What is Conversion Tracking?
Conversion tracking is measuring and recording the desired actions that take place after someone has clicked an ad or visited your website. It tells you which campaigns, keywords and ads actually lead to conversions. Without conversion tracking you are spending your budget blind.
How do you set up conversion tracking?
In Google Ads you create a conversion action and place a snippet on the thank you page, or you use an event tag. With Google Tag Manager you manage all tags centrally without changing any code. UTM tags make sure you see in Google Analytics 4 exactly which channel delivered the conversion.
What do you use conversion tracking for?
Conversion tracking is the basis for all automated bidding strategies (Smart Bidding). Without enough conversion data the algorithm cannot learn to optimise. You need at least 30 conversions per month per campaign for stable Smart Bidding results.
Enhanced Conversions
Google offers Enhanced Conversions as an extension. It sends hashed customer data along to attribute conversions more accurately, even when cookies are missing because of browser privacy settings.
What is the difference between Google Ads conversion tracking and GA4?
Google Ads conversion tracking is linked to ad clicks. GA4 records conversions for all traffic sources, including organic, direct and email.
How do I know whether my conversion tracking works properly?
Through the diagnostics in Google Ads: the conversion status shows Active, Inactive or No recent conversions.
Should I set up micro conversions as well?
That is advisable as an extra signal for Smart Bidding when your macro conversion volume is low. More at developers.google.com/search.