How to Track Micro-Conversions in Google Ads (And When You Shouldn't)

What Is a Micro-Conversion?

A micro-conversion is a user action that indicates intent or engagement but does not directly represent your primary business goal. Examples include: viewing a pricing page, downloading a PDF guide, clicking a phone number, watching 75% of a video, opening a chat widget, or subscribing to a newsletter.

Tracking these well can enrich your Google Ads conversion tracking data and improve audience building. Tracking them incorrectly can silently destroy your bidding performance.

The Right Way to Use Micro-Conversions

The critical setting: micro-conversions must be set as secondary conversions in Google Ads — not primary. This means they appear in the "All Conversions" column for reporting but do NOT appear in the "Conversions" column that Smart Bidding uses to make bid decisions.

If you set a micro-conversion as primary, Smart Bidding sees it as equally important as your actual lead form submission or purchase. It will optimise for the easiest-to-generate action — pricing page visits are far more common than lead submissions — and your budget will flow to low-intent queries that generate lots of page views but few actual customers.

To set a conversion as secondary: Tools and Settings then Conversions then select the action then Edit settings then set "Include in Conversions" to No.

Micro-Conversions Worth Tracking

• Pricing page visit: high-intent signal for remarketing audiences
• Contact page visit: indicates purchase consideration
• Chat widget open: strong intent signal, especially for service businesses
• Phone number click: near-conversion signal (some become macro if they answer)
• Scroll depth 75%+ on key pages: engagement quality signal
• PDF/case study download: research-stage intent
• Video view 75%+: sustained attention signal

Micro-Conversions to Avoid

• Any page view: too broad, includes bounces and irrelevant visits
• Session start or first page view: fires too frequently, no intent signal
• Scroll depth under 50%: most users scroll this far on any page
• Outbound link clicks: often irrelevant (social icons, footer links)
• Time on site under 30 seconds: low quality signal

Using Micro-Conversions for Audiences

Even as secondary conversions, micro-conversion events can be used to build high-value remarketing audiences. A visitor who viewed your pricing page and watched a product demo video is a much warmer prospect than an average visitor. You can create a Google Tag Manager-triggered audience in GA4 based on these actions and sync it to Google Ads for remarketing.

Summary

Track micro-conversions as secondary — never primary. Use them for audience building and funnel visibility. Keep primary conversions reserved for your highest-value, most reliable macro actions.

See our Google Ads Conversion Tracking service for professional setup.

Need help configuring your conversion actions correctly? Contact Adslytics.