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Cloudbeds answers · Google Ads

Why does Google Ads miss hotel bookings made weeks after the ad click?

By Giuseppe Gaspari, founder. Updated October 2026.

Fifteen-plus years running paid search and conversion tracking for tourism and lodging operators. Full bio

The short answer

Often because the conversion window closed. Google Ads' default click-through window is 30 days. A guest who clicked in March and booked five weeks later is outside it and isn't counted in Google Ads. For an imported GA4 key event the window follows the GA4 lookback setting, which defaults to 90 days. Keep it there, or set a native Google Ads action to 90.

Why

A 30-day window only counts bookings made within 30 days of the ad click. Any guest who takes longer is missed. Google Ads Help says the click-through window defaults to 30 days and can be set from 1 to 90 for Search. For conversions imported from Google Analytics, the same page says the change has to be made in Google Analytics. That is the key event lookback window under Admin, Attribution settings: 30, 60 or 90 days.

What to set

  1. 1

    GA4 Admin, Attribution settings, Lookback window, other key events: 90 days.

  2. 2

    Channels eligible for credit: Google paid channels, so the import is comparable to what a native tag would report.

  3. 3

    If you ever add a native Google Ads conversion action instead, set its click-through window to 90 days when you create it.

Read step 6 of the full guide

Sources

Related answers.

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