Fix guides

Google Ads conversions not recording: causes and fixes

Work through it in order: does the conversion request leave the browser on the confirmation page, does it carry the right conversion ID and label, is there an ad click (gclid) to attribute it to, does consent allow it, and is the action counted in the column you are looking at. Most cases stop at one of the first three.

Read the status first

In Google Ads, open Goals, then Conversions, then Summary, and look at the action's status:

• Unverified: Google has not seen the tag yet. Normal for a few hours after setup; after a day it means the tag is not on the site, or not with this conversion ID.
• No recent conversions: the tag has been seen, but no conversion was recorded in the last 7 days. The tag loads; the conversion event does not fire, fires without the right label, or has nothing to attribute to.
• Tag inactive: Google no longer sees the tag and recorded no conversions in 7 days. Something removed it: a redesign, a new checkout, a consent change, an unpublished GTM version.

Two things often look like a broken tag but are not. Conversions are reported on the date of the ad click, not the date of the sale, so yesterday's orders can appear on last week's dates. And a conversion action set as secondary shows up only in the "All conv." column, not in "Conversions".

1. Does the conversion request leave the browser?

Open your order confirmation page (place a real or test order), open DevTools on the Network tab and filter on pagead. You should see a request to /pagead/conversion/<number>/ with a label parameter. If there is none, the event never fired. The usual causes:

• The trigger no longer matches. A GTM trigger on "Page URL contains /thank-you" stops working when the checkout moves to /checkouts/…/thank-you or a hosted payment domain. Trigger on a purchase dataLayer event instead of a URL.
• The confirmation page does not load your tags. Hosted checkouts (Shopify, Klarna Checkout, many booking engines) render their own page. On Shopify, conversion tracking goes through the Google & YouTube app or a custom pixel in Customer events; see Pixels stopped firing on Shopify's thank-you page.
• The GTM change was never published. Preview mode runs your workspace; visitors get the last published version.
• The order data is not ready. On single-page checkouts the event fires before the order total exists and errors out. Look for red errors in the Console.

2. Does it carry the right conversion ID and label?

Compare the request with the action's Tag setup in Google Ads. The number in /pagead/conversion/123456789/ is the conversion ID (AW-123456789), which is not the same as your 10-digit customer ID. The label must match the action exactly. Common mix-ups: a tag copied from another account or a staging site, a label from an action that was later removed and recreated, or the label of a different action (a lead form instead of the purchase).

3. Is there an ad click to attribute it to?

Google Ads only records a conversion when it can tie it to an ad interaction. A test order you place by typing the URL is not counted, however well the tag works. To test the path, click your own ad or add ?gclid=test to the landing page, then check:

• Auto-tagging is on in the account settings, so real clicks carry a gclid.
• Redirects keep the gclid on the landing page; see Redirects drop the gclid.
• In GTM, a Conversion Linker tag fires on all pages, so the click ID is stored in a first-party cookie for later pages.
• If checkout runs on another domain, the Conversion Linker's cross-domain linking includes it, or the click ID is lost at the domain change.

4. Does consent block it?

With Consent Mode, a visitor who declines ad_storage gets no Google Ads cookies, so their conversion cannot be matched to the click directly. In advanced Consent Mode, Google receives cookieless pings and may model those conversions, which shows up later and as estimates. In basic mode, nothing is sent until the visitor accepts. If the consent default is missing or set too late, see Consent Mode default is not set. A sudden drop right after a consent banner change usually lands here.

5. Is it counted where you are looking?

• Primary or secondary: only primary actions count in "Conversions" and drive bidding. Secondary actions appear in "All conv.".
• Conversion window: a sale after the click-through window (30 days by default) is not attributed.
• Count: "One" counts one conversion per click; for purchases you usually want "Every".
• Imported GA4 key event: if the action is a GA4 import, the problem may be in GA4 or in the link between the two accounts, not on the site.

Test it end to end

1. Click an ad (or use ?gclid=test), complete an order and confirm the /pagead/conversion/ request has your ID, label, value, currency and an order ID.
2. Use Tag Assistant with your site URL to follow the same path; it shows the conversion event and the parameters it sent.
3. Give Google Ads a few hours, then check the status column again.

Sources

• Google Ads: Use Tag Assistant to troubleshoot unverified or inactive conversion actions
• Search Ads 360: Conversion action tracking statuses
• Google Ads: Set up conversion tracking for your website
• Tag Manager: About the Conversion Linker tag

Based on the platforms' public documentation; menus and names change, so check the linked pages if a step looks different.