Enhanced conversions
Enhanced conversions is a Google Ads feature that improves conversion measurement by sending hashed first-party data, such as the email address or phone number a customer enters when they convert. Google matches it to signed-in Google Accounts that engaged with an ad, so it can credit conversions that cookies alone would miss.
How do enhanced conversions work?
When someone completes a purchase or form, the tag captures details they have entered, such as email address, name, home address or phone number. The data is hashed with SHA256, a one-way algorithm, before it is sent to Google. Google advises normalising it first: trimming spaces, converting to lower case and formatting phone numbers in E.164 format, with the country code.
Web or leads?
There are two versions, and the right one depends on where the sale happens.
- Enhanced conversions for web measures sales and events that happen on the website
- Enhanced conversions for leads measures offline sales that start as website leads, by matching hashed form data to conversions imported later from a CRM
Why it matters
Smart Bidding learns from the conversions it can see. When conversions go unrecorded because of cookie restrictions or switching devices, the system undervalues the searches that produced them. Enhanced conversions closes part of that gap.
It depends on consent. Google's EU user consent policy applies to users in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, and Consent Mode's ad_user_data signal controls whether user data can be sent to Google for advertising.
Example
A solar panel installer collects email addresses on its quote form, and most sales close by phone three to six weeks later. With enhanced conversions for leads, each signed contract is imported from the CRM and matched to the original form and ad click, so bidding learns which searches produce installations rather than enquiries.
Related terms
Further reading
Our Pay Per Click service puts this into practice for brands in the UK and US.
