How to adjust your conversions

The value of a conversion can often change after a customer converts.

This article will walk you through the process of adjusting your Google Ads conversions, either to restate the value of the conversion or to retract it completely from your reports.

Before you begin

• To adjust your conversions, you should already be tracking your conversions with an order ID. The order ID is what allows you to uniquely identify your conversions. Learn how to use an order ID with your conversions.
• If a manager account is tracking your account's conversions, any conversion adjustments will have to be uploaded from the manager account.

Instructions

Follow the instructions below to prepare and import your conversion adjustment data.

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

Step 1: Prepare your data for import

1. Make sure that the data you enter in the file is accurate because you can't undo an adjustment after you've imported the file; you'll have to fix the incorrect adjustment value in the file and re-import it. Also, note that once you retract a conversion, it's removed completely from your reports. Any subsequent attempts to adjust the conversion will be ignored (without an error message). If you do retract an import conversion, you’ll need to “undo” it. If you remove a website conversion, it's not possible to add it back to your reports. Download the conversion adjustment template (download: Excel, CSV, or Google Sheets). Or, you can also download templates from Google Ads:
   1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
   2. Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
   3. Click Uploads.
   4. Click the plus button
   5. Click View templates.
   6. Find the templates for "Conversions adjustments," and select a template format to download.
2. Follow these guidelines for uploading spreadsheets:
   • Don't remove any of the columns in the spreadsheet, or your import will fail.
   • Make sure your data doesn't include additional columns or any personal information.

Note: If you try to adjust any conversions within one day of the ad click, Google Ads may not have recorded them yet, so no adjustment will be made. As a best practice, upload an extra day's worth of data with each import. Google Ads won't count duplicate adjustments. To determine whether an adjustment is unique, Google Ads uses the order ID, conversion name, and adjustment time associated with a conversion.

3. Use one of the following formats to enter the time zone:
   • Enter your time zone ID from this list. This method is recommended to avoid errors during daylight savings time transitions.
   • Enter your GMT offset by indicating + or - and then the 4 digit time difference. (For example, New York is offset by -0500, and Berlin by +0100). If you use Greenwich Mean Time, then simply enter +0000.
4. Next, add a new row for each conversion, filling in the columns as follows:
   • Order ID: a unique ID for the conversion. This should be the same ID recorded with your original conversion. Learn how to Use a transaction ID to minimize duplicate conversions.
     • Note: We recommend to use the order ID for adjustments, but if you’re unable to use an order ID you can alternatively use the Google Click ID (GCLID) that led to the offline conversion you previously uploaded and the conversion time. The GCLID should be the same timestamp as when the offline conversion was created. If the parameter provided with the conversions was GBRAID, you can use only the order ID.
   • Conversion Name: the name of the conversion action (for example, "room reservations" or "online sales") that you are using to track the conversion. It's important that you use the exact same spelling and capitalization that you did when you created this conversion action in your Google Ads account.
   • Adjustment Time: the date and time that the value of the conversion was adjusted or when you learned about the change to the conversion. See the table below for a list of acceptable date formats (for example, MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss). You can add a timezone to the conversion time by using one of the last 4 formats listed. Replace "+z" with the GMT offset by indicating + or - and then the 4 digit time difference. Or, replace "zzzz" with the time zone ID from this list. The adjustment time must have occurred after the conversion time.

Format	Examples
MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss aa	"08/14/2012 5:01:54 PM"
MMM dd,yyyy hh:mm:ss aa	"Aug 14, 2012 5:01:54 PM"
MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss	"08/14/2012 17:01:54"
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss	"2012-08-14 13:00:00"
yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss	"2012-08-14T13:00:00"
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss+z	"2012-08-14 13:00:00+0500"
yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss+z	"2012-08-14T13:00:00-0100"
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss zzzz	"2012-08-14 13:00:00 America/Los_Angeles"
yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss zzzz	"2012-08-14T13:00:00 America/Los_Angeles"

• Adjustment Type: a value that tells Google Ads whether you're adjusting the value of a conversion ("RESTATE") or withdrawing it completely ("RETRACT").
• Adjusted Value: a number representing the new value of the conversion.You don't have to enter an adjusted value for conversions you withdraw; their value is automatically subtracted from your account's total conversion value. If the adjustment value you enter brings down the value of conversion to 0, the conversion is automatically withdrawn from your reports.
• Adjusted Value Currency: the currency of your conversion adjustment. You'll use this if you report adjustment values in more than one currency, or have multiple accounts that are billed in different currencies. Use 3-character ISO 4217 currency codes, such as USD for United States dollars, and JPY for Japanese yen. If you don't specify a value, the currency will default to the currency you've selected for the conversion in Google Ads. If you submit an adjustment in a currency that's different from the currency of the original conversion, it will be converted using daily foreign exchange rates.

5. Save the changes to your file.

Step 2: Import your conversion adjustments

Once your conversion sheet is ready, you can upload it in the same way conversions are uploaded. Advertisers that need to update conversions programmatically should use the scheduled uploads feature. Learn more about importing conversions

About uploading multiple adjustments

It's possible that a conversion may need to be adjusted more than once. For example, when 2 or more items in an order are returned at different times. If you have more than one adjustment for a conversion in your spreadsheet, the adjustment with the earlier adjustment time will be processed first.

However, if a conversion is retracted or an adjustment drops the value of the conversion down to 0, the conversion will be removed from your reports and Google Ads won't process any subsequent adjustments to it.

Important: If a conversion is retracted or an adjustment drops the value of the conversion down to 0, the conversion will be removed from your reports and Google Ads won't process any subsequent adjustments to it. If you attempt to re-adjust a retracted conversion, you will not get an error even though the adjustments will be ignored. See the note below for how to account for those conversions if you need to undo this retraction.

Undo a conversion retraction

If you have retracted a conversion or restated the value to 0, as mentioned above, this specific action cannot be undone. A workaround is available if you are utilizing the “every conversion” setting and you would like to “unretract” offline conversion imports. You can still upload new conversions associated with the same ad click, so to “undo” a conversion retraction, you can reupload the same conversion data with slightly different time stamps (for example, add a few seconds to each one). This way Google Ads will view those conversions as “new” (since they occurred at a different time) and will add them to your conversion reports.

Related links

• Understand the impact of conversion adjustments
• About conversion adjustments
• Different ways to track conversions