If the tracking counts the wrong thing, counts it twice or misses it, the platform optimises toward the error, and the report looks fine while it does. These are the checks to run on Google Ads, Meta and Microsoft Ads, in order.
Decide what counts
- One primary conversion for each real outcome: a qualified enquiry, a booking, a sale.
- Softer actions, such as a brochure download or a page view, set as secondary in Google Ads so they are reported but not bid toward.
- The same definition used on every platform, so their reports can be compared.
Check each conversion fires once
- Submit a real test enquiry and confirm exactly one conversion appears in each platform.
- Refresh the thank-you page and confirm the count does not rise again.
- If Meta receives the same event from both the Pixel and the Conversions API, send the same event ID with both so Meta can remove the duplicate.
Pass the visitor's consent choice to the tags
- Under the UK's PECR rules, advertising cookies need the visitor's consent before they are set. For analytics cookies, check the ICO's current guidance, because the rules have been changing.
- If you use Google tags, consent mode passes the banner's choice to them. Google's two advertising signals are ad_user_data, consent to send user data to Google for advertising, and ad_personalization, consent to personalised advertising.
- Basic consent mode keeps Google's tags from loading until the visitor chooses; advanced consent mode loads them with consent denied by default and adjusts once the visitor chooses.
- If you run Microsoft Ads in the UK, EEA or Switzerland, Microsoft has required UET Consent Mode since May 2025.
Keep the click ID with the enquiry
- Google Ads auto-tagging switched on, so each click carries a GCLID, Google's click identifier, in the landing page address.
- No redirect on the landing page that strips the address's query string, which is where the click ID travels.
- The form or CRM storing the click ID (GCLID for Google, MSCLKID for Microsoft, fbclid for Meta) alongside each enquiry, so a later sale can be matched to the click that started it.
Add enhanced conversions and offline sales
- Enhanced conversions in Google Ads send a hashed copy of first-party data, such as the email address the customer typed, with the conversion so Google can match it more completely. They depend on ad_user_data consent being granted.
- Where an enquiry becomes a sale weeks later, import the sale back into Google Ads and Microsoft Ads against the stored click ID, so bidding learns from sales and not just form fills.
- For Meta, send the same outcome through the Conversions API from your server or CRM.
Decide whether you need server-side tagging
- Server-side tagging moves tag processing from the visitor's browser to a server you control, hosted yourself or by a provider such as Stape.
- It gives more control over what data leaves the site and can reduce what browser restrictions take out.
- It is not a substitute for consent: the visitor's choice still governs what is sent.
Reconcile every month
- Compare each platform's conversions with the enquiries or sales in your own system for the same period.
- Treat a sudden drop in conversions with flat spend and clicks as a tracking break to investigate, not as a collapse in performance.
- Log every change to tags, forms or consent settings with its date, so a change in counting is never read as a change in results.