Overview
A conversion is created from a Google Analytics key event and provides a consistent way of measuring important actions in both Google Analytics and Google Ads. A conversion helps you improve your marketing strategy by providing consistent conversion counts across platforms so you can understand and optimize your ad campaigns. Unlike key events, conversions are eligible for bidding and reporting in Google Ads. A Google Analytics conversion can also allow you to measure important actions that originate from organic channels like search, email, and social for cross-channel campaign measurement use cases.
The following flow shows how to create a conversion from a Google Analytics key event. In short, if an event is important to your business's success, you can mark the event as a key event in Analytics. Then, if the key event is important for optimizing ad campaigns and measuring their performance, create a conversion in Google Ads from the Analytics key event.
Event → Key Event → Conversion
Learn more about creating conversions.
- A linked Google Ads account is required to create a new Google Analytics conversion from a key event.
- You can create a conversion in Google Analytics which makes the conversion available in Google Ads.
Benefits of creating conversions
By creating Google Ads conversions based on the key events, you can:
- Report on the same conversion counts between Google Ads and Analytics
- Report on non-Google and organic channels, including channels that are part of the same cross-channel campaign
- Bid against the conversions in your ad campaigns
- Build audiences for re-marketing purposes
Create a conversion
Step 1 of 2: Identify or mark an event as a key event
- In Admin, under Data display, click Events.
Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must have at least Editor access at the property level to mark an event as a key event.
- In the "Key events" tab, choose an event that measures an important interaction by clicking the star icon next to the event name.
Step 2 of 2: Create a new conversion from the key event
Create conversions through Google Ads
- In your Google Ads account, click Goals, then select Summary under "Conversions".
- Click Create conversion action.
- Click Import, select Google Analytics 4 properties, then click Continue.
- Select the Google Analytics key event you want to import, then click Import and continue.
- Click Done.
Create conversions through Google Analytics
- In Advertising, under "Tools", select Conversion management.
Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must have at least Marketer access to import key events as conversions into Google Ads.
- Select the Google Ads account in the Showing conversions for dropdown where you want to create conversions.
- Click New conversion, then Next.
- Select the events or key events you want to create as conversions in Google Ads.
- Note: Events selected from the "Events" section will be marked as key events in Google Analytics.
- If prompted, select the Conversion category for your selected events and key events.
- Click Next to review your selected conversions, then Save.
Select channels that can receive credit for web conversions
In the Attribution settings in Google Analytics, you can choose from the following options under Channels that can receive credit, enabling you to determine which channels can receive credit for web conversions shared between Google Analytics and Google Ads:
- Google paid channels
- Paid and organic channels
Choosing the Google paid channels attribution setting lets you see conversions from Google Ads in your Google Analytics conversion reports. If you choose Paid and organic channels, you can report on conversions from both paid and organic sources in Google Analytics, providing a broader, cross-channel view of your conversions beyond Google Ads paid channels.
Changing this setting applies going forward and to all linked Google Ads accounts. It may impact the conversions you create in Google Ads for bidding and reporting. These changes may take a few days before they're reflected in your Google Ads campaigns and reports.
- Paid and organic channels only applies to web conversions; app conversions always use Google paid channels.
- When you select Google paid channels in the Attribution settings, the “Key event lookback window” setting will only affect Google Analytics key events and not Google Analytics conversions. If an option is selected, you must go to the Google Ads conversions summary page by navigating to Goals > Conversions > Summary through Click-through conversion window or Engaged-view conversion window to change the conversion window settings for Google Analytics conversions.
- When you select Paid and organic channels in the Attribution settings, the “Key event lookback window” setting will affect both Google Analytics key events and Google Analytics conversions.
Managing conversion settings
After you've created Google Ads conversions based on your key events, you can edit most of the conversion settings through the Google Ads and Google Analytics interface. This helps maintain consistency and reduces the risk of data discrepancies.
You can't edit the goal category and action optimization of your Google Ads conversions through the Google Analytics interface. These settings can only be updated in Google Ads. Conversion-related updates made through the Google Analytics interface will only appear in the "Change history" page of Google Ads.
Learn more about editing your conversion settings through the Google Ads and Google Analytics interface.
Report on conversions
The Conversion performance report in the Advertising section lets you select conversions shared with your Google Ads account and evaluate the performance of those conversions in Google Analytics. Learn more about the Conversion performance report