What Conversion Actions Should You Actually Count as a Lead in Google Ads?
- Jesse Heslinga
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Most lead-gen accounts I audit are counting too many things as conversions. A form click, a page visit, a 12-second phone call, a chat window opening. All of them sitting in the Conversions column, all of them feeding Google's algorithm.
The algorithm is optimising for whatever you tell it to optimise for. If you tell it that a 12-second call and a 5-minute call from a qualified buyer are the same signal, it treats them the same. The result: volume goes up, CPL looks fine, and lead quality quietly falls apart.
Getting this right is one of the highest-impact changes you can make in a Google Ads account. It costs nothing to change, and it changes what the algorithm goes after.
The Short Answer
Only actions that indicate a real, likely-qualified enquiry should be set as "Primary" (included in conversions). Typically 1 to 3 actions maximum.
Phone calls under 30 to 60 seconds are usually not real enquiries. Set a minimum call duration before counting a call as a conversion.
Form submissions should only be counted if the form is an actual enquiry or booking form, not a newsletter signup or whitepaper download.
Page views, chat opens, button clicks, and time-on-site are at best secondary signals. They should never be set as primary conversions feeding Smart Bidding.
The gold standard for lead-gen: import closed deals or qualified leads back into Google Ads from your CRM via offline conversion import. This teaches the algorithm what a real customer looks like.
Why conversion actions control everything
In Google Ads, a conversion action is how you tell the platform what you want. Smart Bidding (Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximise Conversions) uses your conversion data to decide who to bid on and how much to pay.
If the conversion action you've set up does not represent a genuine enquiry, Smart Bidding learns from the wrong signal. It finds more of the people who trigger your "conversion" event, not more of the people who become actual clients.
This is why two accounts with identical spend and similar CPL numbers can have wildly different business outcomes. One counted real enquiries. The other counted form clicks.
Pro Tip: Go into your Google Ads account and look at the "All conversions" column versus the "Conversions" column in your campaign report. If All conversions is significantly higher than Conversions, some of your conversion actions are already set as Secondary. If you're unsure which actions are Primary, check Settings > Conversions.
Primary vs secondary: the setting that actually matters
Every conversion action in Google Ads is either Primary (included in conversions, feeds Smart Bidding) or Secondary (tracked for observation, not used for bidding).
The setting is simple. The implications are not.
Primary conversions shape the entire algorithm. If you set three different actions as Primary and one of them is a low-intent signal, Smart Bidding will spread its learning across all three. You get more of all three, in proportion to how achievable each one is. The easy, low-quality actions tend to win. The algorithm finds more of the cheapest signal.
Secondary conversions are useful for observing behaviour without feeding the algorithm. Set micro-conversions (chatbot opens, video plays, scroll depth) as Secondary if you want to see the data without polluting your Primary signal.
The rule: Primary = only what you're willing to pay for. Secondary = everything else worth watching.
What NOT to count as a primary conversion
These are the most common culprits in accounts that have inflated conversion numbers with low lead quality.
Action | Why it doesn't count | What to do instead |
Page view or landing page visit | Everyone who clicks the ad triggers this | Remove from Primary entirely |
Time on site (90 seconds, etc.) | Correlated with engagement, not intent | Set as Secondary at best |
Chat window open | Opening is not engaging | Count only completed chats with contact details |
Call button click | Doesn't mean the call connected | Replace with connected call of minimum duration |
Short phone calls (under 30 seconds) | Includes misdials, hold music, wrong numbers | Set a minimum duration threshold |
Newsletter or email signup | Low-intent action, not a sales enquiry | Set as Secondary or exclude |
PDF download or whitepaper | Research behaviour, not buyer behaviour | Exclude from Primary |
"Thank you" page for a brochure | Same issue as above | Exclude from Primary |
Every one of these can tell you something useful as a Secondary conversion. None of them should be in the Primary column feeding your bids.
Common mistake: Setting up a "Contact page visit" as a conversion because it's easy to track and generates a lot of volume. Contact page visits include people looking for a phone number, people who landed on the wrong page, and people who changed their mind before filling in the form. They are not leads.
What should be your primary conversion actions
For most lead-gen service businesses, 1 to 3 Primary conversion actions is the right range (Search Engine Journal, Google Ads Help 2026). More than that and Smart Bidding gets conflicting signals. Fewer than one and it has nothing to learn from.
Phone calls with a minimum duration. A call that connects and lasts at least 30 to 60 seconds is a meaningful signal. Under 30 seconds typically includes misdials and voicemail hangs. The right duration depends on your business: a roofing company getting 5-minute quotes needs a longer threshold than a dental practice booking a 90-second appointment. Set the minimum based on what your real sales calls actually look like. See the full guide to tracking phone calls from Google Ads for the technical setup.
Form submissions on an actual enquiry form. A booking form, a quote request form, a contact form with a phone number field. The form must require the person to provide real contact information and state what they want. Not a one-field email capture, not a newsletter sign-up.
Appointment bookings or consultation bookings. If you have a booking tool integrated on the site (Calendly, Acuity, Google Booking), a completed booking is a higher-intent signal than a form fill. Count it as Primary.
Qualified leads from your CRM (via offline conversion import). The highest-quality signal of all, covered in the next section.
Conversion action | Set as Primary? | Why |
Connected call, 45+ seconds | Yes | Real enquiry signal |
Form fill with name, phone, message | Yes | Genuine contact intent |
Completed booking / appointment | Yes | Highest-intent action on site |
CRM-imported qualified lead | Yes | Most accurate signal available |
Call button click | No | No evidence call happened |
Short call (under 30 seconds) | No | Misdials, hang-ups, wrong numbers |
Chat window opened | No | Weak intent |
Landing page visit | No | Every ad click triggers this |
Contact page view | No | Browsing, not enquiring |
The call duration question
Call tracking is the most nuanced conversion setup for lead-gen accounts.
The default Google Ads call conversion fires when someone calls the number and the call connects. That includes:
Calls to the wrong department
Calls immediately met with voicemail (and immediate hang-up)
Sales calls from other agencies (guaranteed if your number is visible)
Misdials
People calling to cancel something
A minimum duration filter removes most of the noise. The right threshold varies:
Service businesses (home services, tradespeople): 60 to 90 seconds. A real quote call takes at least a minute.
Clinics and healthcare: 45 to 60 seconds. Appointment bookings are quick but still need a moment.
Legal and professional services: 90 to 120 seconds. Qualified consultations take longer.
Fast-paced booking businesses (e.g. storage, transport): 30 to 45 seconds can work.
Set it too low and you count noise. Set it too high and you under-count real enquiries and starve Smart Bidding of signal. A good starting point is to listen to 20 of your recent calls and note how long the ones that turned into real enquiries lasted. Set your threshold just below that average.
Keep in Mind: Google Ads' native call tracking uses call-forwarding numbers. If your business uses a third-party call tracking tool like CallRail or WhatConverts, you can import those call events into Google Ads with more granular control over duration, call outcome, and lead quality scoring. That setup is worth the extra work for any account spending more than €3,000/month on ads.
Offline conversion import: the setup that actually moves the needle
Most lead-gen accounts track form fills and calls. That data reaches Google about 1 to 3 days after the click. Smart Bidding optimises toward people likely to fill in a form or call.
Offline conversion import (OCI) closes the loop. You take what happens after the form fill or call, whether that person was qualified, whether they booked, whether they signed a contract, and you send that outcome back into Google Ads tied to the original click.
Smart Bidding then learns which clicks generate actual customers, not which clicks generate contacts.
The process:
When someone clicks an ad, Google creates a GCLID (a unique click ID).
Your CRM or booking tool captures that GCLID along with the contact.
When the lead progresses (qualified, booked, sold), you export the GCLID and the outcome and upload it to Google Ads.
Google matches the outcome to the original click and uses it as a conversion signal.
This is the most powerful conversion setup available for lead-gen, and most accounts don't use it. The reason is technical setup: it requires either a CRM that natively supports GCLID capture (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive all do) or a manual export process.
If you're spending over €5,000/month on Google Ads and closing more than 10 deals per month, OCI is worth the setup time.
How many primary conversions should you have?
One to three, with a clear hierarchy.
The tightest possible setup: one Primary conversion action that's as close as possible to a qualified lead. A connected call over 60 seconds, or a form fill on an enquiry-only form. Fewer signals, but high-quality ones.
A practical setup for most lead-gen accounts: two Primary conversions (calls with a minimum duration, form fills on an enquiry form). This gives Smart Bidding enough volume to learn while keeping the signal focused.
If your enquiry volume is low (fewer than 15 to 20 conversions per month in total), you may need to use a slightly softer signal as Primary while tracking tighter conversions as Secondary and working on volume. Smart Bidding needs roughly 15 to 30 conversions per month to optimise effectively. Starving it of signal is also a problem.
The main thing to avoid: five or six Primary actions that include page views, button clicks, and short calls alongside real enquiries. You're asking Google to optimise toward a mix, and it will find the cheapest and easiest signals in that mix.
How I handle this for lead-gen businesses
Setting this up correctly is one of the first things I do on a new account. Before touching bids, campaigns, or keywords, I look at what's being counted as a conversion and whether those actions represent real enquiries.
In most accounts I take on, there's at least one inflated or incorrect Primary conversion action. Cleaning that up changes what Smart Bidding is learning from, which changes the quality of traffic it goes after. It often improves lead quality without touching spend.
If lead quality has been a persistent issue, the spam lead post covers the other causes. Conversion action setup is usually the starting point, but it's rarely the only fix.
Ready to find out what your account is actually optimising for?
Frequently Asked Questions
How many conversion actions should be set as Primary in Google Ads?
For most lead-gen accounts, 1 to 3 Primary conversion actions is the right range. More than that and Smart Bidding gets conflicting signals. The goal is quality signal, not volume. If your enquiry volume is low (under 15 to 20 per month), you may need a slightly softer Primary action temporarily, but tighten it as volume grows.
Should I count every form fill as a conversion in Google Ads?
Only form fills on genuine enquiry forms: quote requests, booking forms, contact forms that require real contact details. Newsletter signups, whitepaper downloads, and one-field email captures are research behaviour, not sales enquiries. Set those as Secondary conversions if you want to track them, but keep them out of your Primary count.
What minimum call duration should I use in Google Ads?
It depends on your typical sales call. A good starting point: listen to 20 recent calls and note how long the genuine enquiries lasted, then set your threshold just below that average. For most service businesses, 45 to 90 seconds is the right range. Under 30 seconds and you're counting misdials and voicemail hang-ups.
What is the difference between primary and secondary conversions in Google Ads?
Primary conversions are included in Smart Bidding optimisation. Secondary conversions are tracked for observation only and do not influence bids. Set anything that represents a real enquiry as Primary. Set micro-conversions (page views, chat opens, short calls) as Secondary if you want to see the data without letting it distort your algorithm.
What is offline conversion import and do I need it?
Offline conversion import lets you send lead outcomes from your CRM back into Google Ads tied to the original click. Instead of optimising toward form fills, Smart Bidding optimises toward actual customers. It requires some technical setup (GCLID capture in your CRM) but is worth the effort if you're spending over €5,000/month and closing more than 10 deals per month.
Can a page view or landing page visit be a conversion in Google Ads?
You can set it up that way, but you should not. Every single person who clicks your ad will trigger a landing page visit. Setting it as Primary tells Smart Bidding to optimise for clicks, which is not the goal. If you want to see page engagement, track it as a Secondary conversion or in Google Analytics.
Why does my Google Ads conversion count look higher than my actual leads?
Almost always because multiple actions are set as Primary, some of which are low-intent: short calls, page visits, chat opens. Pull up Settings > Conversions, check which actions are Primary, and audit whether each one represents a real enquiry. In most accounts I look at, at least one Primary action is inflating the count.
About the author
Jesse Heslinga | Google Partner | 7+ Years Google Ads | Lead-Gen Expert
I run Google Ads for lead-gen service businesses at Groove Media across clinics, home services, and professional services, working with clients directly, no account-manager layer. I build every account around one question: is this spend turning into real customers, not just cheap form fills?
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