Updating your conversion goals

Conversion goals help you organize your conversion actions so that you can more easily optimize toward your advertising objectives. Learn more About conversion goals.

Conversion goals are also used for campaign optimization and bidding, which are two key tools in driving campaign performance. Since changes that you make to your conversion goals can meaningfully impact your campaigns, we’ve improved the conversion goal management experience in Google Ads to:

1. Provide more insight into the relationship between conversion goals and campaigns
2. Inform you about the potential impact of removing or recategorizing your conversion actions
3. Make it easier for you to manage your conversion goals and campaigns for the best possible performance

Best Practices

Below are basic conversion goals best practices to get the most out of campaign performance in Google Ads:

• Categorize your conversion actions: Whenever possible, your conversion actions should be grouped into standard conversion goals, such as “Purchase” or “Contact”, and these standard goals should be used for optimizing your campaigns. This alignment allows us to optimize your Ads experience and campaign performance to drive results. You should not categorize conversion actions under conversion goals that do not have semantic meaning, such as "Other" or "Page View", if a goal exists that matches the description of your conversion action.
• Include at least one primary conversion action: Each conversion goal should have at least one primary conversion action grouped within it. This ensures that campaigns using automated bidding can optimize towards actions that drive value to your business. Primary conversion actions will appear in the “Conversions” column in your reports.
• Add your goals to all relevant campaigns: In order for a campaign to optimize to a particular conversion goal, it needs to be included in that campaign’s goals. All conversion goals using the “account-default” setting will be automatically used in campaigns using the account-default setting. However, if you have campaigns using campaign-specific goals, or conversion goals not opted into the account-default setting, you will need to manually add goals from the campaign settings or via bulk edits, which are outlined in the instructions below.

Note: Changing your conversion goals can have an impact on your campaigns. For example, adding or removing a conversion action, changing your conversion goal settings, or changing your campaign goal settings can affect your campaign optimization and reporting.

Instructions

You can manage your conversion goals from the Conversion page.

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, and click Summary.
3. Standard goals and their grouped conversion actions are displayed automatically. These goals are created based on your conversion actions.

Edit your Conversion Goals

• Edit Goal: Enables you to select whether or not the goal is an account-default goal and which conversion actions are primary and secondary. As a best practice, each conversion goal should contain at least one primary conversion action.
• Hover over a Conversion action: Two options will appear next to the name of the conversion action:
  • Cog : Enables you to make general changes to the conversion action.
  • 3-dot icon : Enables you to move the conversion action to another goal or remove it.

Move your Conversion Action to a different Conversion Goal

If your conversion action is miscategorized, or is grouped under a conversion goal without semantic meaning, such as “Page View” or “Other”, you should move your conversion action to a more relevant conversion goal. As a best practice, your conversion actions should be grouped into standard conversion goals that have semantic meaning, such as “Purchase” or “Sign-up”, which helps to unlock bidding improvements and optimization opportunities.

Note: Moving a conversion action to a different conversion goal may affect your campaign optimization and performance. The new experience below introduces additional insights and guardrails to help you manage your goals and campaigns, and mitigate any unwanted impact.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Conversions drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Summary.
4. Hover over the conversion action you want to change.
5. Click on the 3-dot icon and select Change to another conversion goal.
6. In the drop-down menu that appears, click the conversion goal you want to change to.
7. In the slider panel that appears, review your changes:
   1. Where the conversion action is moving to
   2. How the move will impact the makeup of your conversion goals
   3. If and how the move will impact the conversion volume and value of your conversion goals
   4. If and how the move will affect your campaign goal settings
8. To review how these changes impact the goal settings and performance of your campaigns, click Review campaigns. We recommend that you do this and click download CSV to keep a record of impacted campaigns.
9. To accept the changes, click Save.

If one or more of your conversion goals is no longer following conversion goal best practices, we recommend taking action to fix the conversion goal following this change.

Remove your inactive conversion actions

If your conversion action is inactive, or is no longer meaningful to your business, you should remove it from your conversions table to avoid unnecessary clutter. Removed conversions will no longer appear in the conversions table by default, but they will be archived and you can re-enable them anytime.

Note: Removing a conversion action may affect your campaign optimization and performance. The new experience below introduces additional insights and guardrails to help you manage your goals and campaigns, and mitigate any unwanted impact.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Conversions drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Summary. You have two ways of removing a conversion action using the 3-dot icon or the check-box in front of the conversion action name:
   1. 3-dot icon
      1. Hover over the conversion action you want to change.
      2. Click on the 3-dot icon and select Remove conversion action.
      3. In the slider panel that appears, review your changes:
         • What conversion action is being removed
         • How the removal will impact the makeup of your conversion goal
         • If and how the removal will impact the conversion volume and value of your conversion goals
         • If and how the move will affect your campaign goal settings
      4. To review how these changes impact the goal settings and performance of your campaigns, click Review campaigns. We recommend that you do this and download the CSV of impacted campaigns.
      5. To accept the changes, click Save.
   2. CheckBox
      1. Click the box in front of the conversion action name.
      2. A blue option bar will appear on top of the table.
      3. Click Remove. We will archive or remove your conversion action. If one or more of your conversion goals is no longer following conversion goal best practices, we recommend taking action to fix the conversion goal following this change.

Bulk update your campaigns’ conversion goals

As a best practice, you should ensure that your campaigns are optimizing to all relevant conversion goals. Bulk editing allows you to edit multiple campaigns’ conversion goals at the same time, which is particularly helpful for campaigns using campaign-specific goals.

Note: Changing your campaigns’ conversion goals may impact your campaign optimization and reporting. We recommend carefully reviewing your changes before you apply them in bulk.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Campaigns.
4. Select the campaigns you’d like to update.
5. Click Edit in the blue selection bar.
6. In the pop-up menu that opens, select Update conversion goals. Chose the option you want to apply to your campaigns:
   • Change Goal settings: This enables you to change your campaign optimization settings to either:
     • Use account default goal settings where your campaigns will use all account-default goals
     • Use campaign specific goals where you’re able to choose desired goals
   • Add goals: This enables you to add additional conversion goals in campaigns that use campaign-specific goal settings.
   • Remove Goals: This allows you to remove goals in campaigns that use campaign-specific goal settings.
7. Click Preview to see the impact of your change.
8. Click Apply to implement the change.

Related links

• Using conversion goals to guide new campaigns
• Manage conversion goals from the conversions summary