Enhanced Conversions (Google Ads)

1. Someone clicks a Google ad. With auto-tagging on, Google appends a gclid to the landing URL and the Google tag stores it in a first-party cookie on your domain.
2. The person fills in your form. The Google tag (via gtag.js, Google Tag Manager or your own code) reads the email, phone, name or address from the page, normalises it and hashes it with SHA-256 in the browser.
3. The conversion is sent to Google with the hashed data attached. Nothing readable leaves the page; Google receives a hash and the conversion details.
4. Google matches the hash against its own accounts. When it finds the account that clicked or saw the ad, the conversion is attributed, and it can be attributed even when the gclid cookie was never available.

In the European Economic Area Google only uses the hashed data when the visitor has granted the ad_user_data consent signal from consent mode, so the feature depends on a working consent banner. Google's terms also require you to have the right to share the data, which is what your privacy policy and processing agreement cover.

• Enhanced conversions for web

  Improves the measurement of a conversion that happens on the website itself, such as a purchase or a form submit, by sending hashed customer data along with the online conversion tag. The conversion is still the on-site event.

• Enhanced conversions for leads

  Measures a conversion that happens after the website visit. The tag captures the hashed email or phone at the form submit; when the lead later becomes a sale, you upload the same hashed identifier with the conversion time and value, and Google matches it back to the click.

The distinction is about when the conversion happens. A shop wants the web variant. A consultancy whose €5,000 engagement is signed three weeks after the form wants the leads variant, because the event it cares about is not on the website at all. Both can run in the same account, on different conversion actions.

Enhanced conversions for leads changed how offline conversions reach Google. Before it, an offline conversion import had to carry the gclid, which meant storing the click ID in a hidden form field and in the CRM. With the leads variant, the hashed email is the key, so a CRM that never stored a gclid can still report its closed deals.

The gclid is Google's click ID: a unique string added to the landing URL of every ad click when auto-tagging is on. The Google tag keeps it in a first-party cookie for 90 days, and any conversion the tag records within that time can be tied to the click, its campaign, its keyword and its device. Google's offline conversion import accepts a gclid with a conversion time and value and credits the click accordingly.

• Import by gclidExact: the conversion is credited to the specific click. Requires that the gclid was captured at the form submit and stored with the lead, and that the conversion falls inside the conversion window.
• Import by hashed identifierEnhanced conversions for leads. Requires that the tag captured the identifier at the form submit. Works when the gclid was never stored, and across devices, because the match is on the person.
• Both togetherThe setup Google recommends: gclid where it exists, hashed data on every conversion. The click ID gives precision, the hashed data gives coverage.

Losing the gclid between the click and the CRM is one of the most common breaks in a lead generation setup: a redirect strips it, a form does not store it, a CRM field is never mapped. Offline conversion tracking is the discipline of keeping the click ID and the person's identifier together from the first visit to the closed deal.

• Create the conversion actions you actually want to optimise for: qualified lead, booked meeting, closed deal, each with a value. A single "form submit" action tells Smart Bidding to buy form submits.
• Capture the gclid and the hashed email at the form submit, and store both on the CRM contact, so every later stage can be reported either way.
• Send stage changes as conversions when they happen in the CRM, through the Google Ads API, a sheet upload or a native integration, with the original click time where you have it.
• Set the qualified stage as the primary conversion for bidding, and keep the raw form submit as a secondary action for observation.

The Google Ads integration page shows how LeadJourney does each of those steps, and the guide on tracking offline conversions for lead generation covers the manual route.

Enhanced conversions are Google's answer to a click cookie that no longer lasts the sales cycle: the person becomes the key instead of the browser. For a lead generation business the leads variant is the important one, because it lets the deal that closes weeks after the click be counted against that click, and Smart Bidding can then optimise for customers rather than form fills. Meta's equivalent runs through the Conversions API; the principle, hashed first-party data sent server-side, is the same on both.