In this first article, we tackle Low Conversion Reconciliation – an issue that can completely undermine the effectiveness of your PPC efforts.
PPC marketing has become more advanced and data-driven than ever before. However, this sophistication comes with its own set of challenges. Many businesses are unknowingly making critical errors that hinder performance, waste budget, and ultimately harm revenue growth. In this series, we’ll uncover these mistakes, explain why they happen, and offer practical solutions to ensure your PPC campaigns are optimised for success.
What is it?
Conversion reconciliation refers to the process of ensuring that all valid conversions generated from your PPC campaigns are accurately tracked and attributed. When your campaigns are tracking fewer than 90% of actual conversions, you are suffering from low conversion reconciliation.
Why is it a problem?
Ad platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads rely on accurate conversion data to optimise bidding and targeting strategies. If your conversions are undercounted, you’re essentially starving the algorithm of critical data, leading to:
- Poor bid optimisation and inefficient budget allocation.
- Missed opportunities to scale high-performing campaigns.
- Underreporting of marketing performance, causing potential budget cuts.
- A skewed understanding of ROI and lead quality.
A campaign that seems like it’s underperforming may actually be bringing in valuable leads, but if the data isn’t there, the algorithm (and your decision-making) will be flawed.
Why does it happen?
Tracking conversions accurately in 2025 is more difficult than ever due to a variety of evolving digital and privacy challenges:
- Poor tracking implementation – Many brands still struggle with setting up Google Tag Manager (GTM) or server-side tracking correctly.
- Low consent opt-in rates – With GDPR and privacy laws becoming stricter, many users opt out of tracking cookies, leading to missing conversion data.
- Browser cookie limitations – Safari and Firefox actively block third-party tracking cookies, making it difficult to follow a customer’s journey.
- Messy consumer journeys – A user may interact with your brand across multiple platforms (website, mobile app, phone call, physical store), and if these aren’t stitched together, conversion data is lost.
How does this manifest?
Some common ways that low conversion reconciliation appears in PPC campaigns include:
Unoptimised cookie banners – If a user doesn’t consent to cookies, their conversion might not be tracked.
Multi-touchpoint conversion journeys – Users interacting via app, website, phone calls, and in-person visits may not be correctly attributed.
High proportions of Safari and Firefox users – Ad blockers and privacy features prevent cookies from tracking them, leading to lost conversions.
Lack of server-side tracking – Relying solely on client-side tracking leaves significant gaps in conversion data.
How to fix it
Fixing low conversion reconciliation requires a strategic and technical approach. Here’s how:
Measure the discrepancy
- Compare your PPC-reported conversions against your CRM data. If there’s a significant gap, you have a tracking issue.
- Check opt-in rates from your cookie banners. If they’re low, you’re missing a large chunk of conversion data.
- Cross-reference with Google Analytics or other analytics platforms to identify missing touchpoints.
Diagnose the problem
- Identify which factors are causing low reconciliation: browser limitations, opt-outs, or tracking gaps.
- If phone call leads are an issue, check if call tracking software is properly integrated.
- For businesses with offline conversions (e.g., in-store purchases), ensure that offline conversion tracking is in place.
Fix the tracking issues
Optimise cookie banners – Make opt-in messaging more user-friendly to encourage higher acceptance rates.
Implement server-side tracking – This reduces reliance on cookies and ensures data accuracy.
Use offline conversion tracking – Import offline sales and leads into Google Ads to give the algorithm a complete picture.
Ensure proper CRM integration – Sync CRM data with ad platforms to bridge the attribution gap.
Key takeaway
Ignoring conversion reconciliation can be one of the most expensive mistakes a PPC marketer makes. The good news? With the right measurement, diagnosis, and fixes, you can recover lost data, improve bid optimisation, and maximise the efficiency of your ad spend.
This is just the first of 7 PPC Deadly Sins that could be holding your lead generation campaigns back. Keep an eye out for the next article in the series, where we’ll discuss Poor CRM Integration Setup – a hidden data disaster that could be sabotaging your entire marketing funnel.
