Connecting your Google Ads account tells the CRM how to talk to Google Ads. It doesn't tell it when — that's a separate step called conversion mapping, done from Marketing → Conversion Actions, and skipping it is the single most common reason someone connects Google Ads correctly and then sees no conversions arrive at all.
Why this is a second, separate step
Google Ads doesn't have a generic "a sale happened" event — every conversion you report has to match a conversion action you've already defined inside your Google Ads account, with its own name, category and value settings. Your CRM's pipeline, meanwhile, has its own stages — Contacted, Qualified, Won, Lost, or whatever you've customised them to. Nothing in either system knows the other exists until you draw the line between them, stage by stage.
Step 1: Create the conversion action in Google Ads first
In Google Ads, go to Tools & Settings → Measurement → Conversions → New conversion action → Import → Other data sources or CRMs → Track conversions from clicks. Name it something that describes the outcome, not the mechanism — "Lead Won" or "Sale Closed" reads clearly a year from now; "CRM Conversion 1" does not. Set the conversion window generously — offline sales cycles are often weeks long, and a 30-day default window will silently miss a genuine sale that closed on day 35.
Once created, open the conversion action and copy its resource name — a string that
looks like customers/1234567890/conversionActions/987654321, usually visible in the URL or
the action's details panel. This is the one field in the next step that isn't self-explanatory: it is
Google's internal identifier for this exact conversion action, not its display name, and the CRM needs
the identifier to upload to the right place.
Step 2: Add the conversion action in the CRM
Back in the CRM, go to Marketing → Conversion Actions → Add action and fill in:
- Name — matching what you called it in Google Ads, so the two systems are easy to cross-reference later.
- Resource name — the identifier you copied above, pasted exactly.
- Category — leave as default unless Google Ads assigned a specific category (Purchase, Lead, etc.) to the action; match whatever it shows there.
- Default value and Currency code — optional. If every conversion of this type is worth roughly the same amount, set a default value here. A per-lead amount overrides it: the uploaded value comes from the lead's Budget custom field when that holds a number, and falls back to this default when it does not.
Save, and repeat for every distinct outcome you want Google Ads to know about — most companies need just one ("Won"), but nothing stops you creating more, for example separate actions for a qualified lead versus a closed sale.
Step 3: Map pipeline stages to conversion actions
Go to Marketing → Conversion Actions → Stage mapping. You'll see one row per pipeline stage you've defined, each with a dropdown. For any stage that should report to Google Ads — typically just your "Won" stage — pick the matching conversion action from the dropdown. Leave every other stage's dropdown on "None"; there is no requirement to map every stage, and mapping stages you don't want reported (like "Contacted") will send Google Ads a false signal about what actually constitutes a result.
Save. From this point on, moving a lead into a mapped stage triggers the upload automatically — nobody has to remember to do anything manually per lead.
Only map the stage that represents a genuine result. Google Ads' bidding algorithms learn from whatever you report as a conversion and optimise toward getting you more of it. Map "Contacted" instead of "Won" and you're training Google to find you more people who pick up the phone — not more people who buy. This single mistake quietly undoes the entire point of connecting the integration; see why Google Ads conversions don't match your sales for the fuller version of this problem.
Confirming it's actually working
Move a real (or test) lead into your mapped Won stage, then check Marketing → Google Ads Conversions in the CRM — a successful upload should appear there shortly after. In Google Ads itself, uploaded conversions can take up to a few hours to show against the campaign in reporting, even once the CRM confirms the upload succeeded; that lag is on Google's side, not a sign anything is broken.
If a lead moves into the mapped stage but nothing appears, the most likely causes are an expired or incorrect refresh token (see why your Google Ads refresh token keeps failing) or a lead that never carried a gclid to begin with — Google Ads can't credit a conversion to a click it has no record of. See what a gclid is and why it matters if you're not sure whether your leads are capturing one.