Your Google Ads "conversions" might not be conversions
GA4 key events aren't Google Ads conversions until you import them. If that link is missing, your bidding is optimising for the wrong thing.
Here’s a problem I find in a lot of inherited Google Ads accounts: the owner is sure their enquiries are being tracked, the GA4 reports show them — and Google Ads is bidding blind.
Two systems, two definitions
In 2024 Google renamed “conversions” in Google Analytics 4 to key events. The name changed because a key event in GA4 is not automatically a conversion in Google Ads.
For Google Ads to see it, the key event has to be imported into the Ads account (or tracked directly with the Google Ads tag), and set as a primary conversion action. Until then:
- Smart Bidding strategies like Maximise conversions have nothing real to optimise for.
- Your cost per conversion is either missing or counting the wrong thing.
- Reports in Ads and Analytics disagree, and nobody trusts either.
The other usual suspects
While you’re checking, look for these too:
- Page views counted as conversions. A visit to the contact page isn’t an enquiry.
- Duplicate counting. The same form counted by the Ads tag and an import.
- Calls not tracked at all. For many local businesses, calls are most of the leads.
- Consent mode not set up. Tags that don’t respect cookie choices are a legal problem, and ones set up wrongly lose data.
How to check in ten minutes
- In Google Ads, go to Goals → Conversions and look at the source and status of each action.
- Submit a real test enquiry on your site.
- Check it appears in GA4’s realtime view as a key event, and in Google Ads within a few hours.
If it doesn’t, every bidding decision your campaign has made is built on the wrong numbers. That’s the first thing I fix on any account — get in touch if you’d like me to look at yours.