How much does a conversion tracking audit cost?
We quote a conversion tracking audit as a fixed fee after a short scoping call, and for qualifying accounts it's included free as part of our Google Ads audit.
The price depends on how many platforms and conversion actions are in play. One Google Ads account with a contact form and a phone number is a small job. Google Ads, GA4, Meta and Microsoft, plus a CRM, call tracking and a checkout on a payment gateway, is a bigger one, because every path has to be tested by hand and reconciled against your records.
You'll know the fee before we start, and you keep the findings whether or not you hire us. The free audit returns results within 48 hours, which is usually enough to tell you if a full audit is worth paying for.
Fixing what we find is quoted separately, or it rolls into ongoing management if we're running the account.
Why don't my Google Ads conversions match the leads in my CRM?
Google Ads and your CRM almost never match exactly, because they count different things at different times, but a gap larger than you can explain usually means duplicates, missing click IDs or a tag firing on the wrong step.
The normal reasons: Google Ads reports a conversion on the date of the ad click, while your CRM logs the date the lead arrived. Ads only counts leads it can tie to an ad interaction inside the conversion window. And users who decline cookies may not be tracked at all.
The broken reasons: a thank-you page that counts every refresh, a GA4 import counted as primary on top of the native tag, or forms that drop the GCLID before it reaches the CRM.
A check you can run today: export last month's CRM leads with their source, then compare paid search leads to Google Ads conversions for the same action. Within a modest gap is normal. Double or half is a problem.
Sources: Google Ads Help: About conversion windows, Google Ads Help: Set up offline conversions using GCLID
Which conversions should be primary in Google Ads?
Make the action closest to revenue primary, as long as it happens often enough for bidding to learn from, and keep everything else as secondary for reporting.
Primary actions are what Smart Bidding optimizes toward. Secondary actions are still recorded but don't steer bids. In the accounts I audit, the common mistake is marking page views, scroll depth or button clicks as primary. The algorithm then buys whatever is cheapest to trigger, which is rarely a customer.
Volume is the other side of it. My rule of thumb is that Smart Bidding struggles below roughly 30 to 50 conversions a month per campaign, or about one a day. If a closed sale is too rare to hit that, use a qualified lead as primary and import closed deals as values once you have them.
Then revisit it. Primary actions should change as the business and the data mature, not stay frozen from setup day. More on this in our bidding strategy work.
Sources: Google Ads Help: About primary and secondary conversion actions
What conversion value should a lead generation business use?
Use what a lead is actually worth to you, which you can estimate by multiplying your close rate by your average profit per customer, and refine it by lead stage as data comes in.
Here's the simple version. If one in five qualified leads closes and the average job leaves you $2,500 in margin, a qualified lead is worth about $500. A raw form fill is worth less, because some never qualify. Assigning everything a value of 1 tells bidding every lead is equal, and they aren't.
The better version imports values from your CRM: a smaller value at lead, a larger one at qualified, the real deal value at close. That's how bidding learns the difference between a quote request from a serious buyer and a price shopper.
I'd add values only once tracking is clean and volume is steady. Values on top of broken tags just make wrong decisions faster.
Sources: Google Ads Help: About offline conversion imports
Can I audit my own conversion tracking?
Yes, you can catch the biggest problems yourself in about an hour with a test conversion, Google Tag Assistant and a comparison against your real orders or leads.
Start in Google Ads under Goals and list every conversion action. Note which are primary, how they count (one or every) and whether any show a warning status. Then complete a real conversion on your site with Tag Assistant open, on desktop and on your phone, and watch which tags fire and how many times.
Next, compare 30 days of conversions in Google Ads, GA4 and Meta against your store or CRM. Mismatches point you to where to dig.
Where people get stuck is the why. A double count might be a GA4 import, a duplicate tag or a redirect through a payment page, and each has a different fix. That's also where an AI agent helps. We connect GA4 to Buddy so it can flag spend with zero tracked conversions and point at the broken tag before anyone touches bids.
Sources: Google Ads Help: About primary and secondary conversion actions
How often should conversion tracking be audited?
Audit conversion tracking after any change to your site, forms, checkout or consent banner, and give it a quick check at least once a quarter even when nothing seems wrong.
Tracking rarely breaks in one dramatic moment. It drifts. Someone swaps a form plugin, a thank-you page URL changes, a developer installs a second tag during a redesign, or a new cookie banner starts blocking scripts. Reports keep filling in, so nobody notices until the cost per lead looks strange.
Our rule: no bid strategy change, no new campaign type and no budget increase on top of an untested event. Before switching to Target ROAS or Performance Max, test every conversion path end to end.
Between full audits, set a weekly glance at the gap between platform conversions and your system of record. If it moves sharply without a business reason, something changed in the tracking. Ongoing management clients get this check as part of the work.
