The Google Ads conversion tracking audit
A Google Ads conversion tracking audit that finds the miscounts.
We reconcile your Google Ads conversion actions against GA4, your tag setup and your own order or lead records, then explain every difference: counting settings, primary versus secondary, enhanced conversions, imported events double counting native tags. Every gap is logged with a severity and what it costs. The top 10 are fixed and validated, $900 flat in 5 business days.
5-day turnaround · top 10 issues fixed, not listed · 5+ gaps found or it's free
Why your numbers are low
Most accounts report 60 to 80 of every 100 real conversions.
The gap isn't one big break. It's four small leaks stacking up quietly, and the ad platforms optimize on whatever incomplete signal survives.
LEAK 01
Ad blockers & browsers
Client-side pixels blocked or throttled before they ever fire. Safari and Firefox cap cookies to days.
LEAK 02
iOS & signal loss
App Tracking Transparency and privacy features strip the identifiers Meta and Google match on.
LEAK 03
Consent banners
A misconfigured CMP or missing Consent Mode v2 silently drops every visitor who clicks reject.
LEAK 04
Broken tags
Duplicate purchases, dead triggers, stale dataLayer variables, redirects that strip UTMs. It accumulates.
What gets torn down
Four systems, one pass, every gap logged.
This is the stack the audit walks through, end to end, on any platform: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Webflow, WordPress or custom.
System 01 · GA4
Property & events
- Property, stream and data settings against current best practice
- Event and key-event design, counting method, dedupe
- Ecommerce and funnel tracking accuracy, item-level data
- Attribution settings, channel grouping, unwanted referrals
System 02 · Google Tag Manager
Container health
- Every tag, trigger and variable mapped and tested live
- Duplicate and dead weight removed, naming rationalized
- dataLayer integrity across templates and checkout
- Cross-domain, iframe and SPA tracking behavior
System 03 · Ad platform signals
Google Ads & Meta
- Conversion actions vs GA4 vs backend truth, side by side
- Meta pixel + Conversions API dedupe and event match quality
- Enhanced conversions and offline import readiness
- Server-side tagging setup reviewed, or scoped if absent
System 04 · Consent & compliance
Consent Mode v2 & CMP
- Consent Mode v2 signals actually reaching Google tags
- CMP behavior on accept, reject and no-choice states
- What data is recoverable through modeled conversions
- Region handling and obvious compliance red flags
In depth
Where Google Ads conversion tracking goes wrong
Google Ads reports a number whether the setup underneath it is sound or not. Four settings account for most of the distance between that number and the business you actually wrote.
01
Every versus one counting
Each conversion action counts either every conversion after a click or only one. Every is correct for repeat purchases and wrong for lead forms, where a refresh, a back button or a second submission from the same click all register as new conversions, and Smart Bidding then chases the inflation.
02
Primary versus secondary actions
Only the actions treated as primary for a campaign feed the Conversions column and the bidding algorithm; secondary actions are recorded for observation and do not influence spend. A key action left secondary is invisible to bidding, and a cheap action promoted to primary quietly pulls budget toward the wrong outcome.
03
Imported events plus native tags
When a GA4 key event is imported into Google Ads and a native conversion tag also fires for the same action, you have two conversion actions measuring one event. If both are primary for the campaign, both add into the Conversions column and the account reports close to double. The two also disagree by design, because the import carries GA4 attribution while the tag carries Google Ads attribution, so the fix is one source per action rather than an adjustment in the report.
04
Enhanced conversions, web and leads
Enhanced conversions for web sends hashed first-party data alongside the conversion so Google can match conversions that lost their cookie; enhanced conversions for leads sends hashed identifiers with the lead so the sale can be matched when it is imported later. Both fail quietly when the user-provided data is empty on the confirmation page, hashed a second time, or captured after the tag has already fired.
What you get
Most audits hand you homework. This one ships fixes.
- The Missing Conversions Report. Every gap found, severity, what it's costing you, and the exact fix.
- Top 10 issues fixed and validated in a GTM workspace during the audit, published only with your approval.
- Before / after proof so you can see reported numbers move against reality.
- A recorded walkthrough of the report in plain language, made for the person who owns the budget.
- A prioritized backlog for whatever falls outside the top 10, sized so any dev or ourselves can take it on.
- Two weeks of follow-up questions included after delivery.
Sample report rows
MC-AUDIT · p.4/18
- HIGHPurchase event fires twice on order-confirmation refreshinflates ROAS, corrupts bid optimizationFIXED
- HIGHMeta CAPI events sent without user parameters, EMQ 4.1 of 10weak matching, undercounted paid socialFIXED
- HIGHConsent Mode v2 not passing ad_user_data or ad_personalizationno modeled recovery for rejected visitorsFIXED
- MEDLead key event set to count every submission, not once per userduplicate form fires inflate lead countsFIXED
- MEDEmail links routed through a redirect that strips UTM parametersrevenue misattributed to direct / noneFIX PLAN
How it runs
Booked to delivered in five business days.
Day 0
Access
You get a 10-minute checklist: viewer access to GA4 and Ads, read access to GTM and Events Manager.
Days 1 to 3
Teardown
Full pass across the four systems. Every finding logged with severity and cost.
Days 4 to 5
Fixes
Top 10 issues repaired in a GTM workspace, tested and validated. Nothing publishes without your sign-off.
Day 5
Report
The Missing Conversions Report, before/after proof and the recorded walkthrough land in your inbox.
Pricing
One price. No retainer required.
$900
flat · once
- Full four-system teardown, any platform
- Top 10 issues fixed and validated, not just listed
- The Missing Conversions Report + recorded walkthrough
- Prioritized backlog and two weeks of follow-up
- Fee credited in full toward any follow-on project.
The guarantee
Fewer than 5 fixable gaps found? The audit is free.
If your tracking is genuinely clean, you don't pay, and you keep the report as proof your numbers hold. If it isn't, you'll know exactly what it's costing you and the worst of it will already be fixed.
Fit
Built for accounts where the numbers steer real money.
Right fit
- You're spending on Google or Meta and decisions ride on reported conversions
- Ecommerce or lead gen with meaningful traffic
- Platform numbers, GA4 and your backend all disagree
- Agencies welcome: white-label audits for your clients, your brand on the report
Not yet
- Pre-launch, or too little traffic for the data to matter yet
- You need a site or app built first
- You want someone to run the ads themselves. We fix what the ads learn from
Who does the work
"The person auditing your setup is the person who has spent ten years building them. No juniors, no handoffs."
Missing Conversions is run by Syed Anns, after a decade of GA4, Google Tag Manager and Conversions API implementations for businesses and the agencies that serve them. This audit is that decade, productized: a fixed scope, a fixed price and a report you can act on the same day.
Syed Anns · founder, missingconversions.com
Questions
Asked before booking.
Why do Google Ads and GA4 report different conversion numbers?
By design, on two counts. Google Ads credits a conversion to the date of the ad click and counts what it can tie to an ad interaction inside the window you set, whether that tie comes from a click identifier, from enhanced conversions matching on hashed first-party data, from a view-through impression, or from modeling. GA4 credits the conversion to when it happened and attributes across every channel. Some of your gap is therefore expected and correct. The audit reports the expected portion and the fault portion as two separate figures, so you know which one to act on.
How do I tell whether my Google Ads conversions are double counted?
Compare the Conversions column against the order or lead count in your own system for the same window. Then check whether the same action exists both as an imported GA4 key event and as a native Google Ads conversion action, and whether both are primary for the campaigns in question. Every primary action adds into the same total, so two actions measuring one event are summed, not deduplicated. A conversion count sitting near a whole multiple of your real count is the usual signal.
Do you check offline conversion import and enhanced conversions for leads?
Yes, as a readiness review. We check whether the click identifier is captured and stored against the lead record, whether your CRM can return it with a status, a value and a timestamp, whether hashed identifiers are collected in the format Google expects, and whether your sales cycle fits inside the window Google allows for importing against a click. If offline import is not in place yet, the report scopes what building it would take instead of assuming it is there.
What access do you need, and how long does granting it take?
Viewer or Analyst on GA4, read access to the GTM container, and read-only on Google Ads and Meta Events Manager. You get an exact checklist after booking; most teams grant everything in about 10 minutes. Publish access to GTM is only needed if you want us to deploy the fixes, and you can keep that gated behind your own approval.
Will anything break while you work?
No. All fixes are built in a separate GTM workspace, tested against live behavior, and validated before publishing. Nothing goes live without your explicit sign-off, and every change is documented so it can be rolled back in minutes.
Which platforms and stacks do you cover?
Any site running GA4 and Google Tag Manager: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Webflow, WordPress and custom builds, for both ecommerce and lead generation. Server-side GTM and Meta Conversions API setups are part of the review, and if you don't have them yet the report scopes exactly what they would recover.
What if my tracking turns out to be fine?
Then the guarantee applies: fewer than five fixable gaps and the audit costs nothing. You keep the report either way, which is useful proof for your team, your agency or your investors that the numbers hold.
I run an agency. Can you do this for our clients?
Yes, and quietly. White-label audits with your brand on the report and our delivery underneath, at partner pricing for volume. Mention it on the call and we'll walk through how the handoff works.
What happens after the five days?
The report ends with a prioritized backlog. Take it to your own developers, have us quote it as a fixed project with your $900 credited in full, or put the account on a monthly maintenance plan so tracking stays verified release after release. No obligation on any path.
Next step
15 minutes. You'll leave knowing if there's money in the gap.
A short call to look at your setup from the outside, confirm the audit fits, and book your slot. If it's not a fit, you'll hear that in the first five minutes.
A 15 minute call
- We look at your setup from the outside and say what we can already see.
- You get a straight answer on whether the audit is worth it for your account.
- If it fits, we book the slot and send the access checklist.
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Prefer email? hello@missingconversions.com