Using page views as a “conversion” in Google Ads?

[Goldenface007]

You are right. Your agency sucks.

If youre running an awareness campaigns you should have awareness KPIs. Otherwise its just a cheap traffic campaign with extra steps.

[JediLevel]

I have seen this, but it’s usually in conjuction with actual conversion events. If this is your only conversions then that’s garbage.

Also if your GA4 account is connected you’ll probably be able to see how worthless that traffic actually is.

[blendai_jack]

Your instinct is right. Optimizing for a page view as a “conversion” tells Google to find the cheapest possible traffic that will load that page, which is the opposite of what you want from an awareness campaign. The algorithm doesn’t know “engaged user” vs “fast scroller who happens to land on the page,” it just knows the event fired.

What awareness campaigns should optimize for instead. If you genuinely want awareness (top of funnel reach), use brand awareness or reach as the objective and don’t try to track it as a conversion. If you want signal that traffic is engaged, optimize for a longer engagement event like 30-second-on-page, scroll past 50%, or 2-page-session. Those filter out drive-by clicks better than a raw page view.

The “filter out bots” framing is also weird. Bots can fire page view events same as humans. Real bot filtering happens at the IP and behaviour level, not at the conversion event level. If their concern is bot traffic, that needs a Cloudflare or reCAPTCHA layer, not a page view conversion.

Push back on this. Page-view conversions inflate the conversion column and let the agency point at a number, but you’re paying for empty traffic.

[whazza_what]

They are used but usually with a bigger goal, and often not the first page. It would be tied to some target page. Just a page view from an ad is kind of pointless.

[blendai_jack]

Your instinct’s right. Setting page-view as a Google Ads “conversion” tells smart bidding to optimize for the cheapest users that visit that page, which usually means low-intent placements, mobile filler traffic, and bots that survive the page load. The agency’s logic about “filtering bots” doesn’t really hold up, page views are the easiest metric for invalid traffic to inflate, not the hardest.

If they want awareness, run a Display or Demand Gen campaign with reach or impressions as the goal, and use page views or scroll depth as a secondary metric in GA4 not in Google Ads. Keep Google Ads conversion events for real business outcomes, lead form, qualified call, purchase. That’s what the bid algo should be optimizing toward.

If you can, push to mark the page view as “secondary” in Google Ads conversion settings. That keeps it visible for reporting without warping the bid strategy. Pretty common mistake honestly, agencies do it because the conversion column “looks good” on monthly reports.

[ppcwithyrv]

should be GA4 sessions which is 10 seconds and a page engagement.

[Web_Analytics]

You are right. I found few cases like this before. Using page view as the conversion goals, letting Google learn for the page view only rather than the main event. WHich will affect in the long run

[caramello-koala]

Might as well put a sign up saying welcome to my website bots, please come in

[Badiha]

I have but usually when the client can’t/doesn’t want to track anything else. Usually very small clients only looking for page views. So yeah, makes sense.

[Sea-Evidence-5523]

A page view is too weak to be treated like a true conversion because Google will just chase the cheapest, easiest traffic that can trigger it. Better to keep it as a secondary engagement metric, not something the algorithm optimizes toward.