Enhanced Conversions
Tracking & AttributionDefinition
Enhanced Conversions is a Google Ads feature that sends hashed first-party data (such as an email or phone number a customer entered) alongside the standard conversion tag. Google uses it to match conversions to signed-in users when cookies are missing or blocked, recovering attribution that browser restrictions would otherwise lose.
Standard conversion tracking depends on a cookie set at click time. When that cookie is blocked, deleted, or never set (Safari's ITP, ad blockers, cross-device journeys, no-consent traffic), the conversion still happens but Google cannot tie it back to the click. Enhanced Conversions fills that gap. When a user completes a purchase or submits a form, the data they typed (email, phone, name, address) is hashed in the browser using SHA-256, an irreversible one-way process, before it ever leaves the page. Google compares those hashes against its own logged-in user data and, where they match, credits the conversion to the right ad click.
Two flavours exist. Enhanced Conversions for web improves your online conversion accuracy and is the version most advertisers run. Enhanced Conversions for leads is built for the GCLID-free, CRM-driven world: it lets you upload conversions later using the same hashed email instead of a click ID, which is useful when a GCLID was not captured. Because only hashed values are sent and the raw data never reaches Google, the feature is designed to work within consent and privacy frameworks, but it still requires a proper consent basis and accurate disclosure to be used lawfully.
You enable Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads at the conversion-action level, then provide the user-entered data to Google in one of three ways: through the Google tag, through Google Tag Manager (mapping fields like email and phone to the tag), or via the API. The data is hashed with SHA-256 in the browser, so Google only ever receives the scrambled version. Google then matches the hash to signed-in account data and attributes the conversion. Setup through GTM is the most common route because it lets you point the tag at the right form fields without touching site code.
Every conversion Google cannot see is a conversion Smart Bidding cannot learn from. As third-party cookies fade and consent rules tighten, the share of unobserved conversions grows, which quietly starves your bidding of signal and inflates your apparent cost per acquisition. Enhanced Conversions typically recovers a meaningful slice of that lost data, often a few percent up to double digits depending on the account, which sharpens bidding and makes your reported numbers closer to reality. It has become a baseline setup step, not an optional extra.
Example
A user clicks an ad on their phone but converts later on a desktop where the original cookie is absent. Standard tracking misses it; Enhanced Conversions matches the hashed email from checkout to the signed-in user and credits the click.
A lead form submission on a Safari browser blocks the conversion cookie. The hashed email is sent instead, Google matches it, and the conversion is recovered so target CPA bidding still sees the result.
Related Terms
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Frequently Asked Questions
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It is designed to be: user data is hashed irreversibly in the browser and Google never receives the raw values. That said, you still need a valid consent basis and clear disclosure in your privacy policy, so treat it as a feature that supports compliance rather than one that grants it automatically.
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Enhanced Conversions for web improves online conversion measurement using data on your site. Enhanced Conversions for leads lets you import offline conversions later using a hashed email instead of a GCLID, which suits CRM-driven lead-gen where a click ID was not captured.
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No, they extend it. You keep your normal conversion tags running, and Enhanced Conversions adds hashed first-party data on top to recover the conversions that cookie-based tracking would otherwise lose.
Recover the conversions cookies miss
We set up Enhanced Conversions correctly, hashing, consent and field mapping, so Smart Bidding sees more real results and your reporting reflects reality.