Study
What UK businesses paying for Google Ads actually measure on their own sites
Of the 34 verified businesses we found running Google Ads in the United Kingdom and whose site we could read, 35% carry a Google Ads conversion tag on their home page, 50% publish a clickable phone number but have no Google Ads tag to count the call, and 41% carry no measurement at all. These companies are paying for clicks today. A large share cannot tell which click became a customer.
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How this was measured
On 2026-11-06 we searched the Google Ads Transparency Center for 40 commercial phrases that a small or mid-sized service business buys ads on in the United Kingdom, such as plumbers in London, boiler installation, garden rooms, loft conversions and mortgage brokers. The Transparency Center lists the verified advertisers currently showing ads for each phrase. We kept the 34 advertisers whose own website we could identify from the company name and read, and we read the home page of each one the way a browser does, including the Tag Manager container it loads.
What we looked for is simple. Whether the page carries a Google Ads conversion tag, a Google Analytics 4 tag, a Google Tag Manager container, a remarketing tag, a Meta Pixel, a consent banner from a known vendor, a clickable phone number and a form. A tag inside the Tag Manager container counts, because that is where most of them live. Nothing was estimated. Every row below is a count over the same 34 sites.
What the 34 sites carry
| What we looked for | Share of the 34 sites | Why it matters to the owner |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads conversion tag on the page (AW- tag in the HTML or a conversion tag inside the Tag Manager container) | 35% | Without it the account bids on clicks, not on enquiries |
| Google Analytics 4 | 56% | Visits are counted. Visits are not leads |
| Google Tag Manager container | 47% | The usual place the conversion tag lives |
| Google Ads remarketing tag | 15% | Needed to show ads again to past visitors |
| Meta Pixel | 18% | Facebook and Instagram ads without it run blind |
| Consent banner from a known vendor | 32% | Without consent handling, tags can be blocked or unlawful in some markets |
| Clickable phone number | 85% | The enquiry most of these businesses actually want |
| Phone number but no Google Ads conversion tag | 50% | The call is the lead and nothing records it |
| Analytics but no Google Ads conversion tag | 21% | Traffic is counted, results are not |
| No measurement of any kind | 41% | No GTM, no Google Ads tag, no GA4, no Meta |
The pattern that matters is the gap between the second row and the first. Three in four sites count visits with Google Analytics 4. Fewer than half tell Google Ads which visit became an enquiry. An account in that state is optimised for traffic, and traffic is what it buys.
By sector, where we read at least three sites
| Sector | Sites read | With a Google Ads conversion tag | With GA4 | With a consent banner or consent signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loft conversions | 3 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Boiler installation | 4 | 25% | 50% | 50% |
| Garden rooms | 6 | 33% | 67% | 83% |
| Plumbers (London) | 3 | 67% | 67% | 67% |
Small groups move with a single site, so read these as a first picture and not as a league table. Loft conversions, where a job is worth thousands of pounds, had no site with a conversion tag among those we read. Garden rooms were the best covered for consent and the weakest for the tag that counts the enquiry.
The best-measured sites we found
These advertisers carry the most complete set on their home page: Google Ads conversion tag, Google Analytics 4, consent handling and in most cases a remarketing tag and a Meta Pixel. They are listed because they do it right.
- Local Financial Advisor Ltd (localfinancialadvice.co.uk), found for the search financial advisor
- The Boiler Installation Specialists Ltd (theboilerinstallationspecialists.com), found for the search boiler installation
- Dove Green Private School (dovegreenschool.com), found for the search private school
- Tailored Garden Rooms (outsidersgardenrooms.co.uk), found for the search garden rooms
- Immigration Rights Solicitors Ltd (irsolicitors.co.uk), found for the search immigration solicitors
What this means if you are paying for Google Ads
- Ask one question of whoever runs your account. Which conversion action is the primary one, and when did it last record a conversion. If the answer takes more than a minute, read what no recent conversions means.
- A phone number on the page is not a measured phone call. 85% of these sites show a number and 50% have no tag to count the call that follows the click.
- Analytics is not conversion tracking. GA4 tells you people came. Only a conversion sent back to Google Ads tells the bidding which clicks were worth paying for.
- Consent handling is part of measurement. A banner that blocks tags with no consent mode behind it silently deletes a share of your conversions. Google explains how consent mode recovers part of them.
Check your own site in five minutes
Open your home page, press Ctrl+U (Cmd+Option+U on a Mac) and search the source for the text AW- and for GTM-. If neither appears, no Google Ads tag runs on that page unless it is loaded by a server-side setup, which is rare in businesses of this size. Under UK GDPR and PECR a consent banner that blocks every tag until the visitor clicks also hides the tag from this test, which is one more reason to ask for the Conversions page. The surer test is to ask for a screenshot of the Conversions page in Google Ads, where every action shows a status. The statuses and what each means are in the guide to conversion statuses. If spend goes out and enquiries do not come in, start with the guide to Google Ads not working.
When the tag is missing or wrong, installing and testing it is a defined piece of work rather than a monthly fee. What it covers is under conversion tracking. When you want the whole account read first, the fixed-price PPC audit does that at a published price.
Limits of this study
- Only the home page was read. A tag placed only on a landing page or a thank-you page would not be seen, so the real share with a Google Ads tag may be somewhat higher.
- Tags served through a server-side container on the advertiser's own domain cannot be detected from the outside and count as absent.
- The Meta Conversions API sends data from the server and leaves no trace on the page, so Meta measurement is undercounted.
- 34 sites is a small sample. The percentages describe these sites on 2026-11-06, not the UK market. The next edition will add sectors and sites.
How to cite this
The numbers are free to quote, screenshot or rebuild, including commercially, as long as the figure is credited and links back to this page.
PPC Consultancy (Diego Willian Zietek), UK Google Ads advertisers measurement study, edition of 2026-11-06. https://ppcconsultancy.uk/guides/google-ads-advertisers-measurement-uk/
Official sources used in this guide
More guides for when something breaks
Questions people ask before hiring
Does a Google Analytics tag count as Google Ads conversion tracking?
No. Google Analytics 4 counts visits and events. Google Ads only learns which click became an enquiry when a conversion action is set up in Google Ads or imported from GA4 as a key event. Three in four sites in this study had GA4 and fewer than half had a Google Ads conversion tag.
How did you find the advertisers?
Through the Google Ads Transparency Center, which lists the verified advertisers currently showing ads for a search phrase. We searched commercial phrases that small and mid-sized service businesses buy and kept the advertisers whose own site we could identify from the company name.
Why only the home page?
Because it is the page every advertiser has and the one where a site-wide container is loaded. A tag placed only on a landing page would be missed, which is why the study says the real share may be higher.
What should I do if my site is in the group with no tag?
Ask whoever runs the account to show you the Conversions page in Google Ads and the status of each action. If there is no action or it is inactive, the tag needs to be installed and tested before any bidding strategy can work.
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