Conversion goals & tracking: the setup is the targeting.

Smart Bidding optimizes toward whatever you mark as a primary conversion, at whatever value you give it. It has no other definition of success, so the conversion setup isn't a reporting chore. It is the targeting. Mark a free download as primary and Google finds downloaders. Give a demo and a signup the same value and Google chases the cheaper one.

Most lead quality problems we see trace back to this layer, not to keywords or landing pages. This guide covers the settings in the order we set them, what Google's documentation says each one does, and where we disagree with the defaults.

The setup order, at a glance

Step 1: choose what you want more of

Ask one question: if Google found a thousand more of this conversion, would the business be better off? A content download fails that test, and so, often, does a free trial anyone can start. Google finds more of whatever you count, the argument of optimize to the conversion action, not the lead magnet.

The right goal sits in the middle of the funnel. On a mentoring call with a SaaS marketer whose campaigns were optimizing for a 14-day trial signup, we put it this way: optimize too high and Google brings anyone who is able to sign up; optimize too low, on a sale that lands weeks later, and "your ads cannot stay idle for three weeks waiting for a signal." The target is the earliest action that still reliably means a real prospect: a qualified lead, a booked or completed call, a lead your CRM did not disqualify.

Then climb, one stage at a time. In one B2B account we run, where a sale takes about two months, the campaign was first taught to bring non-spam leads, then leads who booked and completed a meeting, and now it optimizes only on opportunities, the point where a deal is created. Each stage got a couple of months to learn before the next move. We never combined stages in one Maximize conversions campaign, and we gave an education advertiser weighing calls against form fills the same advice: one goal first, a month or two, then change.

Step 2: primary vs secondary, and which campaigns use what

Google is precise here. A conversion action marked primary can be used for bidding, provided the campaign optimizes toward the goal that contains it. A secondary action is excluded from the Conversions column that bidding uses, but still shows in All conversions. Full rules: primary vs secondary conversion actions.

Three details catch most accounts:

• Actions are grouped into goals by category. A campaign selects goals, not individual actions. If two actions share a category, a campaign using that goal bids toward both. On one call, a business tracked a lead form submission and a successful postcode search as two actions in the same goal. To give their branded campaign a different set of actions, one of them had to be moved into a different category.
• Account-default goals flow into every campaign set to use them. Campaign-specific goals override the defaults for both bidding and reporting in that campaign. When goals are stages of the same funnel, Google itself recommends setting only one of them as the account default.
• Custom goals let you combine any primary and secondary actions, but Google calls them advanced, says they are not recommended in most cases, and allows only one per campaign.

The fix we recommend: one primary action per funnel stage, one account-default goal, and campaign-specific goals wherever a campaign should chase something different. Everything else stays secondary: you keep the reporting without paying the bidding to chase it. The trap is covered in multiple conversion actions: values or one primary.

Step 3: conversion values

Each conversion action has a value setting with three options: use the same value for each conversion, use different values (passed by your tag, with the default you enter used whenever no value arrives), or don't use a value, which Google labels not recommended. The default is 1. URL-based website conversions only support a fixed value set in the interface.

Values decide which bid strategy makes sense. Maximize conversions spends the budget to get as many conversions as possible. Maximize conversion value spends it to get the most total conversion value. That gives three rules we apply on every account:

• Actions that matter differently need different values. On one call, a B2B SaaS account showed 90 account-created conversions worth 90 and 7 demo bookings worth 7. To the bidding, a demo was a signup.
• One goal with one flat value doesn't need value bidding. A home services advertiser on a call had phone-call leads as the only conversion, valued at 10, on Maximize conversion value. With one action at one value, there is nothing to weigh, so we advised moving them to Maximize conversions. More on this in one flat value isn't value bidding.
• Values you can't explain are worse than none. An account on another call showed 47 purchases worth 9,600, with a fallback value of 1, and nobody could say how the 9,600 was assigned. Until values are trustworthy, Maximize conversions is the safer instruction.

Two refinements, once the basics hold. Conversion value rules let you adjust recorded values by audience, location or device, and Smart Bidding uses them in real time with Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value. And if the point of a campaign is new customers rather than repeat ones, the new customer acquisition goal needs you to define existing customers with first-party data first, which we cover in 'Bid for new customers' is guessing until you upload your customers.

One caution, our read from running these accounts: under Maximize conversion value, a cheap low-value action left in the mix can still soak up budget when the high-value one is hard to win. If you don't want junk leads at any price, don't give them a value. Make them secondary.

Step 4: counting, one or every

Google offers two counting options. Every counts each conversion after an ad interaction, and Google calls it a good choice for sales, where each purchase adds value. One counts only one conversion per ad click, and Google calls it a good choice for leads, where you care whether a lead happened, not how many forms one person filled in. Every is the default for website conversion actions, so a lead form counts every submission unless you change it.

For lead generation we set One. A prospect who submits the same form three times is one lead, not three wins.

Step 5: attribution model and conversion window

Google Ads now offers two attribution models: data-driven, the default for most conversion actions, and last click. First click, linear, time decay and position-based are no longer supported. Google says the model you select affects how your bids are optimized. We leave optimization actions on data-driven. Why Google, Meta and your CRM never agree is covered in our paid media attribution guide and why conversion numbers don't match.

The click-through conversion window defaults to 30 days and can be set from 1 day up to 30, 60 or 90 days for Search and Display depending on the conversion source. Smart Bidding optimizes to whatever window you choose, and a change applies to conversions going forward, not backward. For long B2B cycles, if most qualified leads arrive 40 days after the click, a 30-day window quietly hides them from the bidding.

Step 6: enhanced conversions

Enhanced conversions sends hashed first-party data, such as an email captured at conversion, from your tag to Google, hashed with SHA256 and matched to Google accounts that were signed in when people engaged with your ads. Google says it improves measurement accuracy and unlocks more powerful bidding.

The setting changed in 2026. Enhanced conversions for web and for leads were merged into a single on/off setting, and accounts that had already agreed to Google's customer data terms were migrated automatically. Check that it is on and the terms are accepted. Our enhanced conversions insight covers the rest.

Step 7: bring the CRM back into the account

In lead generation, whether a lead was real is decided later, in the CRM, where Google can't see it. Offline conversion import closes that loop: capture the Google click ID (GCLID) with the lead, then upload the outcome when the lead qualifies or closes. Google's requirements are auto-tagging on, the GCLID stored with each prospect, and a click-to-conversion time under 14 or 90 days depending on the data source.

For new setups, Google now recommends starting with enhanced conversions for leads, which it describes as an upgraded version of offline conversion import that adds hashed user data, so leads can still match when the click ID was lost. Uploads run through Data Manager, the API or integrations. Google's settings page says that from June 15, 2026, API uploads of offline conversions and enhanced conversions for leads moved from the Google Ads API to the Data Manager API. More in offline conversion import.

If you run HubSpot, you may not need a custom pipeline. HubSpot's ad conversion events can send a Google Ads conversion on a form submission or on a lifecycle stage change, using Google's enhanced conversions, as long as the contact has a GCLID or shared contact data. Only stage changes after you create the event count. Make "qualified" a stage, send that, and the campaign optimizes for qualified leads instead of form volume. See HubSpot lifecycle stages as ad conversions.

The same CRM data works in the other direction. Upload the leads your sales team rejected as a Customer Match list and exclude them, as in exclude rejected leads in Google Ads.

Step 8: Consent Mode v2

Consent mode passes your visitors' consent choices to Google's tags, which adjust their behavior. Alongside ad_storage and analytics_storage, the consent types include ad_user_data, for sending user data related to advertising to Google, and ad_personalization, for personalized advertising. Defaults must be set before any command that sends measurement data, or they won't work.

The choice between modes matters for bidding. In basic mode, tags don't load until the visitor interacts with the banner, and conversion modeling uses a general model. In advanced mode, tags load and send cookieless pings while consent is denied, which supports an advertiser-specific model. A conversion cliff after a consent rollout is usually a configuration problem, but Smart Bidding reacts to it like a real drop. Our Consent Mode v2 insight walks through the common breaks.

Step 9: prove the tags actually fire

Every setting above assumes the conversion fires once, for the right event. Check that first.

• Use the tracking status. In Goals, the conversions table shows a tracking status for each action. For Unverified, Tag inactive or Needs attention, Google lets you launch Tag Assistant from that row, trigger the conversion yourself, and see verified actions update in Google Ads after about 30 minutes. If you use Google Tag Manager, enable the container for debugging first.
• Make the thank-you page private. A page-load conversion fires for anyone who loads the page, including your own team. On one mentoring call, a Meta account reported 9 leads against 1 real lead, and the likeliest cause was the team reloading the thank-you page while testing. Use a URL nobody can reach except by submitting the form, keep it out of search, and on Google set leads to count One.
• Cut the hops. On another call, form submissions were routed from Typeform through Zapier into Google Ads. If 30 forms produce 20 conversions, you are debugging three vendors at once. A dedicated thank-you page on your own domain has fewer places to break.
• Watch for iframes. When a third-party form is embedded as an iframe, our experience is that the host page's tags often don't see the submission, so the tracking has to be placed where the form actually completes. See your form lives in an iframe.
• Read the symptoms. In one long-running company's account we took over, the website remarketing audience was only about 1,500 people. The cause was multiple Google Analytics properties and no remarketing signal reaching Google Ads. Tiny audiences are a tracking problem first. And check calls: ad calls and website calls are tracked separately.

What disrupts Smart Bidding, and what to do about it

Google's bid strategy status page lists four triggers for a Learning status: a new or reactivated strategy, a bid strategy setting change, a composition change, and some Shopping ad group target changes. Conversion goals are not on that list (see what triggers the learning period), but Google's conversion goal documentation goes further: it puts the standard Smart Bidding learning phase at 7 to 14 days and says frequent changes to budgets, targets or conversion goals reset that window. Its page on changing goals for Smart Bidding names adding or removing a goal, adding or removing actions in a goal, changing an action's optimization setting, changing its source or category, and changing value scales, and says bidding needs 1 to 2 conversion cycles in most cases to relearn.

So treat every step in this guide as a change with a cost. Batch them, set budgets first, change targets gradually afterwards, and leave the campaign alone long enough to judge. When tracking breaks rather than changes, say a tag drops off for three days, use data exclusions for the affected click dates. Google says they reduce the impact on Smart Bidding, apply to clicks rather than conversion dates, and are not meant to be used often.

Common questions

What conversion action should Smart Bidding optimize for?

The earliest action that still reliably means a real prospect, such as a qualified lead or a booked call, not a content download or a raw signup. Too far up the funnel and Google finds anyone able to convert; too far down and the signal arrives weeks late. Move deeper one stage at a time as volume allows.

What is the difference between primary and secondary conversion actions?

A primary action can be used for bidding when the campaign optimizes toward the goal that contains it. A secondary action is excluded from the Conversions column used for bidding but still appears in All conversions. Campaigns select goals, which group actions by category, not individual actions.

Should I use Maximize conversions or Maximize conversion value?

Maximize conversions aims to get as many conversions as possible; Maximize conversion value aims for the most total value. Use value bidding when several actions matter differently and carry real, different values. With one action at one flat value, or values you can't explain, Maximize conversions is the clearer instruction.

Should Google Ads count leads as One or Every?

Google calls One a good choice for leads, since it counts only one conversion per ad click, and Every a good choice for sales, where each purchase adds value. A person who submits the same lead form three times after one click is one lead, so counting Every would overstate results to the bidding.

Does changing conversion goals reset Smart Bidding learning?

Google's conversion goal documentation says frequent changes to budgets, targets or conversion goals reset the learning window, and that after changing goals or the actions in them, Smart Bidding needs 1 to 2 conversion cycles in most cases to relearn. Batch changes and give the campaign time before judging.