Repairing a Google Ads conversion action that had never received data

A conversion action that had never fired

Before this engagement, askMLRO had a Google Ads conversion action ("Submit lead form") already configured — but Google Ads itself flagged it as "Conversion has never received data." It relied on a hardcoded snippet on the site that was never correctly wired to the current form. No GA4 property was connected at all; only the base Google Ads tag existed.

The scope was to measure the two actions that actually matter for a compliance-advisory lead funnel: opening the enquiry form or call-booking page, and completing a submission — end to end, verifiably, without touching what was already working.

Building the funnel in GTM, deliberately

Four triggers were built: two for engagement (a click trigger matched on the "Send an enquiry" button text, and a click trigger matched on the /contact-us URL for "Book a Call"), and two for actual conversions (form-submission triggers matched on stable Form IDs rather than button copy, so tracking survives future wording changes).

Engagement and conversion were deliberately kept as separate trigger pairs rather than one broad trigger, so "someone opened the form" and "someone submitted it" are never conflated in reporting. A GA4 base tag plus two custom events — form_or_call_launched and form_or_call_completed — now cover the full funnel, firing on the click and submit triggers respectively.

The pre-existing Google Ads tag and Conversion Linker were left untouched; the only addition was a new tag wired to the existing conversion action's original Conversion ID and Label, so the original setup was repaired rather than replaced or duplicated.

• 4 GTM triggers: 2 click, 2 form submission
• 2 new GA4 custom events covering open → complete
• Existing Google Ads conversion action repaired, not duplicated
• Matched on stable Form IDs and URLs, not button text alone

What was verified, and what is still pending

Every trigger was tested in GTM Preview mode against live clicks and submissions before the container was published — the enquiry form popup, the Book a Call button, both form-submission triggers, both new GA4 events, and the Google Ads conversion tag all fired correctly, with zero misfires across every test.

What this case study does not claim: real-traffic conversion counts. Preview-mode testing confirms the setup is wired correctly, but it does not generate genuine GA4 or Google Ads data — that requires actual site visitors, and screenshots of live GA4 Realtime events and real Google Ads conversion counts were still pending at the time of writing, once enough traffic had passed through the repaired funnel.