Help Needed: Google Ads Conversion Tracking Not Working Despite Proper Setup

[NJeon]

Hi everyone,

We’re facing a technical issue on our WordPress website and would really appreciate expert guidance.

Here’s the current situation:

GA4 is implemented, and the Google team has confirmed that tagging is correct. However, we occasionally still get the GA4 setup pop-up in the dashboard — not every day, but it shows up from time to time.

Cookie consent is also implemented, and verified to be working fine by the Google team.

Despite this, Google Ads conversion tracking is not working properly — it's either missing conversions or not attributing them correctly.

What’s confusing is:
Before cookie implementation, when tracking was more basic, Commence was showing conversions accurately with correct source attribution. Now, despite GA4 and cookies being “correct,” Ads tracking is not reliable.

If all three — GA4, cookies, and setup — are working as intended, where could the problem lie?

Has anyone experienced a similar issue? Would love to discuss and troubleshoot this further.

Thanks in advance!

[Sweely · Accepted solution]

The short answer is:

Your issue is a common scenario where the introduction of a cookie consent mechanism, despite being verified as technically correct, creates a race condition or delay that prevents the Google Ads conversion tag from firing with the necessary attribution data, such as the Google Click ID (gclid), leading to missing or incorrectly attributed conversions.

The transient GA4 setup pop-up further suggests an intermittent issue with the client-side tag execution.

The previously successful basic tracking likely benefited from not being blocked or delayed by the consent tool.

To achieve reliable, cookieless-resilient tracking, you need to transition to a server-side solution combined with API data transfer.

The long answer is:

It is extremely frustrating when you're told the setup is "correct" but the results are clearly wrong.

The fact that the Google Ads conversion tracking is unreliable, but was working before the cookie implementation, is the major clue.

The cookie consent mechanism, even a compliant one, fundamentally changes the timing and conditions under which your tracking tags are allowed to fire.

If the consent banner requires the user to click "Accept" before the GA4 configuration tag or the Google Ads conversion tag is allowed to fire, two main problems can occur.

First, the Google Click ID (gclid), which is essential for connecting the conversion back to the original ad click, might be lost or truncated if the user navigates away or if the page reloads before consent is granted and the tag fires.

Second, even with consent, there might be a subtle race condition where the conversion event (like a `purchase`) fires before the consent signal is processed and the Google Ads conversion tag is authorized to execute.

The occasional reappearance of the GA4 setup pop-up further indicates an unstable client-side environment where the GA4 tag is not consistently loading or executing correctly on every page view.

To move past this reliance on fragile client-side browser behavior, the superior solution is to implement a server-side tagging strategy using Google Tag Manager with a hosting provider like Stape or Google Cloud Platform, combined with API integrations.

This approach involves capturing the conversion event from the browser and sending it to your server-side container, which then securely forwards the data to Google Ads via the Google Ads API (specifically, for Enhanced Conversions) and to GA4 via the Measurement Protocol.

You can enhance this by using the HubSpot API to pull rich customer data that can be used to further validate and enrich the server-side conversion event, providing first-party identifiers for improved matching.

By using server-side tagging, you minimize reliance on the client-side browser, ensuring the conversion data, along with persistent identifiers like a hashed email, is sent reliably and accurately, even if the user has strict privacy settings or if the cookie consent mechanism causes a delay.

This creates a highly accurate, cookieless-resilient data stream that virtually eliminates the missing conversion and misattribution issues caused by browser-based consent challenges.

This comment was generated with the assistance of an AI tool, incorporating my expertise in conversion tracking 🙂

[Jaycee_Lewis]

Hey, @NJeon 👋 Thanks for your post. I don't have any WordPress words of wisdom for you, but hopefully a community member will have some related experience to share. — Jaycee