A conversion in Google Ads should be the action that most closely predicts revenue for your business, and only that action should be set as primary. For a service business this is usually a qualified enquiry (a form submission or a call of meaningful length), not a page view, a scroll or a click on a phone number. For an online shop it is a purchase. Everything else can be tracked as a secondary action for reporting without steering the bidding.
Many small accounts we review have the wrong things counted as conversions, and Smart Bidding optimises hard towards whatever it is told is valuable. This guide shows how to choose, what to demote and how to check your setup in an afternoon.
Why does the choice of conversion matter so much?
Bidding strategies that optimise for conversions treat each recorded conversion as a good outcome and try to find more like it. If you count a page view of your contact page as a conversion, the system will find people who view contact pages, which may be students, competitors and people who clicked by mistake. Reported cost per conversion will look excellent. Your pipeline will be empty.
We see a recurring pattern in accounts where results “look good but nothing sells”. The conversion count is high, the cost per conversion is low and the owner’s phone is quiet. Almost always, the account is counting low-intent actions as primary. Our post on ads that get clicks but no leads lists this as one of the first things to check.
What is the difference between primary and secondary conversion actions?
Google Ads lets you assign each conversion action to the primary or secondary category. Primary actions are included in the “Conversions” column and are used for bidding optimisation. Secondary actions are tracked and visible in your reports, but are not used to optimise bidding in the same way. The exact behaviour has evolved over the years, so check Google’s current help documentation when setting this up.
A simple way to think about it:
- Primary: “If this happens, I made money or I am very likely to.”
- Secondary: “This is a useful signal, but I would not pay for a click just to get more of it.”
Which actions should be primary?
It depends on the business model. Use this table as a starting point, then adapt it.
| Business type | Good primary action | Better as secondary |
|---|---|---|
| Online shop | Purchase (with value) | Add to cart, begin checkout |
| B2B service | Qualified form submission or booked call | Newsletter signup, whitepaper download |
| Local service | Call of 60 seconds or more, quote request | Click on phone number, map click |
| SaaS | Trial started with a work email, or demo booked | Pricing page view, signup page view |
| Lead generation for others | Lead that passes your own validation | Raw form submits including spam |
The 60-second call threshold is an example. Choose a duration below which calls at your company are usually wrong numbers or sales pitches. For how to measure phone enquiries properly, see our post on call tracking and offline conversion import.
What about micro-conversions?
Micro-conversions are smaller steps along the path: video views, scroll depth, add to cart or a click on a pricing section. They are useful in two situations:
- Diagnosis. If people add to cart but do not complete the purchase, the problem is checkout, not ads. Secondary tracking shows where drop-off occurs.
- Low volume accounts. If you get three purchases a month, Smart Bidding has too little to learn from. Temporarily using a closer-to-purchase action such as “begin checkout” as primary can give the system more signals. Do this deliberately, with a plan to revert when volume grows, and only if the micro-action genuinely correlates with sales.
The risk of promoting micro-conversions is that the system starts finding people who perform the micro-action without ever buying. Check the ratio between your micro-conversion and your real outcome every month. If it drifts, demote the micro-conversion.
How to audit your current setup in an hour
- List every conversion action. In Google Ads, open Goals and then Conversions and write down each action, its category, whether it counts as primary and how many conversions it recorded in the last 30 days.
- Delete or demote duplicates. It is common to find the same form tracked by a Google Analytics import and by a Google Ads tag, so every submission counts twice. Keep one.
- Remove vanity actions from primary. Page views, button clicks and scroll events should not steer bidding unless you have a specific reason.
- Test each remaining action. Submit a test form, place a test call and complete a test purchase. Confirm each appears in the account within the expected delay.
- Check the values. If you use conversion value, make sure the values reflect real revenue or an honest estimate. A flat “1” for each lead is fine; a random “100” is not.
- Check consent and tracking quality. In the EU, conversions that are not measured because of consent choices can distort your numbers. Our guide to Consent Mode v2 and Enhanced Conversions covers how to recover some of that signal.
How do you put a value on a lead?
If you sell services, not every enquiry is equal. A rough value helps bidding favour better leads and helps you judge return. A method that works for most small firms:
- Estimate the percentage of enquiries that become customers, from your own records. Say 1 in 5.
- Estimate the average first-year revenue or gross margin per customer. Say €3,000.
- Divide: 3,000 x 20% = €600 expected value per lead.
These numbers are illustrative; use your own. Even if the estimate is rough, assigning a value lets you compare campaigns, and our guide to setting your own cost-per-lead target shows how to work out how much a lead can cost before you lose money.
Common mistakes we see
- Counting phone-number clicks as calls. A click on a phone link does not mean a call took place.
- Counting every thank-you page load. If someone reloads or returns to the page, you get repeat conversions. Use “once per click” counting for leads.
- Importing offline results but never closing the loop. If you take enquiries by phone or email and never tell Google which ones became customers, the system optimises on the front end only.
- Changing conversion definitions without noting the date. Performance trends become impossible to interpret.
- Judging performance by the Conversions column when it contains mixed actions. Always check which actions make up the total.
What happens when you change your conversions?
Expect disruption. Changing the primary conversion action alters what the bidding strategy aims for, which can reset parts of the learning process and change cost per conversion overnight. The reported numbers will not be comparable before and after. Mark the date in your notes and allow a few weeks before judging. Our post on the 90-day timeline for paid ads explains why any evaluation of paid performance needs patience.
The short version
Pick one or two primary conversion actions that are as close to revenue as your volume allows. Demote everything else to secondary. Remove duplicates, test each tag and put a rough value on leads. Review the setup every quarter, because the cheapest way to improve a Google Ads account is often to stop it chasing the wrong goal.