Fireshift / Guides

Should a button click be a Google Ads conversion?

By the Fireshift team · Updated 2026-11-04

What 102 sites count on a click

On 4 Nov 2026 we fetched the homepage, /pricing, /signup and /demo of 349 B2B SaaS sites and read every public GTM container they load. 258 were left after removing sites with no public container and sister domains that serve the same containers. 225 had at least one Google Ads conversion tag. For every tag on a click trigger (GTM's Click trigger, or a custom event named like a click) we read the condition that picks the element: click text, link URL, CSS class or ID.

A site can sit in more than one row. On the median click site, a quarter of its Ads conversions fire on a click. On 5 sites every Ads conversion is a click. No site fired a conversion on every click with no condition at all: these are all deliberate setups, which is why they last for years.

The number matches our 449-site study from the same day, which found a click conversion on 45.1% of 235 Ads sites with a looser method and a partly different list.

Why most of these clicks are weak signals

A CTA click is a step before the lead

"Start free trial" opens a form. Some people fill it in, many don't. If the click is a conversion, Google Ads gets a conversion for everyone who looked at the form. If the form success is also tagged, the people who did sign up count twice: once for the click, once for the signup. If that click action is primary, Smart Bidding learns to find people who click buttons. Primary actions are the ones bidding uses (Google Ads Help: primary and secondary actions).

A submit button click fires on failed submits

14 sites fire the conversion when someone clicks the form's submit button. GTM's Click trigger fires on the click, whether or not the form went through, so an empty required field or a rejected work email still counts. GTM's Form Submission trigger has a Check Validation option that fires "only if the form is successfully sent"; unticked, it fires "whenever a user attempts to submit the form" (Tag Manager Help: form submission trigger). A Click trigger has no such option.

If your form is a HubSpot or Marketo embed, use the success event the form tool pushes to the dataLayer. In these containers we saw names like hubspot-form-success and mkto.form.success.

Login and "Continue with Google" are not new leads

11 sites fire on sign in, log in, or an OAuth button such as "Continue with Google", "Continue with GitHub" or "Continue with SSO". A login click is an existing user. An OAuth click on a signup page is the start of a signup that can still fail or be abandoned. Count the account created, which happens after the OAuth round trip.

Content clicks are interest, not demand

Download, watch and install clicks are fine to measure. As primary Ads goals they pull budget toward people who want the PDF.

Real triggers from the scan (anonymised)

AW-•••••••••/••••  Click - All Elements   Click Text contains "Start Free Trial"
AW-•••••••••/••••  Click - All Elements   Click Text contains "Book a Demo"
AW-•••••••••/••••  Click - Just Links     Click URL contains "app.•••••.com/signin"
AW-•••••••••/••••  Click - All Elements   Click Classes contains "mktoButton"
                                         and Page Path contains "/demo"
AW-•••••••••/••••  Click - All Elements   Click Text contains "Continue with Google"
AW-•••••••••/••••  Click - All Elements   Click Classes equals "btn-primary color-green w-button"

The last one is the 19.1% row. A class name like that is shared by many buttons on a site, so the conversion can fire on clicks nobody meant to count.

When a click conversion is fine

• Phone and email links. Google's own example for click conversions is "when someone clicks a phone number on your mobile website" (Google Ads Help: track clicks as conversions). The tap is the contact.
• A click out to where the sale happens, when you can't tag that place: a reseller, a marketplace listing, an app store. The click is the last thing you can see. Keep it, and make it primary only if it's the only signal you have.
• As secondary. Any of the clicks above is fine as a secondary action. It still shows in the All conversions column and doesn't steer bidding.

Google's help page also names a click on a "Buy now" button as an example. For SaaS, buying happens after a checkout, so count the checkout success.

Check your own site in 5 minutes

1. Open your site in Chrome, accept the cookie banner, open DevTools, Network, tick Preserve log, and filter on conversion.
2. Click your main CTA ("Book a demo", "Start free trial"). Don't fill in the form. If a request appears with label= in it, that CTA is a conversion.
3. On the form, click submit with the fields empty, so validation fails. A conversion request now means the tag fires on the button click, not on a sent form.
4. Click "Log in" and any "Continue with Google" button. Same test.
5. In GTM, open Tags, filter on "Google Ads Conversion Tracking" and read the trigger column. Any trigger of type Click - All Elements or Click - Just Links goes on your list.
6. Take the labels to Google Ads, Goals, Conversions, and check which are Primary. That is the part we can't see from outside.

How to fix it

1. Find the real step behind each click. A demo CTA leads to a demo form: count the form success. A trial CTA leads to a signup: count the account created, from the app or its welcome page.
2. Tag that step with the form tool's success event or GTM's Form Submission trigger with Check Validation on. Send a transaction ID if you can, so a repeat fire doesn't count twice (Google Ads Help: transaction ID).
3. Make the click action secondary, don't delete it. You keep the CTA click rate in reports.
4. Write down the last 30 days of Conversions before you change anything. The number will drop. That is the count getting honest, not the campaigns getting worse.
5. If a click and a form success share one trigger or both are primary for the same step, read duplicate conversions in GTM. For which actions should be primary at all, read primary vs secondary conversions.

Send this to your agency

If someone else runs your account, paste this:

Please check our Google Ads conversion actions:
1. Which actions fire on a Click trigger in GTM (All Elements or Just Links)?
2. Which of those are Primary in Goals, Conversions?
3. For each one, what is the step after the click (form sent, account
   created), and is that step tagged?
Proposal: keep clicks as secondary, count the sent form or created
account as primary.

What we can't see from outside

• Primary or secondary. A click action set to secondary doesn't steer bidding. The 45.3% is the share of sites where a click is set up as a conversion, not the share where it is bid on.
• What a class or ID points to. 43 sites only name the element by a CSS class, ID or custom event. Some of those may be real lead actions.
• Server-side tags, tags added by consent tools or non-Google loaders, and GA4 key events imported into Ads.
• Whether the button is on the page today. A trigger for a removed button never fires. We read the container, not a browser session.
• The sample is hand-picked B2B SaaS vendors plus sites from our own prospect list, skewed to larger companies. It is not random. Click targets are sorted by text patterns. We read a sample by hand, not all 353 click triggers.

FAQ

Should a "Book a demo" click be a Google Ads conversion?

Not a primary one. The click opens a form that many people don't send. Count the demo form success as primary and keep the click as secondary if you want to see it in reports.

Is a click on a phone number a valid conversion?

Yes. Google's own example for click conversions is a click on a phone number on a mobile site. The tap is the contact. We left phone and email links out of the 45.3%.

Our click conversion is set to secondary. Is that fine?

Yes, if it really is secondary: bidding ignores it and it only shows in All conversions. It takes 2 minutes to check in Goals, Conversions. We can't see that setting from outside, and one edit makes it primary again, so check it after every agency or account change.

Will removing click conversions drop my reported conversions?

Yes, if the click actions were primary. Conversions fall and cost per conversion rises, because the old number counted clicks that weren't leads. Smart Bidding needs a couple of weeks to relearn.

Can Fireshift see which of my conversions are primary?

No. Primary and secondary are set inside your Google Ads account. We show which conversions fire on a click and what the click is on. You check their status in Goals, Conversions.