Google Ads and paying customers
Google Ads reports the conversions its own tag records, counted by the settings in your account. A paying customer is someone whose payment reached you and stayed. The two numbers measure different things, and this page explains where they part ways.
What does Google Ads report?
Clicks, cost, and conversions: the actions its conversion tag or imported data records after an ad interaction, within the conversion window you set. Which action counts as a conversion is your choice. Many software companies count sign-ups or trial starts, because the payment happens later and elsewhere.
How can Google Ads numbers mislead?
- The conversion is often a sign-up, not a payment, so a campaign can look strong while few of its sign-ups pay.
- Brand search collects people who already know your name. It earns many last clicks, but some of those customers would have found you anyway.
- A conversion action can be set to count every conversion after a click, so one person can be counted more than once.
- Other platforms may claim the same customer, so Google's count plus everyone else's can exceed your real customer total.
More on overlapping counts: why platform conversions add up to more customers than you have.
Sources, Google Ads Help: the conversion count setting, modeled conversions and auto-tagging and the gclid.
Which Google Ads export do we need today?
During early access we work from export files you choose to send. From Google Ads we need one campaign report. From your own systems we need the records that connect a click to a payment.
| File | Columns | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads campaign report | Day, campaign name, campaign ID, cost, clicks, platform-reported conversions | A report exported from Google Ads as CSV, covering the last 90 days |
| Sign-up or lead records | Date, email or customer ID, UTM tags, and the gclid click identifier if you store it | Your product database, form tool or CRM |
| Payments | Customer email or ID, payment date, amount, refunds | A Stripe payments export, or closed-won deals from HubSpot |
Direct read-only connections are being built. They need Google Ads's approval before we can offer them, so today everything runs on exports. Step by step: matching payments to ad clicks with exports.
Is Datarithms an official Google partner?
No. Datarithms has no partnership with Google and no special access to its data. We read the same reports you can export from your own account, and only the ones you send us.
Related pages
- Meta Ads and paying customersFacebook and Instagram results, view-through counts, and the export we need.
- Last-click vs platform attribution in plain termsWhat each attribution method credits, and why Datarithms starts from payments.
- How to calculate cost per paying customerSpend divided by customers who paid and stayed. How to count both sides honestly.
- How it worksThe matching rules behind the weekly table: last ad click within 90 days, refunds within 14 days excluded, no verdict under 30 paying customers.
Want your own table?
Tell us which ad platforms you use and roughly what you spend. We reply by email within two working days.
Early access: we prepare your weekly table with you from your own exports while the direct connections are built.