Choose what Google Ads bids on

Only primary actions bid

In Google's words, primary actions are "reported in the 'Conversions' column in your reports and used for bidding as long as the standard goal they are part of is used for bidding."

Secondary actions "are for observation only". They are "used for reporting in the 'All conversions' column in your reports, but not for bidding". "The one exception is if the secondary action is part of a custom goal, in which case it's used for bidding."

Outside a custom goal, a campaign bids on an action only when both are true:

• "The conversion action must be set as Primary."
• "The campaign must use the goal that contains the conversion action for bidding."

One action per lead type

Connecting Google Ads is a Google sign-in and an account choice, with no IDs or labels to copy.

Sightwick then creates a conversion action in your account for each conversion type switched on for your ad platforms at that moment. Each is named after its label, such as Sightwick: Contact form. An enabled Sightwick action with that name is reused.

Whether a new action starts as primary or secondary depends on its Google category:

• The first Sightwick action in a category starts as primary, unless your account already has an enabled primary action there.
• Every further Sightwick action in that category starts as secondary.
• A page visit, Sightwick: Qualified lead and Sightwick: Deal won always start as secondary.

Some lead types share a goal

In Google Ads, conversion actions are "automatically grouped into conversion goals based on their conversion category type".

• Contact, demo and callback forms all go to Submit lead forms. At most one of them starts as primary, and you don't pick which. The others start as secondary, so they don't bid until you change that.
• Email clicks, WhatsApp clicks and chats share Contacts.
• Phone clicks, quote requests, booked meetings and orders each get a category of their own.

Your own lead action stays primary

Say your account already has a primary action in Submit lead forms, from your own Google tag. Then every Sightwick action in that category starts as secondary, and your own action stays primary. That is on purpose: the same lead is not reported by two primary actions in one goal. Here, secondary is a brake on double counting, not an extra bidding signal.

Orders work the same way. With a primary purchase action already in your account, Sightwick: Purchase starts as secondary.

Goals that had no primary action

Your tag may leave other categories empty. There, Sightwick's first action starts as primary, such as Sightwick: Email click, Sightwick: Phone click or Sightwick: File download. If every action is created, Send to Google Ads switches on at once.

Such an action bids in each campaign that uses its goal. Campaigns set to account-default goals use "all conversion goals marked as 'account-default'". Where it does not bid, it may still play a part: "Primary conversion actions not used for optimization may be used to enhance predictions." So on the day you connect, check in Goals which goals are account-default (step 4).

One lead, two goals

Sightwick looks for a primary action per category, not per lead. Say your own lead action sits in Contacts and Sightwick's contact form goes to Submit lead forms. Then both can be primary.

A campaign's Conversions column shows "the primary conversion actions your campaign optimizes toward". In a campaign that uses both goals, one lead can count twice.

You decide which actions bid

Where a Sightwick action starts as secondary, you have four options:

• Leave it secondary. It is "used for reporting in the 'All conversions' column", so you see that lead type on its own and can compare it with your own tag first.
• Make it primary, where no action of yours counts that lead type.
• Swap. Make the Sightwick action primary and your own action for that lead secondary. Do this only after a week in which the counts come close (step 7).
• Use a custom goal. You can "add any combination of primary and secondary conversion actions". Put one action per lead in it: yours or Sightwick's, not both.

Google warns that custom goals "are for advanced use and aren't recommended in most cases". There is a limit too: "You're only able to bid toward one custom goal per campaign".

Which leads reach Google Ads

• Sightwick can pass a lead on to Google Ads, when the visitor said yes to marketing and analytics.
• The lead also needs the ad click ID.
• By default, one conversion per visit goes to your ad platforms.
• So Sightwick's action can count fewer leads and orders than your tag. After a swap, the ones it missed drop out of your bidding.

Where to switch

In Google Ads: "Go to Summary housed in the Conversions drop-down in the Goals menu." "Click Edit goal." Under Conversion action optimization, "select either Primary or Secondary (observe only)."

Then give the change time: "Smart Bidding strategies require a standard 7-14 day learning phase".

Where it stops today

• Sightwick creates actions when you connect, and when you press Try again on its Google Ads screen.
• A conversion type that a later scan finds gets no Google action by itself. Connect after your first scan, or press Try again.
• The Qualified lead and Deal won actions come when you first mark a lead in Leads, with Google Ads connected.
• We make no promise about what this does to your bidding.

Keep one primary per lead

1. Let Sightwick's first scan finish.
2. In Sightwick, set any action you want out of all your ad platforms to "Not sent to ads". It then gets no Google Ads action, and stops counting as a conversion in Sightwick. To keep counting it, leave it and make its Google action secondary in step 5.
3. Connect Google Ads. Until Google verifies Sightwick's sign-in, it may show an "unverified app" screen first.
4. That same day, open Summary under Goals in Google Ads. See which Sightwick actions are primary in each goal.
5. Check which goals your campaigns use. Where a Sightwick action is now primary in a goal that had none, such as Sightwick: Email click, make it secondary unless it should bid.
6. Per lead type, keep one primary action in the goals your campaigns use: yours or Sightwick's.
7. For a week, compare Sightwick's actions under All conversions with your own action for the same lead. Swap only when the counts come close.
8. Change one goal at a time, and judge it after the learning phase.