Google Ads and GA4 report different conversions. Who is right?
Same website, same sales, two Google products, two different numbers. It drives advertisers mad. The truth is neither is lying: they count conversions with different rules, and once you know the five differences, the gap stops being mysterious.
The five reasons they differ
- Attribution timing: Google Ads credits conversions to the click date; GA4 reports them on the conversion date. Around a spend change, they will never line up day to day.
- Attribution model: Ads and GA4 can use different models and lookback windows, so credit lands differently.
- Counting: Ads "every" vs "one" conversion settings, versus GA4's key-event counting.
- Scope: Google Ads only sees ad-driven conversions; GA4 sees all traffic.
- Modelling and consent: each models unobserved conversions slightly differently.
Which one to trust
Use Google Ads conversions to optimise and bid, because the algorithm acts on its own numbers. Use GA4 for cross-channel truth and to sanity-check. Reconcile them to your actual orders, not to each other.
When the gap is a real fault
A modest, stable gap is normal. A large or wildly swinging one usually means double-counted conversions, a missing tag, or import settings nobody checked. That is lost money either way: you are bidding on bad data.
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