WordPress sites and Google Ads conversion tracking: 45.5% count a click, page load or login
TL;DR. 137 of 301 WordPress sites (45.5%, 95% interval 40 to 51.2%) send Google Ads a conversion on a click, a page load or a login. The all-site figure is 50.8%, so WordPress sits inside the noise of the whole sample. One gap does show: 77.7% send no conversion value, against 68.8% of all sites. We saw the container, not the Ads account: a conversion we flag may be secondary and harmless to bidding.
What did the 301 WordPress sites send?
Share of WordPress sites with each pattern, next to all 886 sites in the study. A site can show several patterns, so rows overlap.
| Pattern | WordPress (n=301) | 95% interval | All sites (n=886) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any noise trigger | 45.5% 137 of 301 | 40 to 51.2% | 50.8% 450 of 886 |
| Button or link click | 28.9% 87 of 301 | 24.1 to 34.3% | 31.6% 280 of 886 |
| Page load (every page or a plain page view) | 23.9% 72 of 301 | 19.4 to 29% | 26.1% 231 of 886 |
| Duplicate conversions | 16.3% 49 of 301 | 12.5 to 20.9% | 20.5% 182 of 886 |
| Login counted | 5.0% 15 of 301 | 3 to 8.1% | 7.9% 70 of 886 |
| No conversion value on any action | 77.7% 234 of 301 | 72.7 to 82.1% | 68.8% 610 of 886 |
Intervals are Wilson 95%. Where the WordPress interval holds the all-site share, we can't say WordPress sites differ.
What does each pattern mean?
- Click. The conversion fires when someone presses a button or link, not when a form is accepted. It counts people who clicked and then failed to submit. Fix: button click conversions.
- Page load. The conversion fires on a page view of a page that is not a clear success page, or on every page. Fix: conversions on every page.
- Duplicate. The same label sits on two tags, or one trigger fires two labels. Fix: duplicate conversions in GTM.
- Login. A login or account page is a conversion. Fix: login and trial conversions.
- No value. No conversion sends a value, so value-based bidding has nothing to learn from. Fix: conversion value for lead gen.
What can't we see?
- Primary vs secondary lives in the Ads account. A click conversion set to secondary does not drive bids.
- Which plugin or tag manager created the tag. We read the public container. We make no claim about plugins.
- Server-side tags are not in the public container, so real rates are likely higher.
- Cause. Many sites share a platform and a setup habit. These are shares of what we saw, not proof that WordPress causes them. The sample is not random.
Method
Static HTTP read of the homepage, /pricing, /signup and /demo (robots.txt respected) and the public googletagmanager.com containers of 886 sites with a readable Google Ads conversion. A site counts as WordPress when the page source shows it; a site can carry two platforms, so platform rows overlap. No forms, logins or bot evasion. Full rules: method. All-site results: the study.
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