To check whether your Google Ads conversion tracking works, open Goals → Conversions → Summary, read the Tracking status of every primary action, and fire a real test conversion through Tag Assistant from that same page. A green "Active" status only tells you the tag fires. It doesn't tell you whether the right action counts, whether a sale is counted twice, or whether the value is there. The checklist below covers those questions in order, from the quick checks to the slower ones. Adstudio reads your conversion actions and per-action conversions straight from the account, so you can repeat the audit by asking for it.
TL;DR
- Since July 2026 Google Ads uses five tracking statuses: Active, Needs attention, Misconfigured, Awaiting conversions and Removed. "Misconfigured" means recording has stopped.
- Test with Tag Assistant launched from the status itself. Verified actions update in your account after about 30 minutes.
- The most common silent error is double counting: the Google Ads tag and an imported GA4 key event both set to primary for the same purchase.
- Check each primary action's count setting (Every for sales, One for leads), its value, and its conversion window.
- Auto-tagging, enhanced conversions diagnostics and consent mode explain most "tracking works but numbers look low" cases.
Google renamed the statuses in the Tracking status column in mid-2026. Search Engine Roundtable reported the change on July 13, 2026: "Inactive", "No recent conversions" and "Other" were replaced. Older guides still use the old labels, so here is what each current status means, per Google's conversion tracking status troubleshooter:
| Status | What Google means | Your first move |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Tracking works as intended. | Still run the checks below. Active means "firing", not "correct". |
| Needs attention | Something needs fixing, but recording hasn't fully stopped. | Hover over the status and read the next steps. |
| Misconfigured | Recording has stopped because of a setup error or a broken tag. | Treat it as urgent: bidding is working without this signal. |
| Awaiting conversions | No conversions in the last 7 days. | Check whether the action is under 48 hours old, campaigns are paused, or traffic is too low. |
| Removed | The action was deleted or archived. | Confirm no live goal still expects it. |
One practical opinion: "Awaiting conversions" on your main purchase or lead action is never fine on an account that is spending. If ads are running and people are buying, a week without a recorded conversion means the tag is missing on the thank-you page, the page changed, or the conversion is happening somewhere the tag isn't (a third-party checkout, a booking widget, a phone call).
Don't test by loading the thank-you page directly. Run the same path a customer would. Google's Tag Assistant guide for conversion actions describes the flow:
Results show in Tag Assistant straight away. Verified actions update in your Google Ads account after about 30 minutes, and once real conversions arrive the status moves on.
While Tag Assistant is open, look at what fired, not just whether something fired. Tag Assistant shows the hits sent, data layer updates and errors on each page. On a purchase, confirm the conversion hit carries a transaction value, a currency and a transaction ID. A missing value is the usual reason a campaign reports conversions but zero ROAS.
This is the error a status column never shows, because both actions are healthy. The usual pattern: a Google Ads purchase tag fires on the order confirmation page, and a GA4 purchase key event was imported into Google Ads, and both are set to primary. Every sale now counts twice in the Conversions column. CPA looks half as high as it really is, ROAS looks twice as high, and Smart Bidding optimizes toward the inflated number.
How to find it:
Which one should stay primary is a judgment call. Our view: keep the action that fires closest to the real transaction and passes the order value. Use the other one for comparison. Watch the defaults when you import, too. Google's GA4 import notes explain that imported GA4 conversions can default to primary or secondary depending on the account's history, and that the import starts on the day you click Import, with no backfill.
Open each primary action and check three settings. Each one changes your numbers without any error message.
Count. Google recommends "Every" for sales, because every sale adds value, and "One" for leads, because a second form from the same click rarely does. A lead action set to "Every" quietly inflates lead counts when people submit twice. Changes apply only to future conversions.
Value. A purchase should pass the transaction value. A lead can use a fixed value that reflects what a lead is worth to you on average. "Don't use a value" on a primary action in a sales campaign is a red flag. Our guide on zero ROAS in Google Ads walks through the fix.
Conversion window. Per Google's conversion window page, the click-through window defaults to 30 days and can be set from 1 to 90 days, and the view-through window defaults to 1 day. Match the window to how long your buyers really take. If two actions measure the same thing with different windows, their totals won't agree, and that's expected. View-through counting also changes over time: in October 2026 Google changed what counts as a view for Demand Gen on Display, which we covered in why Demand Gen view-through conversions went up.
Auto-tagging adds a gclid parameter to the URLs people click. Google Ads uses it to tie a conversion back to the click, and GA4 uses it to attribute the session to the right campaign. Google's auto-tagging page says it is on by default for new accounts, and the setting lives under Admin → Account settings → Auto-tagging.
Two checks:
gclid survive? Click one of your ads and look at the URL that finally loads. If the page errors, or if a redirect, consent banner or URL rewrite strips the parameter, conversions can lose their click. Google's sitewide tagging troubleshooter also says to confirm auto-tagging and to remove legacy or duplicate conversion tags from conversion pages.If you turned on enhanced conversions, don't assume it's working. Read its diagnostics. The enhanced conversions tag diagnostics report sits under Goals → Summary → Diagnostics, or under the Diagnostics tab of a single conversion action. It gives one overall status:
"No recent data" on an account that has enhanced conversions switched on usually means the user-provided data (email, phone) is not being picked up on the conversion page. Fix that before you judge the feature.
Two causes come up in most audits once the tag itself checks out.
Consent. When people decline cookies, Google tags behave differently. Google's consent mode modeling page explains that modeled conversions for those journeys show up in the Conversions column once the account meets Google's quality thresholds. They appear gradually and are not guaranteed. If your site has a consent banner but no consent mode, that recovery never starts.
Comparing against the wrong source. Google Ads, GA4 and your shop backend count with different attribution rules, windows and timestamps. A gap between them is normal. A gap that suddenly widens is a signal. Our breakdown of why Meta Ads and GA4 numbers don't match covers the same mechanics for Meta. The method there carries over: compare trends, not single days.
gclid survives to the landing page.Do it after every site release, checkout change or tag manager publish. Those are the moments tracking breaks.
Adstudio connects your Google Ads, Meta Ads and TikTok Ads accounts and puts spend, conversions, conversion value and ROAS per campaign side by side. Its AI assistant for Google Ads works on your live account data, so several checks above become one question each:
The same works for Meta through the AI assistant for Meta Ads. To keep the cross-platform view open all the time, see how to see Google, Meta and TikTok spend in one report. You can connect an account on the free plan; paid plans are on the pricing page.
How do I know if my Google Ads conversion tag is firing? Check the Tracking status in Goals → Conversions → Summary, then run Tag Assistant from that status (Troubleshoot) and complete a real conversion on your site. Verified actions update in Google Ads after about 30 minutes.
What does "Misconfigured" mean in Google Ads conversions? It is one of the statuses Google introduced in 2026. It means conversion recording has stopped because of a setup error or a broken tag. Hover over the status to see Google's suggested steps to restore measurement.
Why does my conversion action say "Awaiting conversions"? No conversions were recorded in the last 7 days. Google lists three likely causes: the action is less than 48 hours old, your campaigns are paused, or traffic is too low to produce a conversion. If none of those apply, test the tag.
Should I use the Google Ads tag or GA4 imported conversions? Pick one as primary for each real-world event and set the other to secondary. Having both as primary counts every conversion twice. Our recommendation: keep the action that fires closest to the transaction and passes the order value as primary.
How long does Google Ads take to show a test conversion? Tag Assistant shows your test immediately. The conversion action's status in Google Ads updates after about 30 minutes. Normal conversion reporting can take longer, especially for conversions that happen days after the click.
Can I check conversion tracking for Google, Meta and TikTok in one place? Yes. Adstudio shows conversions, conversion value and ROAS per campaign for Google Ads, Meta Ads and TikTok Ads in one workspace, and its assistant can list your Google conversion actions and audit the setup on request.
Platform behaviour described as of October 2026, per the linked Google Ads, Tag Assistant and GA4 documentation.