What is a conversion action?

A conversion action is the setting in Google Ads that defines and measures one type of result, such as a purchase, a form or a phone call. For each conversion action you set the category, the value, the counting method and the conversion window. You also choose whether the action is primary or secondary.

Why is a conversion action important?

One definition: everyone on the team means the same thing when they talk about a result.
More focused bidding: Google uses your primary actions to guide your bid strategy.
Clean reporting: with the right counting method you avoid counting duplicate results.

Examples of conversion actions

Purchase: primary, with the value taken from the order and the counting method “every”.
Quote request: primary, with the counting method “one”, because a second request after the same click is not an extra lead.
Newsletter signup: secondary, so you can see it without optimizing for it.

How do you set up a conversion action?

Create one conversion action for each important result, choose a suitable category and counting method and set a realistic conversion window. Make only the results you really want to optimize for primary, and make sure the same action is not counted through two actions. Read more about the setup under Google Ads campaigns.

Conversion action