The era of easy tracking is over. Between browser restrictions like ITP, the death of third-party cookies, and the rise of ad blockers, relying solely on traditional pixel-based tracking is a recipe for data loss. If you are running Google Ads today without enhanced conversions, you are likely under-reporting your success and forcing Google’s bidding algorithms to work with one hand tied behind their back.

For digital marketing agencies and e-commerce leaders, the difference between “good” and “great” performance often comes down to data quality. Enhanced conversions are no longer just an optional beta feature; they are a critical component of a robust, privacy-centric measurement strategy.

This guide will walk you through exactly what enhanced conversions are, how to check if you have them, and the step-by-step process to enable them using Google Tag Manager (GTM).

What Enhanced Conversions Does

At its core, enhanced conversions is a feature that improves the accuracy of your conversion measurement by supplementing existing conversion tags with hashed first-party data from your website.

Here is the problem it solves: When a user clicks your ad but converts on a different device or browser (or uses an ad blocker), the traditional cookie connection is often broken. Google Ads can’t “see” that the click led to the sale.

Enhanced conversions bridges this gap.

When a customer completes a conversion on your site (like purchasing a product or filling out a lead form), you likely collect first-party customer data such as an email address, name, home address, or phone number.

With enhanced conversions enabled:

1. Capture: Your tag captures this first-party data.
2. Hash: The data is hashed (anonymized) using the SHA256 algorithm before it leaves your website to ensure privacy and compliance.
3. Match: This hashed data is sent to Google and matched against signed-in Google accounts.
4. Attribute: If a match is found, the conversion is attributed to the ad interaction, even if the cookie was lost.

Key Takeaway: Enhanced conversions allow you to recover “lost” conversions, giving Smart Bidding more data points to optimize your campaigns effectively.

How to Check If It’s Enabled

Before you start configuring tags, you need to verify the status of enhanced conversions in your Google Ads account. Many advertisers think they have enabled it because they accepted the Terms of Service, but haven’t actually configured the data pipeline.

Follow these steps to check your status:

1. Log in to your Google Ads account.
2. Navigate to Goals > Conversions > Summary.
3. Click on the specific conversion action you want to check (e.g., “Purchase” or “Submit Lead Form”).
4. Look at the Settings tab at the bottom of the details page.
5. Expand the Enhanced conversions section.

Status Check:

• Unchecked: The feature is completely disabled.
• Checked but “Diagnostics” shows issues: You have turned it on, but data isn’t flowing correctly.
• “Recording” status: Data is being received and processed successfully.

If the box isn’t checked, or if you see a warning that no data is being received, you need to proceed with the setup below.

Setup via Google Tag Manager (GTM)

While you can set this up via the Google Tag (gtag.js) directly on the page, we strongly recommend using Google Tag Manager. It offers better governance, easier debugging, and doesn’t require hard-coding changes to your website templates.

Step 1: Enable Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads

First, tell Google Ads to expect the data.

1. Go back to the Enhanced conversions section in your Conversion Settings (as described above).
2. Check the box “Turn on enhanced conversions.”
3. Select Google Tag Manager as your method.
4. Click Save.

Step 2: Create the User-Provided Data Variable in GTM

You need a variable that scrapes the user’s email, phone, or address from the page (usually from the “Thank You” page data layer).

1. Open your GTM container.
2. Go to Variables > New > User-Provided Data.
3. Type: Select “Manual Configuration” (unless you have a pre-formatted code variable).
4. Map your fields:
   • Email: Select your Data Layer Variable that contains the user’s email (e.g., dlv - customerEmail).
   • Phone: Select the variable for the phone number.
   • Address info: Map name, city, state, and zip if available.
5. Note on Formatting: Ensure your data layer variables return clean data. Emails should be lowercase; phone numbers should include country codes (e.g., +15551234567).
6. Name the variable UPD - User Provided Data and save.

Step 3: Update Your Google Ads Conversion Tag

Now, connect that data to your conversion tag.

1. Go to Tags and open your existing Google Ads Conversion Tracking tag.
2. Check the box labeled Include user-provided data from your website.
3. In the dropdown that appears, select the UPD - User Provided Data variable you just created.
4. Save the tag.

Key Takeaway: You do not need to hash the data yourself in GTM. The “User-Provided Data” variable handles the SHA256 hashing automatically before sending it to Google.

Verifying It’s Working

Never assume your setup works just because you clicked “Publish.” You must verify that the data is being hashed and sent correctly.

Method 1: Google Tag Manager Preview Mode

1. Click Preview in GTM and load your website.
2. Complete a test conversion (fill out a form or make a purchase).
3. In the Tag Assistant debug window, click on the Google Ads Conversion Tag that fired.
4. Check the “Request” tab. You should see a parameter labeled em (for email).
5. Validation: The value for em should look like a long string of random characters (e.g., tvr98...). This confirms the data was successfully hashed. If you see the actual email address, something is wrong.

Method 2: Google Ads Diagnostics

After 24-48 hours, check the Google Ads interface again.

1. Go to your Conversion Action settings.
2. Click on Diagnostics.
3. Google will verify if they are receiving enhanced conversion data and give you a “Health Check” status.
4. Look for the status “Recording (processing enhanced conversions).”

Expected Impact on Conversion Data

What happens after you flip the switch? You won’t see an overnight explosion in numbers, but you will see a gradual “lift” as the system learns.

1. Recovery of “Lost” Conversions You will likely see an increase in reported conversions, specifically cross-device and view-through conversions. Industry benchmarks often show a 5% to 17% lift in conversion rates for Search and YouTube campaigns respectively after enabling this feature.

2. Smarter Bidding Because Smart Bidding (Target CPA, Target ROAS) relies on conversion data to train its models, feeding it higher-quality data improves its predictions. Even if the total conversion count only rises slightly, the quality of the attribution improves, allowing the algorithm to bid more aggressively on high-value users.

3. Future-Proofing As third-party cookies are fully deprecated in Chrome, enhanced conversions will shift from being a “performance booster” to a “measurement necessity.” Implementing this now builds up your historical data, ensuring your campaigns don’t crash when browser tracking tightens further.

Key Takeaway: The ROI of enhanced conversions isn’t just in the recovered data today—it’s in the stability of your measurement strategy tomorrow.

Conclusion

Enabling enhanced conversions is one of the highest-leverage activities you can perform in your Google Ads account today. It costs nothing but time to set up, yet it directly combats signal loss and improves the efficiency of your ad spend.

Don’t let your data evaporate due to browser restrictions. Take control of your first-party data pipeline and give your campaigns the clarity they deserve.

Need help setting this up? We do it for clients weekly. Get Your TagPipes Audit