My lead count doesn't match my conversion count

The lead count from Google in your CRM almost never matches the number of conversions in your ad account. Trying to reconcile the difference is a shortcut to madness.

Here's why.

Caveat: I'm ignoring some technicalities and edge cases to avoid getting bogged down. If you want to get completely geeky about conversion tracking please say Hi.

Timing and attribution

Assume you owned a kitchen remodelling business.

• On the 1st of the month someone watches a YouTube video about kitchen ideas. They see your ad and don't click the skip button.
• On the 8th they're reading a blog about kitchen design trends. Your ad is on that page.
• On the 22nd they're ready to start getting prices so they search for "kitchen contractor near me". They click your ad and fill in your form.

Your CRM system records that lead on the 22nd. But Google’s maths is different.

Google shares credit for the conversion with the ads that the person saw on their way to contacting you:

• The YouTube video ad on the 1st might get 0.1 of the conversion.
• The display ad on the blog on the 8th might get 0.3 of the conversion.
• The search ad on the 22nd might get 0.6 of the conversion.

These are example numbers. Google uses advanced witchcraft to work out how much credit each ad gets. The formula changes as your account gets more data. Trying to reverse-engineer it is a waste of time.

The credit sharing happens when the conversion happens: on the 22nd when the lead filled in the form.

But it's more complicated.

Google assigns the date of conversion to the date the ad was seen or clicked, not the date the form was filled in:

• The YouTube video ad conversion happened on the 1st.
• The display ad conversion was on the 8th.
• And the search ad would show the conversion on the 22nd.

If you looked at the data from, say, the 1st to the 14th, you'd see the conversions credited to the YouTube and display ads, but not the search ad. If you looked at the 22nd only, you wouldn't see the conversions credited to ads earlier on.

That makes trying to count leads and match them with conversions in the same period close to impossible.

Sorry, it gets worse...

Missing conversion tracking data

Google has no way of knowing what happens after someone clicks your ad. You have to tell Google if that person became a lead.

To make this possible you need a way of linking the click on your ad to what happens next. The most common (and useful) way to do this is through the Google click ID or gclid. Google adds it to the link from the ad to your site. Here's an example.

https://example.com?gclid=CjwKCAiAz_DIDhBJEiwAVHV4XkrhiJmioTgHDr94YTNvsCNHdl-sczJQGnN8_u2Dfx_FoCYy8RAvD_BwE

The gibberish CjwK... ...D_BwE is the link. You can use it to tell Google that the person filled in a form, called you, or messaged on WhatsApp. You can also use it later to tell Google if the person was a good fit for your business or became a customer.

But sometimes it goes missing:

• Some web browsers delete the tracking information to preserve privacy.
• Some people don't allow cookies. Without cookies you lose the link if the visitor lands on one page and contacts you from another, or if they close the browser and contact you later.
• Some third-party contact forms or booking systems can't pick up the link.
• And there are a bunch of other technical reasons.

Google has been partially successful in working around these limitations through Enhanced Conversions, which use contact information (email, phone) to match the lead back to an earlier ad interaction when possible. You tell Google that the lead with the email prbowen@gmail.com filled in your form at 11:49 and Google says, "Ah yes, that's Pete. He was logged into his Google account at the time and we know he clicked your ad for a custom surfboard. Conversion recorded."

Broken reporting

Before a conversion can be recorded, the link (gclid, email etc.) must be sent to Google. For something like a form this is usually done through some JavaScript added to your site (Google tag or Google Analytics).

Sometimes this stops working. The usual culprit is a website update: either a big facelift, or a background automated system update. But not always. Some people use web browsers that can't or don't run JavaScript. In both cases leads arrive in your CRM but conversions aren't recorded in Google Ads.

And it gets worse still, sorry again.

Leaky conversion tracking

Most websites offer more than one way for leads to get in touch:

• A form
• A phone number
• A WhatsApp button
• Live chat
• An email address

Leaks happen when one or more of your contact methods doesn't send conversion information to Google. Depending on exactly how your site is set up it can be quite tricky to track every contact method.

I've done quite a lot of work solving this problem for my clients over the years. I've since extracted the technology into two tools:

• Convertista tracks WhatsApp leads as conversions in Google Ads.
• GhostBlocker stops spam and junk getting through and counting as conversions.

Together they close the most common conversion tracking gaps. They also help improve Google Ads results by making it easy to optimise campaigns for qualified leads or sales.

And speaking of spam and junk...

Pollution from spam and junk leads

Another source of mismatches is when Google counts junk or spam as conversions, but your CRM doesn't. A good CRM system will have a filter to keep obviously junk leads out. Some CRMs also quarantine leads that look like junk for human review.

This means your CRM has clean data but Google Ads doesn't, which naturally creates differences in the numbers.

Multiple contacts from the same person

You know you've got a hot lead when they fill in your form, call you and message you. Google's default is to count that lead as three conversions. A good CRM will merge the three contacts into a single lead record.

Solving the multiple-contact problem is surprisingly tricky and almost impossible to get 100% right.

Sometimes it's reasonably easy: the person fills in a form and then calls. If the phone number matches, we can treat the call as a duplicate and don't send an extra conversion to Google.

But if they don't give a number in the form, or if they call from a different number, we can't link the two contacts right away. We end up counting more than one conversion for this lead.

I think the important thing here is to get it as accurate as you can, but not to obsess about a one-to-one correlation between leads and conversions.

Related articles

Why I'm rethinking how I audit Google Ads accounts

What is Google actually learning from?

Offline conversion tracking with Contact Form 7

The Google Ads WhatsApp conversion tracking guide

Offline Conversion Tracking with Fluent Forms

The problem with call duration conversions

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