In today’s privacy-first landscape, many conversions go untracked because users block third-party cookies or opt out of tracking. Google’s Enhanced Conversions feature is designed to address this gap. It supplements your existing Google Ads conversion tags by sending hashed first-party customer data (like emails or phone numbers) from your site to Google in a privacy-safe way. In short, Enhanced Conversions help you improve your conversion tracking by capturing additional data points, making your Google Ads reports more accurate and your bidding smarter.
How Enhanced Conversions Work!
Enhanced Conversions capture the data users voluntarily provide on your site during a conversion (purchase, sign-up, form fill, etc.) and use it to improve ad attribution. When a customer converts on your website, your tag can collect first-party data (for example, the user’s email, name, address, or phone number). Before any data leaves your site, it’s hashed using the SHA-256 algorithm. This one-way hashing turns the data into an anonymized string of characters. The hashed data is then sent along with the conversion event to Google, which matches it to signed-in Google accounts that engaged with your ads. In effect, Google can more accurately attribute conversions to clicks or views without ever seeing raw personal data.
Enhanced Conversions for Web: When a sale or signup happens on your site, capture the user’s contact info and hash it. Google then matches the hashed info to user accounts to improve online conversion measurement.
Enhanced Conversions for Leads (Offline): For lead-gen advertisers (e.g. property inquiries, B2B leads), the process spans offline. You collect a user’s details in a web form (hash them and store in your CRM), then when that lead converts later (e.g. becomes a customer), you upload the hashed lead data to Google Ads. Google matches the uploaded hashes back to the original ad clicks, improving attribution.
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This process is designed to enhance privacy: all matching happens with hashed, non-reversible data, so Google never sees the raw personal information. By leveraging your own first-party data, Enhanced Conversions recover conversions that standard tags might miss (for example, when cookies are blocked) and feed these extra signals into Google’s measurement and bidding systems.
Benefits for Businesses
Using Enhanced Conversions offers multiple advantages for both eCommerce sites and lead-generation advertisers:
- More Accurate Conversion Tracking: Enhanced Conversions fills in gaps left by privacy restrictions. Google Ads support notes this feature “improve[s] the accuracy of your conversion measurement”.In practice, advertisers often see a lift in reported conversions because more user actions get matched back to campaigns. For example, one case study found a ~16% average increase in trackable leads after enabling Enhanced Conversions. More complete data means you understand campaign performance better.
- Better Campaign Optimization & ROI: The extra conversions from Enhanced Conversions feed Google’s AI and automated bidding. With more conversion signals, Smart Bidding can make smarter decisions, usually improving ROI and return on ad spend (ROAS).Google explicitly states that enhanced conversions “unlock more powerful bidding” by providing additional data. In other words, when Google’s algorithms see more conversions, they can optimize ads more effectively, yielding better results.
- Improved Audience and Remarketing: Because Enhanced Conversions match user data to Google accounts, you can use the hashed identifiers to build stronger remarketing or Customer Match lists. For example, the hashed email addresses can be used (with consent) to create more precise custom audiences. This means you can retarget users or show personalized ads based on first-party data, without compromising privacy. In short, Enhanced Conversions can make your audience targeting and remarketing more robust.
- Offline Lead Attribution: For lead-generation businesses (B2B services, real estate, etc.), Enhanced Conversions enable better offline tracking. By uploading hashed lead information from your CRM, Google can link offline sales or sign-ups back to the originating ad campaigns. This gives a clearer picture of which ads and keywords actually generate revenue, even if the final conversion happened offline or weeks later.
In summary, Enhanced Conversions “bridge the data gap” caused by cookie restrictions. They recover lost conversion signals, improve reporting accuracy, and help both eCommerce and lead-focused advertisers get more value from their Google Ads spend.
FAQs
What data is used in Enhanced Conversions?
Enhanced Conversions uses first-party customer data that you already collect on your site. This typically includes contact details provided at conversion, such as:
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
- First and last names
- Home or billing addresses
These user-provided data points are hashed (anonymized) on your site before being sent. Only the hashed values are sent to Google, ensuring privacy while still allowing Google to match conversions to user accounts.
Is Enhanced Conversions GDPR-compliant?
Yes – but with the usual caveats. Google designed Enhanced Conversions with GDPR in mind. The feature uses hashing to anonymize data (e.g. SHA-256) so that personal information is not exposed. Google also limits use of this data to conversion measurement, not ad personalization. However, under GDPR you must still obtain explicit user consent before collecting and sharing any personal data. Google’s policies require you to disclose in your privacy notice that you share customer data with Google for ad measurement and to obtain consent where required. In practice, you should use a compliant consent banner and ensure your privacy policy explains the use of Enhanced Conversions. When implemented with proper consent and Google’s EU User Consent policies (for example using Consent Mode in the EEA), Enhanced Conversions can be GDPR-compliant.
Do I need to change my existing tags?
Not necessarily – Enhanced Conversions is designed to supplement your current tags If you already use the Google site tag (gtag.js) or Google Tag Manager for conversion tracking, you generally do not need to replace them. Instead, you enable Enhanced Conversions in your Google Ads settings and configure the tag to send hashed data. In other words, the same tag fires on your conversion page, but now it includes additional code (or a GTM setting) to capture and hash first-party data. If you are using an older legacy AdWords snippet, Google recommends migrating to the newer global site tag or using GTM to support this feature. Once set up, your original tags continue to fire as before, with the enhancement of the extra data.
How do I know if Enhanced Conversions are working?
After enabling Enhanced Conversions, you can verify implementation in several ways. In Google Ads, check the Conversions section: click on a conversion action and expand the “Enhanced Conversions” details. Google will show a status (like “Excellent” or “Needs Attention”) and metrics for matched conversions. Google recommends using the Enhanced conversions diagnostics report to see if data is being sent successfully. Typically, wait ~48 hours after setup for data to appear. You should then see an increase in reported conversions or new entries under “Enhanced Conversions.”
As a more technical check, you can use Chrome’s Developer Tools on your site’s conversion page: open the Network tab and look for Google Ads requests (often containing parameters like tv.1~em. which indicate email hashes). If those hashed parameters are present in the request and Google Ads shows matched conversions in Diagnostics, your setup is working correctly. Google’s support documentation and tools help identify any implementation issues or data formatting problems.
