About primary and secondary conversion actions

In Google Ads, actions that you want your customers to take, or conversion actions, are grouped together into conversion goals. For example, the “Purchase” conversion goal contains all your conversion actions in which customers make a purchase.

For your goal, you want to select which conversion actions should be used for bidding optimization and included in your reporting. Those key actions are called “primary conversion actions”. Possible conversion actions that are not directly used for campaign optimization are called “secondary”. Most conversion actions can be set to either primary or secondary, but some conversion actions aren't able to be set as primary or secondary. For example, store sales direct conversion actions can't be set as primary, and store visits can't be set to secondary.

When you set up conversion tracking, you will be selecting primary and secondary conversion actions that support a defined goal:

• Primary actions: These are conversion actions that are reported in the “Conversions” column in your reports and used for bidding as long as the standard goal they are part of is used for bidding.
• Secondary actions: These conversion actions are for observation only. They are used for reporting in the “All conversions” column in your reports, but not for bidding, even if the goal they are included in is used for bidding. The one exception is if the secondary action is part of a custom goal, in which case it’s used for bidding. However, note that store sales direct conversion actions can’t be used for bidding, even if used in a custom goal.

This article defines primary and secondary conversion actions and how to use them.

Example

You may have a standard goal called “purchases” that's applied by default to campaigns in your account. Within your “purchases” goal you may have two conversion actions: a “subscription” conversion action that you’ve marked as primary and a “one-time purchase” conversion action that you’ve marked as secondary. The primary action will be reported in the “Conversions” column and used for bidding in all campaigns that use your “purchases” goal whereas the secondary action will be used for observation only.

If you decide to create a custom goal and add your “one-time purchase” conversion action to it, then the “one-time purchase” action will automatically be used for reporting and bidding in any campaign that uses your custom goal, even though it's marked as secondary.

Note: Conversion actions included in a custom goal are used for reporting and bidding regardless of whether they’re set as “primary” or “secondary” actions. There can be exceptions to this such as the store sales direct conversion action, which can’t be used for bidding, even if used in a custom goal.

How to update the primary and secondary setting for a conversion action

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.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Summary.
4. Find the goal that includes the conversion action you’d like to edit.
5. Click Edit settings.
6. In the "Conversion goal and action optimization" section, select either Primary or Secondary.
7. Click Save.

Set up app conversion tracking using Web to App Connect. Once you’ve used the Web to App Connect interface in Google Ads to set up conversion tracking and deep linking, you can provide a seamless web-to-app experience for your customers and drive on average 2 times higher conversion rates for ad clicks landing in your app compared to your mobile website.

This improved experience allows your customers to more easily complete their intended action, whether purchasing, signing up, or adding items to their cart. Plus, from within the Web to App Connect interface, you can track these in-app conversion actions and get recommendations on how to improve your campaign.

To get started with Web to App Connect, follow the 3 steps below:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Planning drop down in the section menu.
3. Click App advertising hub. This will take you to the Web to App Connect interface.

Learn more about converting better with the Web to App Connect interface.