How do I check that my Google Ads conversion tracking is right?

Google Ads counts your primary conversion actions in the Conversions column and bids with them, as long as the goal they belong to is used for bidding. Secondary actions are for observation: they show in All conv., and bidding ignores them unless one is part of a custom goal.

So a fault in a primary action reaches every automated bid. Two are worth checking for on any account:

• An action that stopped recording. A tag removed in a site update, or an import that broke, leaves bidding chasing a conversion that no longer arrives. The campaigns look like they stopped working when it was the measuring that stopped.
• One event counted twice. Two primary actions on the same purchase, or an add-to-cart counted beside the sale it leads to, inflate every conversion count and every cost per conversion. Bidding then buys more of whatever produced the extra count.

Neither has a monthly figure anyone could defend, which is why Goldbeater marks both as Measurement: the damage is to the numbers everything else is judged by.

Start with the status.

1. 01Go to Goals › Conversions › Summary.
2. 02Read the Status column. Active means it’s working as intended. Needs attention means there are things to fix but it’s still recording. Misconfigured means it stopped recording because of a setup error or a broken tag. Awaiting conversions means nothing was recorded in the last 7 days. Hover over a status for Google’s detail.

Some of Google’s pages still use older names for these, such as No recent conversions and Tag inactive. And 7 days is short: a real action on a quiet account can go a week without a sale.

Then read the last 30 days, action by action.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Campaigns and set the date range to the last 30 days.
2. 02Select Segment above the table, then Conversions › Conversion action. Each campaign gets a row for each action, with what it recorded. Clicks and cost show blank under this segment, which is expected.
3. 03Compare them. A primary action at zero while campaigns bid on its goal has stopped. Two primary actions in one goal recording almost the same number are often one event counted twice.

Then test the ones in doubt. Google opens Tag Assistant from the summary for an action whose status needs a look:

1. 01On Goals › Conversions › Summary, hover over the action’s status and select Troubleshoot, then Continue.
2. 02Enter the address of a landing page or your home page, rather than the conversion page itself, and select Connect. Your site opens in a new tab.
3. 03Go through the conversion the way a customer would, then select Finish. Tag Assistant shows which actions fired.
4. 04Google says the account shows what the session verified within about 30 minutes, and allows 24 to 48 hours for data after a tag is added or changed.

An action that stopped: find out why before anything else. A removed tag, a renamed thank-you page and a failed import all look the same from Google Ads, and Tag Assistant tells you whether the tag fires. If the action is retired on purpose, make it secondary so bidding stops chasing it.

Two primary actions on one event: keep the one you trust as primary, usually the tag on the order confirmation page, and make the other secondary. It keeps recording under All conv., so you lose nothing you’d want to read.

To make an action secondary:

1. 01Go to Goals › Conversions › Summary.
2. 02Find the goal that includes the action, and click Edit goal.
3. 03Under Conversion action optimization, choose Secondary (observe only) for that action.
4. 04Click Save. The change applies everywhere that goal is used for bidding.

Earlier steps counted beside the sale: make add-to-cart and begin-checkout actions secondary once purchases alone give bidding enough to learn from. Goldbeater’s check treats 30 purchases a month as enough. Below that, it suggests keeping the earlier steps but valuing them at a fraction of a sale.

Two settings stop double counting inside a single action:

• Count. Google recommends Every for sales, since each purchase adds value, and One for leads, since one lead per click is what’s worth having. Change it under the action’s Edit settings. It applies to conversions from then on, not to past ones.
• Transaction ID. Sent with a purchase, it lets Google discard a second conversion with the same ID for the same action. As Google describes it, it works within one action, so it won’t stop two actions each counting the order.

Goldbeater first works out which actions feed bidding: enabled, primary, and in a goal an enabled campaign bids on. An action that’s primary in a goal no campaign bids on is left alone, because bidding never sees it.

Each week it raises two kinds of finding from the last 30 days. One is an action that feeds bidding and recorded nothing, marked high when nothing else in its goal recorded either. The other is a double count: two such actions in one goal that both recorded conversions, or a purchase counted beside an add-to-cart or begin-checkout step. For the second, it drafts making the earlier steps secondary.

How do I test Google Ads conversion tracking?

Open Tag Assistant from the conversions summary, go through the conversion on your site, and see which actions fire. Then make one real conversion and check the next day that it was counted exactly once.

How long does a new conversion action take to show data?

Google says to allow 24 to 48 hours after a tag is added or changed. Actions verified in a Tag Assistant session update in the account in about 30 minutes.

What’s the difference between Conversions and All conv.?

Conversions counts your primary actions, the ones bidding uses. All conv. adds your secondary actions, which are there to observe.

Should I count every conversion or one per click?

Google recommends Every for purchases, since each sale adds value, and One for leads, where one lead per click is what’s worth counting.