugin already places a tag, a second tag can write the same action twice.

Importing an Analytics event needs Admin access in Google Ads, Edit access on the linked property, and a property that is actually linked. Only events marked as key events in Analytics are eligible.

After the accounts are linked, or after an event is marked as a key event, the import options can take 24 to 48 hours to appear. The link is not finished at the moment you click it. If both the Google tag and Analytics record the same action separately, the duplicate-count risk remains.

Setup includes the action’s optimization setting. A primary action can enter bidding. A secondary action is for observation. Google states that getting this wrong can weaken the signal Smart Bidding uses. Creating the action does not mean bidding will use it.

Count, click window and attribution live on the same settings screen. How those choices make the report diverge from the till, the form tool or the call log is a different question from whether setup succeeded. If the tag is recording, the setup side has moved. What the columns mean sits in the other article.

Enhanced conversions are a separate switch at the end of setup. Turning it on sends additional data. This article does not cover how that data is prepared.

The check is the Status column on the conversion actions table, in Summary under Goals. If the page name is right and that page has been opened, the row’s status can change. If it does not, the next look is the tag. Google points to Tag Assistant for the Google tag, and to Tag Manager’s own troubleshooting for that setup.

Budget scaled before this record exists mostly buys clicks. In performance advertising the signal bidding can learn from is this record. A report read before the record exists is not a measurement result.