All conversions in Google Ads

Source: Google Ads Help, About "All conversions".

Google decides what enters the Conversions column with one setting per action: primary or secondary. All conversions ignores that setting. Every action the account records is in it.

Google's help lists what it adds: secondary actions, store visits, certain phone calls and view-through conversions. Most campaigns keep view-throughs out of the Conversions column: they show in their own column and in All conversions. The exceptions, listed in Google's help on view-through conversions, are Performance Max for store goals, App and Demand Gen campaigns, and campaigns opted into view-through optimisation.

Read the gap, not the total

The useful figure is the gap between the two columns. A small gap means bidding sees almost everything that happens. A large gap means a lot happens that bidding is told to ignore, and you should know what it is.

Segment All conversions by conversion action to see what fills the gap. Add-to-carts, newsletter sign-ups and page views often sit there, secondary on purpose. A purchase action sitting there is a mistake that costs money every day.

A worked example

A garden furniture shop shows 140 conversions and 610 all conversions for September. Segmented by action, the 470 extra are 300 add-to-carts, 95 newsletter sign-ups, 60 view-through purchases and 15 store visits.

Cost per conversion reads €52 on €7,280 of spend. Cost per all conversion reads €11.93, a figure that puts a €400 sofa and a free newsletter on the same footing. The team manages to the €52. The 60 view-through purchases become a question for the next holdout test.

1. Open Campaigns, click the Columns icon above the table, then Modify columns.
2. In the Conversions group, tick All conv., All conv. value and Cost / all conv.
3. To see what fills the column, click Segment, then Conversions, then Conversion action.
4. Check each action's primary or secondary setting under Goals, then Conversions, then Summary.

Optizads stores All conversions for each campaign and each day, read from Google Ads every night. The last 35 days are read again each night, because Google keeps adding conversions to recent days for weeks. A period's figure is the sum of its days, across every campaign type, removed campaigns included.

On the Overview, add it with Customize metrics, then Add a metric, in the Conversions group. Six companions sit beside it: All conv. value, All conv. rate, All conv. value / cost, All conv. value per click, Cost / all conv. and Value / all conv. Each ratio comes from the period's sums, never from an average of daily ratios.

Purchases and Leads on the Overview are counted from Conversions only, by Google's conversion categories. A purchase action left as secondary shows up in All conversions and not in Purchases.

In the report builder, set All conversions and Conversions side by side in Key figures, so a client sees what bidding counts and what it leaves out.

• Reporting All conversions as results to a client when most of them are add-to-carts or sign-ups.
• Leaving a real sale as secondary, so bidding never learns from it while All conversions shows it.
• Treating the view-through conversions inside All conversions as proof equal to a click.

• Primary conversion action: A conversion action used for bidding and shown in the Conversions column.
• Conversion action: One definition of a conversion in Google Ads, with its source, its counting, its value and its window.
• View-through conversion: A conversion after someone saw an ad but did not click it.
• Conversion: An action you count as a result of an ad: a purchase, a lead form, a call, a sign-up or a store visit.

• Value per conversion: Value per conversion is the average value of one conversion in Google Ads: conversion value divided by conversions.
• Conversions (by conv. time): Conversions (by conv. time) counts each conversion on the day it happened, not on the day of the ad click that led to it.
• Store visits: Store visits are Google's modelled estimate of the visits to your physical stores that followed a click on, or a view of, your ads.