--- title: "Google Ads Conversion Tracking Mistakes" url: https://adtech.lol/articles/c68882c8-013d-430a-9ab2-5ad62a21f4db source_url: https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-conversion-tracking-mistakes-498579/ source_site: searchengineland author: "Brad Geddes" published: 2023-10-01T00:00:00+00:00 tags: ["Google Ads", "Conversion Tracking", "PPC", "Marketing", "Analytics"] publisher: AdTech Radar --- # Google Ads Conversion Tracking Mistakes > Google Ads has introduced many features to enhance conversion tracking, but these can lead to common mistakes that affect data accuracy and bidding strategies. ## Introduction Google Ads has added a lot of flexibility in how you track conversions over the past few years. However, new features introduce a different set of common conversion tracking mistakes. Accurate conversion data is paramount to optimizing your account and ensuring Google has the correct data for bidding. If your conversion data is wrong, every decision you make about your account will be inaccurate. The majority of accounts I audit have the following conversion tracking mistakes, from basic configuration issues to offline import errors. ## Mistake 1: Not tracking all Google Ads conversions directly related to success The first few conversion mistakes aren’t new. They’ve been happening for years, yet we continue to see accounts making them. If an action directly relates to your business success, you should be tracking it. The most commonly missed conversions are phone calls. However, we still see sites that focus on form fills but leave mailto links untracked on all landing pages, or sites that haven’t fully integrated third-party apps into their conversion tracking, such as Calendly appointments or conversions happening within chat applications. If there’s a conversion type that directly leads to revenue or is your primary way of tracking success, you should track it. ## Mistake 2: Not using primary vs. secondary conversions properly A primary conversion is used for bidding purposes. A secondary conversion is for observation. In many cases, local actions and other conversions added to your account are marked as primary actions by default. For example, if your business has you traveling to a client’s house, you don’t care about users looking for driving directions to your office. Additionally, in many cases, store visits are a better measure of success than driving directions. You should review your primary conversions and ensure that each conversion marked as primary is one you want to use for bid purposes. If a conversion is too easy for Google to achieve, such as page views, you’ll often see it become the most common conversion in your account. ## Mistake 3: Overcounting conversions If a user converts multiple times, how are you tracking those conversions? If your count is set to “Every,” each time a user performs that action, it’s counted as a conversion. If the count is set to “One,” the user counts as only one conversion, regardless of how many times they perform that specific action. For lead generation websites, you usually want all your conversions set to “One.” That way, if someone calls you five times or fills out a form three times, each action is counted only once. Conversely, ecommerce companies, or companies where a user can purchase multiple times, should track every conversion since each is a different revenue opportunity. ## Mistake 4: Double-counting conversions When conversions are counted across Google Analytics, offline imports, third-party integrations, Google Ads conversion tracking, and Google Tag Manager, the same conversion may be counted multiple times. If both conversions are marked as primary, the same conversion is counted twice. Since the repeat rate is 1.4, if these conversions are also marked as “every” in their counts, the conversion values are even more inflated than the actual unique contacts the company is receiving. ## Mistake 5: Inconsistent timeframes Your click-through conversion window is the amount of time that can pass between someone interacting with your ad and performing the conversion for it to count in your conversion tracking. When you have mismatched timeframes, especially for similar conversions, it can create conflicts in how data-driven attribution (DDA) attributes conversions across your campaigns and lead to bidding issues. For instance, this account has a 30-day window for some phone calls and a 90-day window for others. When you have mismatched timeframes, especially for similar conversions, it can create conflicts in how data-driven attribution (DDA) attributes conversions across your campaigns and lead to bidding issues. ## Mistake 6: Forgetting about campaign-level conversions You can choose to use different conversion actions at the campaign level. This is common in Performance Max (PMax), where you might not want to include driving directions because PMax can suddenly show many ads on Google Maps to users just looking for your store. If you forget about these and update your conversions, you might wonder why the campaign isn’t working properly. These are easy to forget about. I always use a campaign label to note campaigns using this type of tracking. ## Mistake 7: Offline conversion tracking configuration issues Offline conversion tracking imports have come a long way in the past few years. This has become a much more common way of tracking conversions because of the flexibility to restate conversion values or remove conversions. However, this type of conversion tracking comes with its own common mistakes. ### Losing identifiers Redirects, form capture, and improper CRM integrations can lose the Google click ID (GCLID). If this happens, you can’t store the GCLID with your conversion for tracking. ### Restatements vs. duplicate conversions If a user clicks on your ads and fills out a form and then, later, they click on an ad and fill out another form or call you, are you sending both conversions to Google? ### Retractions vs. zero value If a user returned a product or you realized the lead was spam, you can use a retraction to remove that conversion. ### Uploading data immediately after the conversion With offline conversion data, Google uses the last seven days for bidding purposes. The faster you can give data to Google, the better your results usually are, with one exception. ### Making adjustments too quickly It takes Google 12 to 72 hours to process offline conversions, depending on how you identify them. ### Not checking that conversions are being uploaded on a regular basis You should have a process in place so that everyone is aware of how many offline conversions — and what types — are being imported regularly. ## How to stay on top of conversion tracking During audits, I regularly see accounts set up conversion tracking and add more tracking options without considering current or previous configurations. You should regularly review and verify that your conversion tracking is set up accurately and still communicating properly with Google Ads. When your data is accurate, you can make good data-driven decisions about your account. When the data is flawed, so is your optimization. Source: [https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-conversion-tracking-mistakes-498579/](https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-conversion-tracking-mistakes-498579/)