If you want your PPC campaigns to succeed, there’s one non-negotiable ingredient: solid conversion tracking.

Conversion tracking informs your reporting, fuels the bidding algorithm, and gives you critical transparency into which campaigns are driving real results.

But in today’s privacy-focused web, getting conversion tracking right can feel daunting. Between consent requirements and modeled data, marketers often wonder which approach is best.

Let’s break down your options—and how you can choose the right tracking setup to maximize ROI and avoid wasted spend.

Native Conversion Tracking vs. Analytics Conversion Tracking

The first step is deciding whether you’ll use native conversion tracking—like Google Ads’ built-in website or phone conversion setup—or rely on an analytics platform such as GA4.

Your choice here will affect how data is credited and how results are presented.

• Native conversion tracking often captures more actions attributed to your ads, which can look great in your reports but may differ from what your SEO or content teams see in analytics.
• If you need consistent reporting across channels, consider importing GA4 conversion events into Google Ads to unify your data.

Whatever you choose, always test and verify your conversions to ensure they’re tracking accurately.

And don’t forget:

• You can track every visitor action or just unique conversions per user.
• In GA4, make sure you only toggle the events you truly want to count as conversions.
• If you prefer native tracking, the setup tends to be simpler—but plan to upload offline conversions periodically to enrich your data and train your bidding models.

Understanding Primary vs. Secondary Conversions

Once you have your tracking method, it’s time to define your primary and secondary conversion actions.

These labels help Google understand:

• What to optimize for in your bidding strategies.
• What to display in your conversion reports.

Not everything should be marked as primary. Take time to audit your conversion actions and categorize them carefully.

• Primary conversions: Your main goals (purchases, qualified leads, bookings).
• Secondary conversions: Supporting actions (newsletter sign-ups, downloads, smaller engagements).

Even secondary conversions can have a conversion value, which helps inform value-based bidding and guides your optimization decisions.

If you ever want a full picture, you can always see all conversions—both primary and secondary—in your reporting dashboard.

Leveraging Enhanced Conversions and Customer Lists

Historically, Customer Match was a challenge for many advertisers, especially if you couldn’t meet the 1,000-contact minimum required to target lists.

Now, you can automatically create audience lists based on your conversion data—making it easier to:

• Re-engage past converters.
• Feed high-quality audience signals into Performance Max campaigns.
• Support value-based bidding with richer data.

This update is especially impactful for PMax campaigns, which rely heavily on strong audience signals early on. When paired with clear conversion values, this strategy can drive more profitable results, faster.

If you’re looking to elevate your PPC strategy with accurate conversion tracking and smarter bidding, the team at SEO Guru NYC is here to help. As experienced PPC consultants in New York, they specialize in creating data-driven campaigns that maximize ROI and eliminate wasted spend. Contact today to discover how better tracking can transform your Google Ads performance and grow your business with confidence.