What imported conversions are
A Google Ads account can create conversion actions in two ways. It can measure them itself, using its own tag on your website, or it can import them from a linked source — most often Google Analytics 4, sometimes a mobile app measurement tool or another connected platform. Imported conversions are the second kind.
The import is a copy, not a live view. Google Analytics records the event using its own rules about sessions, channels and attribution, and Google Ads then pulls in the ones you have chosen. That means the same customer action can be counted in two systems that never entirely agree with each other, because they were built to answer different questions.
Why imported conversions matter
They are the quickest way to get meaningful conversion data into a Google Ads account that has none. If the site already has ecommerce or key events configured properly in Analytics, importing them takes minutes and requires no new code on the site. For a small business without a developer to hand, that is a genuine advantage.
They also carry a richer definition of the action. Analytics can count a purchase with its value, its items and its currency, or a lead only when a particular condition is met, using logic that would be tedious to rebuild in tags. Where the definition of a conversion is complicated, importing it is often cleaner than reproducing it twice.
Where imported conversions go wrong
Double counting is the big one, and it is easy to walk into. An account that already has its own conversion tag for enquiries, and then imports the equivalent Analytics event, ends up with both counting the same submission. If both are set as primary conversions, bidding sees inflated results and cost per conversion looks far better than reality.
The second issue is attribution. Analytics decides which channel earned a conversion using its own model, and it credits channels Google Ads does not report on at all. Imported figures will therefore not tie exactly to native ones, and chasing a perfect reconciliation between the two wastes days. The third is dependency: if Analytics tracking breaks, or the property link is removed, the imported conversions simply stop, often without anyone noticing until spend has drifted.
What to do about it
Choose one source per action and stick to it. Decide whether enquiries are measured natively or imported, mark only that one as primary, and set the duplicate to secondary so it still appears in reports without influencing bidding. Keeping a written list of which conversion action comes from where prevents the next person from importing it again.
Where the action drives money — purchases with values, or leads you will later score — prefer the source with the cleanest definition and the least fragile setup, and check the numbers after the change rather than before. A tidy GA4 setup makes imports trustworthy; a messy one exports its mess straight into your bidding. If you are unsure what is currently counted twice, list every conversion action in the account and mark its origin before changing anything.