Without conversion tracking, Google Ads can tell you how many people clicked. It cannot tell you how many became customers. Every decision you make, and every decision Google's automated bidding makes on your behalf, is better when it is based on real outcomes instead of clicks.
What a conversion is
A conversion is an action that matters to your business: a submitted enquiry form, a phone call, a booking or a purchase. You define these in Google Ads as conversion actions. When someone clicks an ad and later completes one, Google records it against the keyword, ad and campaign that brought them in.
Choose what to count
For a service business, track form submissions and phone calls first. Mark the actions that represent genuine leads as primary, so bidding optimises toward them. Lesser actions, such as a click on your email address or a visit to the contact page, can be recorded as secondary. Counting everything as a conversion makes the numbers look good and teaches the system the wrong lesson.
Install the tag
Tracking relies on the Google tag being present on every page of your site, plus a signal when the conversion happens, such as a confirmation page loading or a form sending successfully. You can add the tag directly to your site or through Google Tag Manager. Either way, it should be in place before your campaigns start spending.
Track calls properly
Many local leads arrive by phone. Google can count calls made from the call button in your ads, and calls to a number on your website after an ad click, using a forwarding number. Set a minimum call length so that wrong numbers and hang-ups are not counted as leads.
Test it, then keep checking
Submit a test enquiry and confirm the conversion shows up. Use Google's tag testing tools to see whether the tag fires when it should and only then. Check again after any website change, because a redesigned form or a new confirmation page can silently break tracking. Compare recorded conversions with the leads you actually received each month.
Tracking is the first thing we set up and the first thing we check when we take over an account. A campaign that cannot see its own results cannot be improved.