Google Ads conversion tracking not working: what should I check?

Short answer: work down a short list, from the tag firing, to the status of the conversion action, to consent, to duplicates. Most broken tracking turns out to be one of about six ordinary causes, and you can check each in a few minutes.

Here is a made-up case. A dentist's website shows zero conversions for ten days after a redesign. Clicks are fine, calls are coming in, and the account looks dead. The cause turned out to be a thank-you page with a new address that the tag rule no longer matched. It took five minutes to fix and ten days to notice.

Start with the basics and go in this order.

One, does the tag actually fire? Use Tag Assistant or your browser's network tab, complete a test conversion yourself, and look for the request going to Google. If nothing fires, the problem is on your site or in your tag manager, not in the ad account.

Two, what does the conversion action status say? In the conversions area, statuses such as no recent conversions, unverified, or inactive tell you a lot. A recently created action can take a while to show data, so do not panic after an hour.

Three, is auto-tagging on? Without it, Google cannot attach the click ID to the visit, and many conversions cannot be tied back to the ad. It is a single account setting and it is easy to find switched off.

Four, consent and blockers. If your visitors are in regions with consent rules, a banner that blocks the tag until someone agrees will hide the conversions of people who decline. Consent mode can let Google model some of the gap, but check the current documentation for how it behaves in your setup. Ad blockers and browser privacy features also stop tags from loading, which is why some teams move to server-side sending.

Five, duplicate conversion actions. If you have two actions counting the same form fill, one from an old tag and one from an import, your numbers double or fight each other. Check that only one is the source of truth for each event.

Six, primary versus secondary. Only primary actions count toward the Conversions column and feed bidding. A secondary action is observed but not used for optimisation. If you expected an action to influence bidding and it is set to secondary, that explains a lot.

A seventh, quieter cause: the counting setting. If you count every conversion when you meant one per click, leads look inflated. If you count one when you meant every, sales look low.

One honest caveat. Even with everything correct, the numbers in Google Ads and your CRM will not match exactly. Some conversions are modeled, some are delayed, and some clicks never reach your site. Aim for a gap you can explain rather than a perfect match.

What does your conversion action status say right now?