Track HubSpot Forms submissions as conversions in Google Ads

Setting up Google Ads campaigns is one thing. Knowing whether it's actually producing leads for your business is another problem entirely (getting conversion tracking right is a lot harder than it should be).

If you go the Google Tag Manager route, you are stuck writing custom code that listens for the right form event, then wiring up triggers, tags and variables until something finally fires.

And if you take the simpler path of just tracking visits to your thank you page, you can end up missing close to 30% of your real conversions, thanks to ad blockers, privacy protections in browsers like Safari, or leads who click your ad on their phone and then fill out the form later from a laptop.

So what actually works?

This guide walks through setting up reliable, server-side conversion tracking in Google Ads for every HubSpot form submission on your site.

Why server-side tracking matters for Google Ads

Getting your conversion tracking right is one of the biggest levers you have for Google Ads performance.

Smart bidding pulls in thousands of signals (where someone is, what they have bought before, what time of day it is, and plenty more) to figure out how likely a given visitor is to become a lead, then adjusts your bids up or down accordingly.

It's incredibly powerful, but it doesn't work without clean conversion data. Google needs to know, definitively, "this visitor converted, this one didn't" before it can start recognising the pattern of who your ideal lead actually is.

Here is the catch with most conversion setups (whether that is a thank you page pageview or a Google Tag Manager event). They all rely on the conversion happening, and being reported, from inside the visitor's own browser. That creates a few problems:

• Ad Blockers — If a visitor has an ad blocker running, the Google Tag never fires, so nothing about their visit gets reported back.
• Browser Privacy Rules — Safari and similar browsers cap how long they will let the Google Tag keep tracking someone (often just a day), so a lead who converts several days after clicking your ad can't be linked back to the original ad click.
• Cross Device Journeys — Someone might click your ad from their phone on the train, then come back and submit the HubSpot form from their laptop that evening, and there is no way to connect those two moments together.

Server side tracking solves this by skipping the browser entirely. Instead of hoping a tag fires inside the visitor's browser, you send the lead's details straight to Google's servers in a direct, private call, so ad blockers and privacy settings never get a chance to interfere.

The results speak for themselves. Google reports that businesses switching to server side conversions see an average 23% lift in recorded conversions, alongside a 10% drop in cost per conversion (since the algorithm finally has trustworthy data to optimise against).

3 simple steps to send server-side conversions to Google Ads from HubSpot Forms

Here is how to connect HubSpot Forms to Google Ads with server-side tracking, in 3 steps.

Step 1: Build your Conversion Flow in Converly

Converly gives you a straightforward way to push server-side conversions from HubSpot Forms into Google Ads.

The screenshot above shows Converly's workflow builder. If you have ever set up a Zap in Zapier or built a workflow in HubSpot itself, this will feel instantly familiar.

Pick your trigger first (a HubSpot form being submitted), then choose the action you want to follow it (sending a conversion to Google Ads).

Once those two pieces are in place, your server-side conversion tracking is live. There really isn't much more to it. No custom code, no complictaed setup in difficult tools like Google Tag Manager.

Step 2: Add the Converly code to your website

After you publish your Conversion Flow, Converly hands you a short code snippet to drop into your site.

Most website builders make this easy. On WordPress, Webflow or HubSpot's own CMS, you can usually paste it under a Header or Custom Code setting, or install it via a header/footer plugin. If you would rather manage it through Google Tag Manager, that option is available too.

Step 3: Test it works

Head to your website and submit the HubSpot form yourself to generate a test conversion.

Back in Converly, open your Conversion Flow, click the 3 dots menu in the top right corner, and select View Logs.

From the logs page, click into your test submission to see everything Converly captured about it, including whether Google Ads accepted it successfully.

You can drill in further still and see the exact payload sent to Google Ads, plus the response it sent back.

Once your test submission shows up in the log as successfully delivered, your conversion tracking is confirmed and working. The whole setup typically takes less than 5 minutes.

Why Converly is the best way to send conversions to Google Ads from HubSpot Forms

There is more than one way to get HubSpot form submissions into Google Ads as conversions, so why choose Converly? A few reasons stand out.

1. Easy to set up

Most people try to use Google Tag Manager to set up conversion tracking, but that means writing custom code to catch the form submission, pulling the lead's name and email out of it and pushing that into the DataLayer, hashing everything with SHA-256 the way Google requires, then building out the variables, triggers and tags to tie it all together.

Unless you already live and breathe Google Tag Manager, that is a serious time sink.

Converly skips all of it. You simply choose your trigger (a HubSpot form submission), choose your action (a Google Ads conversion), and you are done. No custom code, no complicated configuration.

2. Not affected by ad blockers and privacy restrictions

With Google Tag Manager, or a basic thank you page setup, a meaningful chunk of your real conversions never make it back to Google because ad blockers and privacy-focused browsers stop the tag from loading in the first place.

One study looking at over 7 million conversions found that tag based tracking missed around 30% of them. Roughly 5% came down to ad blockers, with the remaining 25% caused by browser-level privacy restrictions.

Converly avoids that entirely by sending conversions directly to Google's servers, so ad blockers and privacy browsers have nothing to block.

3. Works across devices

It is extremely common for someone to see your ad on one device and act on it from a different one later, clicking through on their phone during a commute, then filling out your HubSpot form from a desktop that night.

Browser-based tools like Google Tag Manager have no way to tie those two sessions together, since they happen on different devices.

Converly gets around this by sending identity details (name, email and so on) directly to Google's servers, giving Google what it needs to connect the later conversion back to that original ad click, so your campaigns get proper credit for the leads they actually generated.

4. Sends more data

Beyond basic contact details like name, email and phone, Converly also captures technical signals such as the GCLID, IP address and user agent, and passes all of it through to Google Ads.

That gives Google Ads a much richer profile to match against, so it can connect a conversion back to an ad click even if that click happened on a completely different device weeks earlier.

Ultimately, this means you get more accurate attribution and better data to work with inside Google Ads.

5. Supports multiple tools and platforms

Converly connects with more than 100 form builders, scheduling tools, chat widgets and similar platforms.

And on the delivery side, it can send conversions to Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Microsoft Ads and a long list of other destinations.

That means if you pick up a new tool down the line, or start advertising somewhere new, you are not rebuilding your tracking from scratch. Connect it inside Converly in a few clicks and you're set.

6. Gives you a full conversion log and email alerts

When you rely on Google Tag Manager to send conversions to Google Ads, you have no ongoing visibility into whether it is still working. You might test it thoroughly on day one, but if nobody revisits it every week, it can quietly break (a form field gets renamed, a tag gets edited, something shifts in Google Ads) and you would have no way of knowing.

Converly removes that blind spot. You get a complete conversion log covering every conversion that fired, exactly what data was captured, what got sent to Google Ads, and how Google Ads responded.

You can also switch on email alerts, either for every conversion sent or only when a send fails, so you find out the moment something breaks instead of months later.

3 things you can do when you properly send conversions to Google Ads from HubSpot Forms

Once accurate conversion tracking is flowing into Google Ads, a lot of new reporting and optimisation options open up.

1. Report on conversions by campaign, ad group, keyword, etc.

With real conversion data in place, your Google Ads account stops being limited to impressions and clicks. You get conversions, conversion rate, cost per conversion, return on ad spend, and more.

You can slice all of that by campaign, ad group, keyword, ad, or even country.

That level of detail makes it much easier to see how your campaigns are genuinely performing and where the real growth opportunities are hiding.

2. Use Google's Smart Bidding technology

Manual bidding has you setting a flat number, like "I'll pay up to $3 per click." But with smart bidding strategies, you tell Google your actual goal, like a target of $45 per conversion, and Google bids on your behalf in each auction.

Google weighs everything it knows about the searcher (age, location, device, past purchase behaviour) and decides how aggressively to bid based on how likely they are to convert.

It's super powerful, but only works if the conversion data feeding it is accurate. Without it, Google has no real signal for what a good lead looks like for your business, and tends to overspend chasing the wrong audience.

Setting up accurate, server-side conversion tracking with Converly means Google's smart bidding actually has something worth learning from, so you get more leads at a lower cost.

3. Retarget people who visited your site but didn't convert

Accurate conversion data also lets you build remarketing lists made up of visitors who came to your site but never converted.

From there, you have a few ways to bring those people back:

• Search — Adjust your bids (higher or lower) specifically for this audience the next time they search your keywords.
• Display — Run display ads across Google's Display Network aimed squarely at these visitors, keeping your brand visible as they browse elsewhere.
• YouTube — Target this same group with YouTube Ads so they keep seeing your brand while watching video content.

Wrap Up

If you want every HubSpot form submission on your website to show up as an accurate conversion in Google Ads, Converly is a great way to make that happen.

Conversions get sent straight to Google's servers, so ad blockers and privacy-focused browsers never get in the way, and Converly passes along rich lead data (name, email, phone, IP address, user agent and more) so Google has everything it needs to match the conversion back to the original ad click.

It only takes a few minutes to set up, and comes with a 14-day free trial, so give it a try today!