Google Ads has replaced the “imported leads” conversion goal with 2 new goal types:
- Qualified leads
- Converted leads
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Choosing the appropriate conversion goal is critical to making the most of Google AI. Learn more about how qualified leads and converted leads work.
To help bridge the structural gap between initial online ad clicks and final offline sales , you can now use the native, in-platform Lead-to-Sale Journey Builder within Google Ads. This intuitive, visual drag-and-drop tool allows you to explicitly map and organize the unique stages of your sales funnel yourself. By explicitly defining these steps, you can accurately identify your most promising Google-generated leads and align your online marketing with actual business reality. Learn About Lead Journey Mapping in Google Ads.
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Benefits
- Improved optimization: With qualified leads and converted leads, you’ll be able to measure and optimize towards deeper lead-to-sale funnel events and more clearly tag events by the stage of the funnel. This means that Google Ads will have more information to properly optimize and improve campaign performance.
- Take full advantage of the lead funnel report: When you select the appropriate goal, you take full advantage of the lead funnel report. The lead funnel report shows your conversion volumes across the lead funnel from interactions to leads, qualified leads, and converted leads.
- Make the most of Google AI: When you select the appropriate goal type, you’ll be able to make the most of Google AI solutions that help you drive performance, like Smart Bidding and Performance Max campaigns.
How it works
Qualified leads and converted leads allow you to accurately identify the most promising Google generated leads using your offline conversion data and define steps based on your own lead conversion process. When you map these steps using the Lead Journey Mapping, you can visually organize how leads progress from first interaction to closed sale.
- Qualified lead
- A qualified or “interested” lead helps track Google generated leads that have also been further qualified offline (outside of Google Ads) in your customer relations management (CRM) system or internal lead generation system.
- Converted lead
- A converted or “closed” lead helps track Google generated leads that have completed a chosen step in the lead conversion process, typically offline (outside of Google Ads).
- This step can be determined to be the completion of a sale, an offline or online closed deal, or any step that you define as “conversion.”
Map your lead journey with Lead Journey Mapping
By explicitly building your funnel structure within the platform, you can manage your lead journey with a transparent feedback loop:
- Visual journey mapping: Easily construct and define specific sales stages, clarifying the path a lead takes to become a customer. You can build your funnel through data import or manual construction.
- Comprehensive data integration: Associate existing conversion actions, non-tracked steps, and essential business metrics like conversion delays and values with each stage. This creates a transparent feedback loop between sales outcomes and ad campaigns.
- Actionable insights: Identify bottlenecks, drop-offs, and critical conversion points within your specific sales funnel.
- Improved optimization and bidding: By moving beyond simple "shallow" lead measurement to a full-funnel view, you allow smarter, more effective optimization. Automated systems can optimize for specific, high-value business outcomes rather than just maximizing lead volume.
- Personalized guidance: The tool provides automated, context-aware recommendations on measurement and bidding strategies tailored to your unique funnel structure.
- Higher ROI: This clarity helps you achieve a superior balance of lead volume and lead quality, driving improved return on investment.
- End-to-End visibility: Gain a clear view of the entire sales funnel, making it easier to identify key conversion points and potential drop-offs.
- Data security: The tool utilizes your existing Google Ads data and adheres to Google’s standard data privacy and security policies.
Instructions
Update your imported lead conversion actions
If you haven’t already, you should update your existing imported lead conversion actions to qualified leads and converted leads.
Google Ads offers a default suggestion based on the previous conversion goal. Make sure you carefully review and modify those suggestions to ensure the correct lead is selected.
When you update your conversion goals, if the updated goal is an account default goal, it’ll be available for all campaigns that use account default goals. In other cases, if certain campaigns are affected by this update in your conversion goals, we’ll provide a link to a filtered list of affected campaigns.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
.
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- Click Update now in the conversion categories notification in the center of the page.
- Review the suggested updated conversion categories and click Update.
Create a new qualified lead or converted lead
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- Click + Create conversion action.
- Select Import in the "New conversion action” page.
- Select CRMs, files, or other data sources.
- Choose if conversions should be tracked by clicks or calls, then click Continue.
- Use the dropdown menu next to “Goal and action optimization”, and select Qualified lead or Converted lead.
- Fill in the rest of the required details in the “Set up the tag” section. Then, click Create and continue.
- In the “What’s next” section, a confirmation of your conversion action setup will be shown. Click Done.
