What the conversions column counts
A conversion is not an event that happened in your business. It is an event a platform was told to watch for, saw, and decided to credit to an ad. Something on your site fires a signal — a tag in the browser, a pixel, or a server-to-server call such as a conversions API — the platform matches that signal to a click or a view within a defined window, and adds one to the column.
Every part of that chain is a choice you made. Which actions count, whether a repeat action from the same person counts again, how long the window stays open, and which platform gets the credit are all settings. Two accounts advertising the same business can report very different conversion counts and both be working exactly as configured.
Why conversions matter
They are the input automated bidding learns from. When you hand a campaign a target cost per acquisition or ask it to maximise conversions, the machine optimises towards whatever you decided to count. Count newsletter sign-ups and page views alongside real enquiries and the system will faithfully buy you more of the cheap ones, because it has no way of knowing which are worth money.
They are also the bridge between the ad account and the business. Cost is real and conversions are the claim about what the cost bought, so the credibility of the whole report rests on whether that claim is honest.
Common mistakes with conversions
The biggest is counting everything. An account with a long list of active conversion actions is usually an account whose bidding has been aimed at the wrong thing. Mark the actions that represent real business value as primary and leave the rest as secondary so they are reported but not optimised towards.
Double counting is the next. The same purchase can be recorded by a tag and by a server event, or by both Google Ads and analytics, and appear twice. Then there is the assumption that the number is a count of real people: platforms fill gaps left by consent choices and browser restrictions with modelled conversions, which are estimates, not receipts. Finally, adding conversion totals from two platforms together always overstates, because each claims the same sale.
What to do about it
Start by writing down what a conversion means for this business — a booked enquiry, a paid order, a qualified call — and make the tracking match that, not the other way round. Sound conversion tracking setup is what makes every later decision defensible.
Then check the count against reality. Compare a period’s conversions with the enquiries in your inbox or the orders in your system. If the platform reports far more than you can find, something is counting twice or counting the wrong action. If it reports far fewer, tracking is broken or a consent or attribution gap is swallowing them. Either way, fix the count before you change a single bid.