Google Ads Click Conversions as a destination

Google Ads Click Conversions lets you import conversions that happened outside your website, such as a deal closed by a sales rep, a subscription activated in your billing system, or an opportunity marked as won in your CRM. Google attributes each conversion back to the ad click that produced it, so Smart Bidding optimizes for revenue you actually earned instead of form fills.

1. How it works

You already have the outcome data in Nekt: a table of closed deals, paid invoices, or qualified leads. This destination sends each row to Google Ads as a conversion, matched to the original click.

Your table in Nekt  →  Nekt destination  →  Google Ads conversion action  →  campaign optimization

Matching happens in one of two ways:

By click ID. Your table carries the gclid (or gbraid/wbraid) captured when the user first landed on your site. This is the most accurate method.
By customer data (enhanced conversions). Your table carries the customer’s email or phone number. Google matches it against signed-in users. Use this when you never captured a click ID.

If you can capture the GCLID at lead creation and carry it through to your CRM, do that. Click ID matching is more accurate than customer data matching and is not affected by signed-out traffic.

2. Before you start

Create a conversion action in Google Ads

In Google Ads, go to Goals → Conversions → Summary, click New conversion action, and choose Import → CRM, files, or other data sources → Track conversions from clicks.Note the exact name you give it. You will need it later, and it must match character for character. The conversion action must have a type of UPLOAD_CLICKS; other types are rejected.

Check your Google account permissions

The Google account you authorize must have Standard or Admin access to the Google Ads account you are sending to. Read-only access is not enough to import conversions.

Confirm the conversion window

Google only accepts conversions whose click happened within the conversion window of the action (90 days by default, up to 540). Conversions older than the window are rejected during processing, so if you are backfilling historical data, check this first.

Reconnect your Google authorization if it was created before September 2026. Google moved conversion imports to its Data Manager API, which needs a permission that older Nekt connections do not have. If your runs fail with a message asking you to reconnect the Google account, open the destination settings and re-authorize. Existing connections keep working for every other Google Ads destination, so this is easy to miss until a run fails.

3. Prepare your data

Build a table in the Catalog with one row per conversion. A typical table looks like this:

gclid	conversion_action_name	conversion_date_time	conversion_value	currency_code	order_id
`Cj0KCQjw...`	`HubSpot - Opportunity`	`2026-08-30 15:30:00+00:00`	`1250.00`	`BRL`	`DEAL-8842`
`Cj0KCQjw...`	`HubSpot - Opportunity`	`2026-08-31 09:12:00+00:00`	`430.50`	`BRL`	`DEAL-8843`

A Query that shapes CRM deals into that form:

SELECT
    d.google_click_id                                   AS gclid,
    'HubSpot - Opportunity'                             AS conversion_action_name,
    DATE_FORMAT(d.closed_at, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssXXX')  AS conversion_date_time,
    d.amount                                            AS conversion_value,
    'BRL'                                               AS currency_code,
    d.deal_id                                           AS order_id
FROM silver.crm_deals d
WHERE d.stage = 'closed_won'
  AND d.google_click_id IS NOT NULL
  AND d.closed_at >= CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL 60 DAYS

The XXX in the timestamp format produces the +00:00 offset that Google requires. A timestamp without a timezone offset is rejected.

4. Configure the destination

Add the destination

Go to Destinations, click Add destination, and select Google Ads - Click Conversions.

Fill in the configuration

Authorization: authorize a Google account with access to the target Google Ads account.
Account ID: your Google Ads customer ID, shown in the top-right corner of Google Ads. Hyphens are optional, 793-830-3574 and 7938303574 both work. See Google’s article.
Manager Account ID: only if you authorized through a manager (MCC) account. Leave blank otherwise.
Use fixed conversion action: set to True when every row goes to the same conversion action. Set to False when each row names its own.
Conversion action name: the exact name of the conversion action, used only when the option above is True.
Ad user data consent and Ad personalization consent: the consent signals for the users in this upload.

Select your data

Choose the layer and table you prepared. Click Next.

Map your columns

Map each column in your table to a Google Ads field, using the reference below.

Name it and set a trigger

Describe the destination, set a trigger, and click Done. Daily is a good default; conversions do not need to arrive in real time for Smart Bidding to use them.

If you upload data for users in the European Economic Area, you must pass consent signals in Ad user data consent and Ad personalization consent, or per row via the mapped fields. Google discards EEA conversions without consent.

5. Field reference

Identifiers (at least one required)

The connector picks the first identifier present, in this exact order:

Priority	Field	Description
1	`gclid`	Google Click ID, captured from the `gclid` URL parameter when the user landed on your site.
2	`gbraid`	Click identifier for app conversions from iOS 14+ devices.
3	`wbraid`	Click identifier for web conversions from iOS 14+ devices.
4	`email` / `phone_number`	Customer data for enhanced conversions, used only when no click ID is present.

Because the first match wins, mapping both gclid and email does not send both. The gclid is used and the email is ignored. To get enhanced conversion matching for rows without a click ID, leave gclid empty on those rows.

Conversion details

Field	Required	Description
`conversion_date_time`	Yes	When the conversion happened. Format `yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss+hh:mm`, timezone required. Example: `2026-08-30 15:30:00-03:00`.
`conversion_action_name`	Yes, unless Use fixed conversion action is `True`	Name of the conversion action in Google Ads. Must exist and be of type `UPLOAD_CLICKS`.
`conversion_value`	No	The value of the conversion, as a number.
`currency_code`	No	ISO 4217 code, exactly three uppercase letters, such as `BRL` or `USD`. See the list.
`order_id`	No	Your transaction ID. Strongly recommended: it is the key you need later to adjust or retract a conversion with the Conversion Adjustments destination.
`ad_user_data_consent`	No	`GRANTED` or `DENIED`.
`ad_personalization_consent`	No	`GRANTED` or `DENIED`.

Consent accepts UNSPECIFIED and UNKNOWN as well, but those are treated as “not stated” and are not sent to Google. Only GRANTED and DENIED carry a signal.

Personal data is hashed for you

Map email and phone_number as plain text. The connector normalizes and SHA-256 hashes them before anything leaves Nekt, exactly as Google requires. Phone numbers are converted to E.164 format automatically. Do not pre-hash these columns. A pre-hashed value gets hashed a second time and will never match.

Fields no longer supported

conversion_environment, external_attribution_credit, and external_attribution_model still appear in the column mapping, but Google’s Data Manager API does not accept them. If you map them, the run logs a warning listing which columns were ignored and uploads everything else normally.

Custom fields

You can send custom variables alongside each conversion, for example product category or payment method. Create the custom variable in Google Ads first, following this article, then map your columns to it in the Custom fields section.

6. After the run

A successful run means Google accepted your conversions, not that it finished processing them. Processing is asynchronous.

The run log reports how many records were sent and whether Google flagged any of them.
Conversions typically appear in Google Ads within a few hours, and can take up to 24 hours.
Confirm the numbers moved in Goals → Conversions → Summary, on the row for your conversion action.

If Google reports problems with individual records, the run log names the reason and the count, and the remaining records still upload. Partial problems do not fail the run.

Do not use Goals → Conversions → Uploads to check these imports. That page only lists conversions imported the legacy way, through file uploads or the older API. Nekt now sends Click Conversions through Google’s Data Manager API, so this destination’s runs never appear there, no matter how many conversions succeeded. Google shows a “New data connections can be made in Data Manager” message on that page instead. Use the Nekt run log and the Conversions Summary page.

7. Troubleshooting

A message asks you to reconnect the Google account

Your authorization predates Google’s Data Manager API and lacks the required permission. Open the destination settings, re-authorize the Google account, accept all requested permissions, and run again. This affects Click Conversions and Customer Match; other Google Ads destinations are unaffected.

Conversion action 'X' not found

The name must match the conversion action in Google Ads exactly, including spaces, capitalization, and punctuation. Check Goals → Conversions → Summary. Also confirm you are pointing at the right Account ID: a conversion action in one Google Ads account is invisible to another.

No valid ID field found in the record

The row has none of gclid, gbraid, wbraid, email, or phone_number. Filter these rows out in your Query, since they can never be matched. Note the field is phone_number, not phone.

Invalid conversion time

The timestamp is missing its timezone offset or is not in yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss+hh:mm format. 2026-08-30 15:30:00 fails; 2026-08-30 15:30:00+00:00 works.

Invalid conversion currency

currency_code must be exactly three uppercase letters. brl and R$ are rejected; BRL is accepted.

The run succeeds but conversions never appear in Google Ads

First confirm you are looking in the right place: Goals → Conversions → Uploads does not show Data Manager imports, so an empty page there means nothing. Check Goals → Conversions → Summary instead, and confirm you are viewing the same Google Ads account as the Account ID in the destination settings.If the numbers still have not moved, the usual causes are a click outside the conversion window, a GCLID that expired or belongs to a different account, or a conversion action not set to Include in “Conversions”. The Nekt run log reports per-reason error counts returned by Google, which is the most direct signal.

Conversion Adjustments

Restate or retract a conversion you already uploaded, matched by order_id.

Call Conversions

Import conversions that happened over the phone.

Customer Match

Build targeting audiences from your customer lists.

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Google Ads Click Conversions as a destination

1. How it works

2. Before you start

3. Prepare your data

4. Configure the destination

5. Field reference

Identifiers (at least one required)

Conversion details

Personal data is hashed for you

Fields no longer supported

Custom fields

6. After the run

7. Troubleshooting

Conversion Adjustments

Call Conversions

Customer Match

​1. How it works

​2. Before you start

​3. Prepare your data

​4. Configure the destination

​5. Field reference

​Identifiers (at least one required)

​Conversion details

​Personal data is hashed for you

​Fields no longer supported

​Custom fields

​6. After the run

​7. Troubleshooting

​Related destinations

Conversion Adjustments

Call Conversions

Customer Match

1. How it works

2. Before you start

3. Prepare your data

4. Configure the destination

5. Field reference

Identifiers (at least one required)

Conversion details

Personal data is hashed for you

Fields no longer supported

Custom fields

6. After the run

7. Troubleshooting

Related destinations