The HonestTag conversion actions in your Google Ads account
By the HonestTag team ยท Published August 23, 2026
When you connect Google Ads on a paid plan (on the free Mirror, when you move to one), HonestTag creates a small set of conversion actions in the ad account you select, all named HonestTag_* so you always know which are ours. They receive your store's verified conversions, they are secondary by default so they do not change your bidding unless you promote them or add them to a custom conversion goal, and they are the only things in your account HonestTag ever creates or edits.
What a conversion action is, and why we create our own
A conversion action is the bucket in Google Ads that conversion events land in. Google's own tag fills its buckets with what Google believes happened. HonestTag creates separate buckets and fills them with what your store recorded: real orders, matched to real ad clicks, with per-order proof. Keeping them separate means you can compare Google's claims and your store's truth in the same interface, and nothing HonestTag does contaminates your existing measurement, unless you choose, from the app's setup screen, to send purchases into an existing action of your own instead; even then, HonestTag never changes that action's settings.
Every HonestTag action is created as a click-conversion upload action (API type UPLOAD_CLICKS). Data reaches it only through server-side delivery from your store; no Google tag is involved.
The actions HonestTag creates
| Name | What it counts |
|---|---|
HonestTag_Purchase | Every attributed purchase |
HonestTag_Purchase_NC | Purchases by new customers |
HonestTag_Purchase_RC | Purchases by returning customers |
HonestTag_Purchase_FCNC | Purchases by new customers whose first recorded ad click was a Google click |
HonestTag_AddToCart | Add-to-cart events |
HonestTag_BeginCheckout | Checkout starts |
HonestTag_AddPaymentInfo | Payment details entered at checkout |
Why there are several purchase actions
Google's bidding optimizes toward whichever conversion action you point a campaign at. One undifferentiated purchase bucket forces every campaign to chase every order, including repeat orders that would have happened anyway. Splitting purchases into new-customer, returning-customer, and first-click-new-customer variants lets you point an acquisition campaign at HonestTag_Purchase_NC or HonestTag_Purchase_FCNC and a retention campaign at HonestTag_Purchase_RC, each optimizing against the outcome you actually want from it.
A single order can appear in more than one action (a new-customer order lands in HonestTag_Purchase and HonestTag_Purchase_NC, and in HonestTag_Purchase_FCNC when the first click was Google's). That is by design. HonestTag sends the order id as transactionId; Google uses a unique transaction ID to minimize duplicate conversions (Google Ads Help). Each action is a separate lens on the same orders, not an addition to the others. Do not sum HonestTag actions together.
Which goal to bid on
- Prospecting: bid on
HonestTag_Purchase_FCNC. UseHonestTag_Purchase_NCinstead if FCNC volume is too low. - Retargeting, DPA/catalog, and Demand Gen: bid on
HonestTag_Purchase_NC. - Retention, aimed at existing customers: bid on
HonestTag_Purchase_RC.
Keep exactly one of these as a campaign's primary (bidding) goal. A campaign promoted to bid on two of them counts the same order twice.
Secondary by default: they do not change your bidding unless you choose
Every action HonestTag creates is set as a secondary action (in API terms, primaryForGoal: false). Secondary actions record and report but are not used for bidding, except by a campaign whose custom conversion goal you add them to (Google Ads Help: "The one exception is if the secondary action is part of a custom goal, in which case it's used for bidding."). If you want a campaign to optimize on a HonestTag action, you promote it yourself in the Google Ads UI. HonestTag never makes that change for you.
From the app's setup screen you can choose instead to send purchases into an existing conversion action you already have, rather than a new HonestTag one ("Send purchases into an existing conversion action instead"). That action keeps whatever bidding role it already had, including primary, so if it already feeds Smart Bidding, your purchases now feed that campaign too; that is the point of choosing it. HonestTag never changes the action's settings, category, or bidding role, and you can switch back to HonestTag's own default action at any time. See Connect Google Ads.
Values, currency, and renames
Actions are created in your ad account's own currency. Each delivered order carries its real value and currency; a default value of 1 exists only so a value-less event does not read as worthless in reports. If you rename a HonestTag action in Google Ads, nothing breaks: HonestTag addresses actions by their permanent Google identifier, not by name, so delivery continues to the same action and its history is never split into a duplicate.
Refunds correct the record
When you refund an order, HonestTag sends a conversion adjustment to every action that order was reported to: a full refund retracts the conversion, a partial refund restates it to the post-refund value. Your Google Ads numbers follow your store's reality in both directions.
One reporting quirk worth knowing
Google reports uploaded conversions on the impression date of the original click, not the date of the upload request or the conversion timestamp. If you look at "Today" or "This month" and the click happened earlier, the conversion will not be in that range. Widen the date range to cover the click date before concluding something is missing.
What HonestTag will and will not touch
- Will: create the
HonestTag_*actions above, deliver conversions and refund adjustments into them (or, for purchases, into an existing conversion action you choose instead), and mark them removed when you disconnect. - Will not: create, edit, or pause campaigns, ad groups, ads, or budgets; modify or delete any conversion action HonestTag did not create; change which actions your campaigns bid on.
What happens when you disconnect
On disconnect or uninstall, HonestTag marks its conversion actions removed in your account. Google keeps their history visible to you, but they leave your active lists and can no longer affect anything. HonestTag also revokes its own access; the details are on the connection page.