Why don't Google Ads and GA4 report the same conversions?

They count different things by design — compare trends, not absolutes.

Because they count different things by design. Google Ads credits a conversion to the click date and applies its own attribution and conversion windows; GA4 credits the conversion date with its own model. Add consent-driven modeling and imported-versus-native events, and matching totals would be the surprise. Compare trends, not absolutes — and alert on divergence, not difference.

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