Google reporting thousands of conversions, only a handful are actually converting
We started running Google search ads last month. All ads lead to a landing page that has a lead form, and our conversion goal is a form submission.
Right off the bat, things seemed to be going great. We were getting tons of conversions, and tons of forms filled out. But since then, our conversions have been through the roof but we’re not getting anymore forms submitted. I’ve looked into tag manager and the trigger appears to be firing correctly (set to once not every submissions, not on page load). But we still are not getting any new leads in and our clicks and conversions keep going up.
According to Google, we are absolutely crushing it. We have thousands of conversions and our CPC/CPL are super low in a very competitive industry. But something is obviously off… not sure if this is some kind of click fraud or if our website team messed up the tags/conversion tracking somehow but lots of money is going out the window for no return. We do have a huge increase in traffic to the website so maybe Google is counting all page visits or loads as conversions? But in Ads manager it is very clear that a conversion is a form submission and that tag looks like it is set up properly.
Any ideas or help is appreciated!
The short answer is:
The massive discrepancy between reported Google Ads conversions and actual form submissions is almost certainly due to a client-side tracking error where the Google Tag Manager (GTM) trigger is firing incorrectly, likely on a non-submission event like a button click, partial form interaction, or even a page load, despite your current configuration checks.
The definitive, most reliable solution is to immediately switch to server-side conversion tracking using your CRM’s webhook/API capabilities and the Google Ads API.
This architecture removes the unreliable client-side browser from the equation, ensuring a conversion is only recorded in Google Ads after a form submission has been successfully received, validated, and stored in your CRM.
This server-to-server approach is highly cost-effective as it eliminates wasted ad spend on false conversions, leveraging your existing CRM and a dedicated server-side environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to host your GTM Server Container.
The long answer is:
Your problem is a classic example of client-side data inaccuracy where the client-side Google Ads conversion tag, implemented via Google Tag Manager, is susceptible to misfires due to a number of reasons, including poorly defined GTM triggers, JavaScript errors, or even bot/spam traffic.
The key to solving this is to shift the source of truth for a conversion from the client browser to your server environment.
This is achieved by implementing a robust server-side tracking solution.
The proposed method involves modifying your landing page’s form submission process to not only send the lead data to your CRM but also to capture the user’s Google Click Identifier (gclid) and store it alongside the lead record in your CRM.
The gclid is critical as it links the ad click to the conversion.
You will then leverage your CRM’s API or Webhooks functionality to communicate the validated lead to Google Ads.
Specifically, your CRM should be configured to send a server-side conversion event via the Google Ads API (or the Measurement Protocol in a GTM Server Container running on GCP or Stape) only after the lead form data has been successfully processed and confirmed as a legitimate lead in your CRM system.
This architecture requires your server-side GTM container to receive the event data from your CRM via a custom Webhook listener, process the gclid and other necessary parameters, and then forward the conversion to Google Ads.
This is highly cost-effective because you stop paying for false conversions immediately, directing your bidding strategy toward actual, confirmed leads, which will dramatically lower your true cost-per-lead and dramatically improve the performance and ROI of your ad spend by providing Google’s Smart Bidding algorithms with clean, reliable data.
Additionally, you should also utilize the Google Analytics Data API to pull clean form submission data into a BigQuery or Looker Studio environment, allowing you to cross-reference and audit the confirmed CRM leads against your Google Ads data, providing an unparalleled level of data verification and insight.
This not only solves your immediate problem but also future-proofs your tracking against ongoing browser privacy restrictions like ITP and ETP that cripple client-side measurement.
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