Starting on October 3, 2022, if you newly import one or more conversion actions from a Google Analytics 4 property and Google Ads detects that you already have a Universal Analytics conversion action in your account, Google Analytics 4 conversion actions will be set to “secondary” by default.
If you want to use these Google Analytics 4 conversion actions for bidding, switch them from “secondary” to “primary”. To avoid duplicate conversions, you need to either remove the Universal Analytics conversion action or change the Universal Analytics conversion action from “primary” to “secondary”.
When it comes to analyzing customer activity on your website, you can import your Google Analytics conversions into Google Ads and use Google Ads conversion tracking to measure the conversions. You can use any combination of all three at the same time. Expand the section below for a quick comparison.
Universal Analytics conversions
- Can measure the entire flow of customers through your site (in addition to conversions).
- Can include conversions from non-Google Ads sources, so it's good for tracking all customer traffic on your website.
Google Analytics 4 properties conversion tracking
- Ideal if you're interested in measurement and conversions across your app or website. Learn more about Google Analytics 4 properties.
- Can include conversions from non-Google Ads sources, so it's good for tracking all customer traffic on your website.
Google Ads conversion tracking
- Ideal if you're interested only in conversions.
- Measure conversions only from Google Ads sources.
Benefits
Importing your Google Analytics conversions into Google Ads offers a few benefits:
- Access your Google Analytics conversions and data related to your Google Ads clicks.
- See Google Analytics conversion data in Google Ads.
- Give Smart Bidding access to data that helps optimize bids, potentially increasing conversions and lowering costs.
Before you begin
To start importing data, you'll need to link your Google Ads account to a Google Analytics account and turn on auto-tagging in your Google Ads account.
Instructions
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click the tools icon
in the upper right corner of your account.
- Click Conversions (it may be under "Measurement").
- Click the plus button
.
- Select Import and then click Google Analytics (UA) (for Universal Analytics properties) or Google Analytics (GA4) (for Google Analytics 4 properties).
- Click Continue.
- On the next page, select the features that you’d like to import, then click Import and continue.
- Click Done.
Google Ads will begin importing the data from your Analytics property. Historical data from before the import won't be included.
Keep in mind
It can take up to 24 hours before conversion data is available in Google Ads. Once it is, your imported conversions data will appear alongside your existing conversion data on the Conversions page, and you'll be able to customize columns on the Campaigns tab to include this data. Reports based on your imported conversions data may include modeled conversions as estimates in cases where Google can’t observe all conversions. These are based on aggregated and anonymized data.
Once Analytics data (for example, goals) has been imported to Google Ads, it is subject to the Google Ads terms of service.
Edit conversion settings for imported conversions
Once you've imported your Analytics conversions, you can edit them in the same way that you edit conversion actions created in Google Ads.
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click the tools icon
- Click Conversions (it may be under "Measurement").
- Click the name of the imported conversion that you want to edit.
- In the bottom right corner, click Edit Settings.
- Make any changes and click the Save button.
Data discrepancies
You might see discrepancies in the conversion statistics between Google Analytics and Google Ads conversion tracking. If you've double-checked that your setup is correct, here are some possible reasons for why you might see this:
Date of transactionGoogle Ads reports conversions from the date and time of the click that led to the successful action, not from the date of the successful action itself.
For example, let's say someone saw your ad and clicked it on July 19, but did not make a purchase on your site until the next day, July 20. In Google Ads, the conversion would be attributed to July 19, the day of the click. In Google Analytics, however, the conversion is attributed to July 20, the day the conversion actually occurred.
In Google Ads, you can choose to count either all or unique conversions by setting the counting method for each conversion action (including Analytics goals and transactions imported into Google Ads). The "Conversions" column in Google Ads will display conversions that happened within your chosen conversion window, according to your selected counting method. Universal Analytics properties, however, count all goals and transactions, which can cause discrepancies.
Example
In your Universal Analytics property, you've defined a goal for filling out a lead form. Someone fills out 2 lead forms (in different sessions) after an ad click, and Analytics shows them as 2 goal completions. You import this goal in Google Ads and set your counting method to "Unique," so you only see 1 conversion.
Keep in mind that transaction IDs from Analytics will be imported as order IDs in Google Ads. Overlapping conversions will be automatically de-duplicated in your Google Ads account. Learn more
Transactions in Analytics with the same ID are only de-duplicated if they occur within the same session. Learn more
If the same transaction ID relates to multiple sessions, Analytics counts one transaction per session. When imported into Google Ads, only one transaction is counted per transaction ID. As a result, you may see less conversions (transactions) on Google Ads than on your Google Analytics reports.
Having trouble?
If you need more help with Google Analytics in Google Ads, contact us.