A conversion action is a single, named action that you tell Google Ads to count as valuable, such as a completed purchase, a submitted enquiry form or a phone call lasting more than a minute. Each one has its own settings for how it is counted, what it is worth and whether bidding should chase it.
How a conversion action works
You create conversion actions under Goals in Google Ads. Each comes from a source:
- Website, measured by the Google tag or a tag in Google Tag Manager firing on a thank-you page or on an event such as a form submission.
- Phone calls, from call assets, a forwarding number on your site, or taps on a number on mobile.
- Imports, from Google Analytics 4 key events or from your CRM as offline conversions, such as a lead that became a paying customer.
- Apps, through Firebase or a third-party app analytics tool.
Every action then carries settings: a goal category (purchase, submit lead form, contact and so on), a value, a count setting of every or one, a click-through window that limits how long after a click a conversion can still be credited, view-through and engaged-view windows for video, and an attribution model. At the time of writing (October 2026), the attribution choice is between data-driven and last click.
The most important setting is whether the action is a primary or secondary action. Primary actions fill the Conversions column and are what Smart Bidding optimises towards. Secondary actions are recorded in All conversions for observation only.
Why it matters
Automated bidding is only as good as the actions you give it. If a newsletter signup and a quote request are both primary, Google treats them as equally good and will happily buy cheap signups. If a page view or a scroll is set as a conversion, the account will report a fine cost per conversion while the phone stays quiet.
For a UK service business, the gap between “form submitted” and “paying customer” is often large. Importing what happened next, even weekly from a spreadsheet, lets the account learn which searches bring buyers rather than browsers.
Common mistakes
- Leaving several duplicate actions active, such as a GA4 import and a Google tag both counting the same purchase, so every sale is counted twice.
- Marking micro-actions such as button clicks or video plays as primary.
- Using “every” counting for leads, so one person submitting a form three times looks like three enquiries.
- Never checking the status column, where actions marked “inactive” or “no recent conversions” quietly stopped recording weeks ago.
- Firing a tag on page load of a form page rather than on a successful submission.
How to act on it
Open Goals, then Summary, and list every action with its source, primary or secondary status, count setting and value. Ask of each one: if this number doubled, would the business be better off? Anything that fails that test becomes secondary.
Then test each primary action yourself. Submit a real enquiry, make a test call and, for a shop, place a low-value order, and check each appears within a day or so. My step-by-step guide to checking conversion tracking covers the tests. Finally, plan how to feed back qualified leads or sales from your CRM. If you would rather hand the whole audit over, it is the first thing I do in monthly PPC management.