Active Duplicate Conversions
Two or more similarly named Google Ads conversion actions are both recording live volume. Settings-level duplicates are risky in theory; active duplicates prove the problem is affecting reports right now. The usual cause is one event firing under two action names, a renamed action whose tag still runs, or a GA4 import that mirrors a site-tag action. Totals are inflated and Smart Bidding is training on duplicated outcomes.
Why It Matters
Settings duplicates are risky, but active duplicates prove the problem is affecting reports now. Similar actions with volume can represent the same event firing under two names, a renamed conversion that still receives traffic, or an import plus tag pair counting together. This inflates totals and trains bidding on duplicated outcomes.
How To Fix It
Compare the flagged pairs by name, source, category, and recent timestamps. Keep one canonical conversion action, merge reporting expectations around it, and mark the duplicate Secondary or remove its tag/import. After changing it, watch both conversion count and conversion value for the next reporting period.
Example
Purchase - Website: 312 conversions
Purchase Website: 298 conversions
Likely same event counted twiceThis Google Ads account contains pairs of conversion actions with very similar names that both record active volume across the reporting period. Per Google Ads conversion tracking documentation, each conversion action is intended to represent a distinct user outcome, and active volume on near-duplicate actions strongly indicates the same event being counted through two paths (for example, a website tag plus a GA4 import for the same purchase, or two GTM tags listening to the same dataLayer event). The downstream effects are inflated conversion totals, Smart Bidding optimising against duplicated volume, and ROAS that diverges from backend revenue. Fix: compare the flagged pairs by source, category, and timestamps, keep one canonical conversion action per outcome, mark the duplicate Removed or Secondary, and verify in Tag Assistant that only one conversion request fires per real user outcome before publishing. Source: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/3438531.
Drop this paragraph into your client deliverable. Sources back to the canonical platform documentation linked below.
References
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