How to Set Up and Check Conversion Tracking in Google Ads (2026)

What a conversion action is

A conversion action defines what Google Ads counts as a success: a purchase, an enquiry through a form, a call, an appointment. It specifies where the signal comes from (website, import, call), how often it is counted and how long after a click a conversion is still attributed. You create it under Goals, Summary, "+ Create conversion action" (Google Ads Help: Set up your web conversions, accessed 30 October 2026).

Without such an action, Google Ads does not know which clicks were worth something. Every bid optimisation and every statement about wasted spend depends on it. That is why tracking is also the first area in every Google Ads audit checklist.

Three ways to set it up

Google tag directly

The Google tag must be installed on every page of your website. For a conversion to be counted, you also need an event snippet or a phone snippet on the relevant pages. After installing or correcting the tag, it may take up to 48 hours for the conversion status to update in Google Ads (Google Ads Help: Use the Google tag for Google Ads conversion tracking, accessed 30 October 2026). If your website uses a CMS plug-in for tracking, make sure you are not double-tagging; according to Google, this can cause duplicate conversion reporting (Google Ads Help: Set up your web conversions, accessed 30 October 2026).

Import from GA4 (key events)

Only events that are marked as key events in GA4 can be imported. The prerequisites are a linked Google Analytics account and auto-tagging turned on in Google Ads. The import only includes data from the time of the import onwards, and it can take up to 24 hours for the first data to appear. Important: conversion actions created through the Google Analytics interface are set as secondary. To use them for bidding, you have to change them in Google Ads (Google Ads Help: Create conversions from Google Analytics events in Google Ads, accessed 30 October 2026).

Offline conversions and enhanced conversions for leads

If an enquiry only turns into an order weeks later, a website tag only measures the preliminary step. For the actual sale, there is offline import. According to Google, enhanced conversions for leads are an upgraded version of it: they use user-provided data such as email addresses, hashed, to attribute imported offline conversions to campaigns, in addition to the Google Click ID (GCLID) (Google Ads Help: Configure the Google tag for enhanced conversions for leads, accessed 30 October 2026).

Important for technical teams: Google states on its Help page that starting 15 June 2026, offline conversion imports and enhanced conversions for leads uploads will be migrated to the Data Manager API and blocked in the Google Ads API (Google Ads Help: About offline conversion imports, accessed 30 October 2026). If you run uploads through your own interface, you should therefore check which route it uses today.

Primary or secondary

This is the setting that is most often wrong. Primary actions appear in the "Conversions" column and are used for bidding as long as they are part of the standard goal used for bidding. Secondary actions are for observation only, appear in "All conversions" and are not used for bidding. The exception is custom goals (Google Ads Help: About primary and secondary conversion actions, accessed 30 October 2026).

The rule of thumb: primary is whatever you would pay for. A view of the pricing page is secondary; the submitted enquiry is primary. More on typical misconfigurations will follow in Primary and secondary conversion actions.

Counting method, value and window

Sources for the table: counting methods and defaults (Google Ads Help: About conversion counting options, accessed 30 October 2026), windows (Google Ads Help: About conversion windows, accessed 30 October 2026), values (Google Ads Help: Track transaction-specific conversion values, accessed 30 October 2026). The pages on counting method and window stress that changes to the counting method and window only apply to future conversions. If you switch, you break comparability with earlier periods.

Consent mode: what happens without consent

This section describes how Google's technology works. It is not legal advice; whether and how you need to obtain consent is something to clarify with your data protection adviser.

Consent mode comes in two versions:

• Basic: Google tags only load once a user interacts with the consent banner. Without consent, no data is sent to Google, not even the consent status. Conversion modelling is then based on a general model.
• Advanced: Tags load when the page is opened. If consent is denied, they send cookieless pings. Modelling uses an advertiser-specific model.

Sources: (Google Ads Help: About consent mode, accessed 30 October 2026) and (Google for Developers: Consent mode overview, accessed 30 October 2026). The developer documentation lists the consent types ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization and analytics_storage.

For your tracking, this means that some conversions are not observed but modelled, or are missing altogether. A drop after introducing a cookie banner is therefore no proof of a broken tag.

Checking in six steps

1. Read the tracking status. Under Goals, Summary, "All conversions", the "Tracking status" column shows values such as "Unverified", "Tag inactive" or "Needs attention".
2. Test conversion with Tag Assistant. From the status, you start troubleshooting, connect Tag Assistant to your website and trigger the conversion yourself. Google recommends starting on a landing page or the home page rather than going straight to the conversion page. After approximately 30 minutes, the information is updated in your account (Google Ads Help: Use Tag Assistant to troubleshoot your unverified or inactive conversion actions, accessed 30 October 2026).
3. Check the primary setting. Google explicitly names this as a troubleshooting step, as well as the minimum call length for call tracking: if it is set too high, short calls will not count. Reporting can take 3 to 24 hours to update, and conversions are attributed to the date of the click (Google Ads Help: Troubleshoot your conversion tracking status, accessed 30 October 2026).
4. Compare with GA4. Compare Google Ads with the key events in GA4. According to Google, discrepancies are common, even with a correct setup (Google Ads Help: Create conversions from Google Analytics events in Google Ads, accessed 30 October 2026). What is suspicious is one side showing zero or a sudden break. The reasons are explained in GA4 and Google Ads show different conversions.
5. Check the change history. Who changed what on conversion actions or goals, and when? The change history lists changes from the past 2 years (Google Ads Help: About change history, accessed 30 October 2026).
6. 7-day check. Look at the status and figures again after a week. Optimisation is only worthwhile once conversions are arriving consistently.

Common mistakes

If your account shows no conversions at all, you will find the causes in order in 0 conversions in Google Ads: 7 causes. And once tracking is in place and you are considering Target CPA or Target ROAS, read Smart Bidding requirements first.

How Helferlain assesses tracking

Helferlain checks tracking first in the audit. If the account has 0 conversions, the tracking finding comes first, findings that depend on it are downgraded, and there is no estimate in euros, because it would only be a calculation based on nothing. In the AI assistant, read-only tools for conversion tracking, measurement readiness and the status of offline conversions are available for this. More on the tracking check page.