To create a simpler and more intuitive experience in the way conversions are measured and reported across Google Ads and Analytics, we've unified how conversions are defined.
Previously, important events that were marked as conversions in Analytics were measured differently from how Google Ads conversions are measured, leading to discrepancies between Google Ads and Analytics.
Events that measure actions that are important to the success of your business are now called 'key events.' You can use the behavioral data from your key events to improve the user experience across your websites and apps.
A 'conversion' now refers to an important action that you want to use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns and optimize your bidding strategy. With an aligned definition of 'conversion' across Google Ads and Analytics, you can now view consistent conversion-based performance metrics in both Google Ads and Analytics reports.
Watch a video: This video describes the update to conversions in Google Analytics, including background context and a description of what's changing. You can also read the translated video transcript.
To view subtitles in your language, turn on YouTube captions. Select the Settings icon at the top right corner of the video player, select Captions, and then specify your language.
On this page
- Key events
- Conversions
- Google Analytics and Google Ads conversions
- What you should do
- Understand and troubleshoot data discrepancies
- Frequently asked questions
Key events
A key event is an event that measures an action that's particularly important to the success of your business. When someone triggers the event by performing the action, the key event is recorded in Google Analytics and surfaced in your Google Analytics reports.
Any event you collect can become a key event. To measure a key event, create or identify an event that measures the action and then mark the event as a key event. After you mark the event as a key event, you can view how many users perform the action and evaluate marketing performance across all channels that lead users to perform the action.
The following flow shows how to mark an event as a key event. In short, if an event is important to your business's success, you can mark the event as a key event in Analytics.
Event → Key Event
Example
It's important to know when a user scrolls to 90% of a lead-generation page on your website. When a user scrolls to 90% of the page, you know that the user has read through the page and viewed the sign-up form. In this example, you can identify the 'scroll' event on the Key events page in Admin and then mark the event as a key event, providing you with more enhanced behavioral reporting.Conversions
A conversion is created from a Google Analytics event and provides a consistent way of measuring important actions in both Google Analytics and Google Ads. A conversion helps you improve your marketing strategy by providing consistent conversion counts across platforms so you can understand and optimize your ad campaigns. Conversions based on Google Analytics events allow you to measure important actions that originate from organic channels like search, email, and social for cross-channel campaign measurement use cases.
The following flow shows how to create a conversion from a Google Analytics key event. In short, if an event is important to your business's success, you can mark the event as a key event in Analytics. Then, if the key event is important for optimizing ad campaigns and measuring their performance, create a conversion in Google Ads from the Analytics key event.
Event → Key Event → Conversion
Google Analytics and Google Ads conversions
Conversion management is streamlined across Google Ads and Google Analytics for a unified cross-channel experience. This enables you to:
- Create conversions directly from your Google Analytics events and seamlessly share them with Google Ads. Some settings, like conversion window and counting method, might not be editable in Google Ads.
- Manage conversion settings for both Google Analytics and Google Ads from a centralized interface.
- Use categorized lists, improved search and filtering, and detailed settings review to manage your conversions effectively. Tools will also be available to identify and address diverging conversion settings between Google Analytics and Google Ads.
- Track all conversion changes within Google Analytics change history, including detailed "before and after" views and shareable deep links.
Learn more about creating conversions.
- A linked Google Ads account is required to create a new Google Analytics conversion from a key event.
- You can create a conversion in Google Analytics which makes the conversion available in Google Ads.
Example
In addition to marking the 'scroll' event as a key event, you want to mark the 'generate_lead' event as a key event. While you could use the 'scroll' event to inform your Google Ads strategy, you may want to use the 'generate_lead' event instead because the 'generate_lead' event will inform you of when users complete the sign-up form on the lead-generation page, not just when they scroll through the form.
After you mark the 'generate_lead' event as a key event, you can create a Google Ads conversion based on the Google Analytics key event to optimize your marketing strategy. When you create the Google Ads conversion, a conversion is also created in Google Analytics and shared between the two platforms.
What you should do
When you want to indicate that an event is important to your business, you can mark the event as a key event.
If you have a linked Google Ads account, Google Ads conversions created from Analytics events appear as conversions in the Advertising section in Google Analytics. You can use the Advertising section's "Conversion performance" report to view conversion metrics and evaluate your conversion performance. You can also use the "Conversion management" page to manage your Google Ads conversions. Google Ads conversions don't appear in standard Google Analytics reports in the Reports or Explore sections of the product.
You can create new Google Ads conversions based on Google Analytics events through the Google Ads and Google Analytics interface. Learn more about creating Google Ads conversions based on Google Analytics events.
You can also continue to access your historical conversion data as key event data, enabling you to continue to view year-over-year comparisons.
Understand and troubleshoot data discrepancies
The differences in reporting are rooted in the distinct purposes of these metrics:
- Conversions are designed to provide a comprehensive, cross-channel perspective. They’re powered by a unified data platform for Google Analytics and Google Ads, making them ideal for measuring advertising ROI, validating numbers with Google Ads, and gaining insights for media planning and budget decisions.
- Key events are designed for analyzing traffic acquisition, user behavior, and site journeys. This data is powered by Google Analytics.
Because Conversions are event-scoped, they can leverage Data-Driven Attribution (rather than Last Non-Direct Click) and focus directly on the ad touchpoints that caused the conversion (rather than the start of the session).
Which reports you should use
To get the most relevant insights, choose the right report for your goal:
- Campaign performance and attribution: Especially if you’ve linked your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts and have conversions set up, use the Conversions performance report in the Google Analytics Advertising section.
- Supplementary data for analysis: Use the Key event reports in the Advertising section as a fallback if Conversion reporting doesn't support a crucial aspect of your analysis. For example, if you use Search Ads 360, or Display & Video 360. This data can also be used to fill in gaps from dates before your conversions were created.
- Traffic acquisition, user behavior, and site journeys: The Google Analytics Reports and Explore sections are designed for analyzing traffic acquisition, user behavior, and site journeys. It’s not recommended to use these reports for measuring media performance.
Troubleshoot data discrepancies
Several factors can contribute to discrepancies between key events and conversions. Review the following settings and configurations:
Identity and data processing signals: Check factors that affect user identity spaces across reports:
- Google Ads cookies and IDs: For date ranges prior to June 15, 2026, the collection of Google Ads cookies and IDs from the Google Analytics tag and SDK was controlled by both the Google Signals setting in Google Analytics and your Consent Mode Ads settings. Beginning June 15, 2026, Google Analytics transitioned to using Consent Mode (within Google Ads) as the single control for this data.
- Behavioral modeling: Conversions automatically incorporate multiple user identity signals, leading to more comprehensive insights.
Property attribution settings: Your property may have different settings governing reporting between conversions and key events. These can include:
- Channels that can receive credit for attribution
- Attribution models used in reporting
- Conversion window and Key event lookback window
- Counting method
Ephemeral reporting settings: Check settings in your current report view that shift reporting perspectives without altering past or future data processing:
- Reporting scope
- Attribution timing settings (for example, interaction time and conversion time)
Frequently asked questions
Do key events and conversions share the same attribution settings?
You can find the attribution settings for key events on the Attribution settings page in Admin. From there, you can change the reporting attribution model and the key event lookback window.
- The reporting attribution model affects how key events are credited in behavioral and performance reports.
- The key event lookback window determines how far back in time an interaction is eligible for attribution credit.
You can find the attribution settings for conversions on the Conversion attributions settings in Advertising > Conversion management. From there, you can change the conversion export attribution model and fine-tune settings conversion-by-conversion.
How do I create Google Ads conversions from Google Analytics key events?
Previously, when you wanted to bid against your legacy conversion data, you could import the legacy conversions into Google Ads so you could use them for reporting and bidding in Google Ads.
From now on, you can create Google Ads conversions based on your Google Analytics key events through the Google Ads and Google Analytics interface. For each key event, you can create one web conversion and one app conversion in each linked Google Ads account.
For example, if you were to mark the 'generate_lead' event as a key event, and you decide to create a web and app conversion in your four linked Google Ads accounts, you would create eight conversions in your four linked accounts based on the 'generate_lead' key event.
How many Google Ads conversions can I create?
How do I edit the settings of Google Ads conversions?
You can edit most of your Google Ads conversion settings through the Google Ads and Google Analytics interface. This helps maintain consistency and reduces the risk of data discrepancies.
You can’t edit the goal category and action optimization of conversion actions through the Google Analytics interface. These settings can only be updated in Google Ads. Conversion-related updates made through the Google Analytics interface will only appear in the “Change history” page of Google Ads.
Learn more about editing your conversion settings through the Google Ads and Google Analytics interface.
