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Troubleshooting Conversion Visibility Issues for Google Ads through Measurement Protocol with GA4
Hey all, need a little help over here. I’ve been able to use the Measurement Protocol (GA4) to send purchase events from my server (guidelines here: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/ga4/sending-events?client_type=gtag#required_parameters). I’ve double-checked and everything is being logged correctly on GA4 including source, medium and campaign values from my Google Ads. Great right?
But then I imported this conversion to my Google Ads – waited a week even – and nothing. All the conversions are there on GA4, but Google Ads keeps telling me ‘No recent conversions’. Frustratingly, conversions from clients are showing up but server ones aren’t.
Do any of you know how to get these events I’m sending via GA4 to show up on Google Ads as conversions? It’s really bugging me. Could it be that I need to change the attribution model on Google Ads? Thanks in advance!
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2 Replies
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So the main issue could be trouble in tracking GCLID. If MP isn’t properly handling the GCLID, Google Ads won’t be able to map the conversions you’re trying to input.
A couple ways to debug this could be to look at the GCLID in the network conversion hits in MP and the front-end. If there’s any discrepancy or truncation in the GCLID, it could cause the issue. Another way would be to take your data from GA4 and compare it to BQ. Looking at two different conversion hits made via the front-end and MP could give you some insight.
If you haven’t already, try checking out these avenues. If the GCLID does happen to be malformed in MP, that should tell you wherein lies the problem. And while it could also be another issue like client ids, session ids, etc., those should have been obvious in GA4 or when exploring user sessions in BQ. Hopefully this helps get you on the right path!
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There could be a variety of reasons why your conversions are not showing up on Google Ads, and it might not necessarily be related to the attribution model. Firstly, it’s important to make sure that your Google Ads account is properly linked to your GA4 account, as this is crucial for conversions to be imported.
Secondly, the conversion actions in Google Ads need to be set up correctly, meaning they should match exactly the event names you’re sending from the server-side. If there’s any discrepancy, the conversions will not be recorded.
Also, remember that the conversions recorded are based on the time of the click that led to the conversion, not when the conversion happened. If your conversions occurred outside of the conversion window set in Google Ads, they may not show up.
Lastly, it could be because of data freshness – there is usually a delay of up to 48 hours in Google Ads. If you’ve already waited a week then this seems less likely, but monitor it nonetheless.
If none of these seem to be the problem, it may be due to technical issues that need deeper investigation which can then be escalated to Google’s support team.
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