Google Ads conversion tracking, set up and checked

To set up conversion tracking in Google Ads, open Goals, then Summary, and select Create conversion action. Put the Google tag on every page of your website and the event snippet on the page a customer reaches after converting, such as the thank you page. Set Count to One for leads and Every for sales, make the actions that earn money primary, then make a test conversion yourself and check that the status reads Active.

Every step below comes from Google’s own help pages, in the order the film takes them.

The six steps

The four statuses, in Google’s words

• Unverified. “Unverified means that the conversion tracking tag associated with this conversion action has not yet fired.” Google Ads Help, The Unverified status has been showing for more than 24 hours.
• Awaiting conversions. “No conversions have been recorded in the last 7 days.” Google Ads Help, Troubleshooting conversion tracking status.
• Misconfigured. “Conversions have stopped recording entirely due to a setup error or a broken tag.” Google Ads Help, Troubleshooting conversion tracking status.
• Active. “An “Active” conversion action overview status is highlighted in green and indicates that everything is working as intended.” Google Ads Help, Troubleshooting conversion tracking status.

Active is the only one that means the counting works. Awaiting conversions can simply mean a quiet week; Misconfigured never does.

One question for a campaign you already run

Open Goals, then Summary. What status does each primary action show?

The film, as text

Chapter 3 of the course, word for word, as it is spoken in the film above.

Your Google Ads account counts every click. What it can't count, unless you tell it, is which click became a customer. That's conversion tracking. In this chapter, we set it up, and then we check that it's counting right. What counts. The tag. The settings. And the status that tells you it works.

This is chapter three of a free course on running Google Ads yourself. Chapter two was about what a click costs. This one is about what a click is worth. Every rule here is quoted from Google's own help pages.

Step one. What counts. Google's definition: a conversion action is a specific customer activity that is valuable to your business. A purchase. A lead form sent. A booked appointment. A call. You choose which ones count. It's how you learn which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns are best at driving valuable customer activity. And bid strategies like Maximize conversions bid toward what you count. Count the wrong thing, and they chase the wrong thing.

Step two. The Google tag. On a website, conversion tracking runs on two pieces of code. The first is the Google tag. In Google's words, the Google tag should be installed on every page of your website. The second is the event snippet. It tells the Google tag when to track a conversion. And it goes on the conversion page itself: the thank you page after a form, or the confirmation page after an order. So a click lands on your site, the tag sees the visit, and when that visitor reaches the thank you page, the snippet records the conversion.

Step three. Create the conversion action. In Google Ads, open Goals, then Summary, and select Create conversion action. Enter your website's domain, and select Scan. The scan checks whether your site already has a Google tag. Pick a category. Google lists Purchase, Submit lead form, Book appointment, Contact, and more. Then choose how it fires. Automatically without code, from the page's address: for example, a URL that contains thank you. Or manually using code, with the event snippet. You'd pick that to count clicks on a button, or to send a value with each sale.

Step four. Two settings that change your numbers. Open Conversion settings. The first one to read is Count: Every, or One. With Every, Google Ads counts every conversion that happens after an ad interaction. That suits sales, where every order is money. With One, it counts only one conversion per ad click. That suits leads. So if one person sends your form three times, Every records three leads. One records one: one lead, from one click. The second is the click through conversion window: how long after someone clicks your ad a conversion still counts. On Search, if you don't change it, it's thirty days. You can set it anywhere from one to ninety. A sofa can take weeks to decide on. A pizza takes an hour. Set the window to how long your customers take.

Step five. Primary, or secondary. Every conversion action is one or the other, and it changes what your bids chase. Primary actions are reported in the Conversions column, and used for bidding. Secondary actions, in Google's words, are for observation only. They show in All conversions, but not for bidding, unless they're part of a custom goal. So make primary the actions that make you money, and keep softer signals, like a page view, as secondary, to watch.

Step six. Check it's counting. Back in Goals, then Summary, every conversion action shows a status. Four to know. Unverified: the tag for this action has not yet fired. Awaiting conversions: no conversions have been recorded in the last seven days. Misconfigured: conversions have stopped recording entirely, due to a setup error or a broken tag. And Active: everything is working as intended. If an action stays Unverified, hover over the status and select Troubleshoot. Then Continue, and Tag Assistant opens. Enter your home page, not the thank you page, and select Connect. Then make a conversion yourself. Send your own form, or place a test order. After about thirty minutes, the actions you verified are updated in your account.

Conversion tracking, before you spend. Choose what counts. The Google tag on every page, and the event snippet on the conversion page. One for leads, Every for sales. Primary for what you bid on. And a status that says Active, proved with a conversion of your own.

Here's a question you can answer right now, if you already run a campaign. Open Goals, then Summary. What status does each primary action show?

Next chapter: the search terms report. The searches you actually paid for, and how to stop paying for the wrong ones.

And if you'd rather not check this by hand, Admiral reads your account and puts each fix in front of you. Each fix waits for your yes. Autopilot, if you switch it on, only pauses and blocks, under a daily cap. Start free at meetadmiral.com.