Conversion actions: what they are and how to set them up

A conversion action is the rule that tells an ad platform what counts as a result for your business, and how to count it. "Someone submitted the enquiry form" is a conversion action. So is "someone bought something" or "someone called from an ad".

If you're new to the idea, read What is a conversion? first.

Why they matter

• Reporting: you see what your ads actually achieved, not just clicks.
• Bidding: automated bidding, including Performance Max, uses your conversion actions to decide who to show ads to and how much to bid. If they're wrong, the platform optimises towards the wrong thing.

Choosing what to track

Track the action that's closest to making you money. For most small businesses that's one of these:

• an enquiry or quote form submitted
• a phone call from an ad or your website
• a booking or appointment made
• a purchase

Smaller steps, such as viewing your pricing page or starting a form, are worth recording, but as secondary actions that don't steer bidding (see below). If you tell Google a page view is as valuable as a sale, it will find you lots of cheap page views.

Setting one up in Google Ads

1. In Google Ads, go to Goals, then Conversions, and create a new conversion action.
2. Choose Website and enter your website address. Google scans your site. If it says it can't find the Google tag, you can still carry on and set the action up manually. This is normal if your tags only load after cookie consent.
3. Choose to add a conversion action manually, and pick the category that fits, for example Submit lead form.
4. Work through the settings below, then save.
5. Install the tag and the conversion event, then test them. See Set up Google Ads conversion tracking and Tracking tags in practice.

What each setting means

Category

The type of result: purchase, submit lead form, book appointment, phone call and so on. Pick the closest match. Google groups actions with the same category into one goal, which gives bidding a stronger signal.

Conversion name

For you, not your customers. Make it specific, such as "Quote form - website", so you can tell actions apart in reports.

Value

What a conversion is worth to you. You can use the same value for every conversion, a different value each time (for example, the basket total from an online shop), or no value.

For leads, a rough figure is better than none. If one in ten enquiries becomes a £500 job, each enquiry is worth about £50. Values let you compare campaigns on return, not just volume, and let you use value-based bidding later.

Count

• One: counts one conversion per ad click, however many times the person converts. Use this for leads, enquiries and sign-ups. Someone who fills in your form twice is still one lead.
• Every: counts every conversion after an ad click. Use this for sales, where each purchase matters.

Watch the default: Google sets website actions to Every unless you change it. For a lead form, switch it to One.

Click-through conversion window

How long after someone clicks your ad a conversion still counts. The default is 30 days, and it can go up to 90 days. Google recommends at least 7 days. Match it to how long your customers take to decide: a takeaway order might happen the same evening, while a kitchen quote might take weeks.

Changes aren't backdated. A new window only applies from the day you change it.

Engaged-view conversion window

For video ads: how long after someone watches your video, without clicking, a conversion still counts. The default is 3 days.

View-through conversion window

For display and video ads: how long after someone simply sees your ad a conversion counts. The default is 1 day. These are reported separately and are weaker evidence, because the person never clicked.

Attribution

How credit is shared when someone clicked several of your ads before converting. There are two choices:

• Data-driven (recommended): Google shares credit based on which ads actually made a difference, using your account's own data.
• Last click: all the credit goes to the last ad clicked.

The older first click, linear, time decay and position-based models were retired in 2023.

Primary or secondary

• Primary: appears in the Conversions column and is used for bidding.
• Secondary: appears only in All conversions, for observation. It doesn't steer bidding.

Keep primary for real business results, and make softer signals secondary. Conversions imported from Google Analytics start as secondary.

Enhanced conversions

An optional extra. When someone converts, the Google tag sends a scrambled (hashed) copy of details they entered, such as their email address, which Google matches to signed-in Google accounts. It recovers conversions that cookies alone would miss. Only turn it on if your privacy policy and cookie consent cover it.

Recommended settings for common goals

• Enquiry or quote form: category Submit lead form, count One, a rough lead value, 30-day click-through window, primary.
• Phone calls: category Phone call, count One, a minimum call length that means a genuine enquiry (60 seconds is a common choice), primary.
• Online purchase: category Purchase, count Every, the actual basket value, primary.
• Booking: category Book appointment, count One, primary.
• Newsletter sign-up or a key page view: count One, secondary.

Common mistakes

• Using a page view when there's no thank-you page. Many website forms show a thank-you message on the same page. A page-view conversion can't see that, so nothing is counted. Use an event that fires when the form is submitted successfully instead.
• Counting the same conversion twice. For example, a tag added in your website builder and again in Google Tag Manager, or Google's automatic form detection running alongside your own event. Use one source.
• Too many primary actions. Bidding treats them all as equally important.
• Changing settings during the learning phase. Big changes restart learning, which takes around 7 to 14 days. See The learning phase explained.

Meta, TikTok and Microsoft

• Meta: conversions are events recorded by the Meta Pixel, such as Lead or Purchase. You choose the event to optimise for in each ad set, and you can create custom conversions from rules such as a page address. The attribution setting defaults to 7-day click, 1-day engage-through and 1-day view.
• TikTok: the TikTok Pixel records standard events such as Submit Form and Complete Payment. You choose the optimisation event in each ad group.
• Microsoft Advertising: conversion goals work much like Google's, recorded by the UET tag. See Create and install a Microsoft UET tag.

Read more: Google's guides, About conversion counting options, About conversion windows and About primary and secondary conversion actions.