Spent 4 hours debugging a Google Ads conversion issue

I was trying to track phone calls from my ads last month and the numbers just wouldn't show up in the reports. Thought I had the Google tag set up right but turns out I forgot to add the call conversion action in the actual account settings. Took me about 4 hours of clicking around and watching YouTube tutorials to figure it out. The fix was literally one button click once I found it. Has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on something that simple?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthew_owens91mo ago

Dude that is literally every single Google Ads issue I've ever had (I swear they design it to be confusing on purpose). Four hours is rough but honestly that's just how it goes with their interface sometimes. The call tracking setup is especially bad though because there are like three different places you have to check and if you miss one nothing works. At least you found it eventually which is more than I can say for some of my past screwups.

nathan_bailey1mo ago

Three different places to check for call tracking sounds about right. Its like filling out a government form where one wrong box ruins the whole thing. I noticed this same pattern at the DMV last month where they made me submit the same document three times in different windows. Is there any system out there that actually lets you fix one setting and everything just works?