The Google tag loaded. The conversions did not.

For a local electrical business, a phone link is an important route from a visit to a potential job. I connected those links, including the floating mobile call button, to GA4 and Google Ads.

A loaded script was misleading evidence

During verification, the Google tag loaded successfully and consent had been granted. Events still did not reach the reports. Checking that the script existed would have missed the failure.

I traced the problem to the event queue. A code cleanup had changed the shape of the values passed to the tag. The result looked like ordinary JavaScript but no longer matched what the consumer expected.

I repaired the queue and checked the next steps on the live site: the call-click event appearing in GA4 and the outgoing Google Ads conversion request. Each observation established a different part of delivery.

Transmission, attribution and a customer are separate outcomes

An outgoing request shows that the site sent an event. An event in GA4 shows receipt there. Neither, on its own, establishes that Google Ads attributed a conversion to a particular ad.

Even a correctly attributed phone-link click does not prove that the call connected, that someone answered or that the business won a job. The click measures an attempt to begin contact. Treating it as revenue would make the reporting more confident than the evidence.

I included the phone link's position in the event so the owner could compare where visitors start contact. I also documented how to distinguish website activity from ad-attributed conversions. Consent handling includes a way to change the choice later; advertising personalization remains disabled.

The handoff included the meaning of the numbers

The owner needed reports they could use when discussing advertising. That meant explaining where the measurement ends and where evidence from calls and completed jobs must take over.

The technical repair made events visible. The interpretation kept those events from becoming claims about sales the tracking had never observed.