Overview
Google Ads needs conversion actions defined in its UI before campaigns can bid against them. Creating those manually across dozens of accounts or whenever a new event vocabulary ships is tedious and error-prone. AutoTag reads your project type, figures out which conversion events matter for that template (Purchase, Add to Cart, Begin Checkout, Lead, and so on), and creates them in the target Google Ads account over the API.
Once synced, the conversion labels Google returns for each action flow back into AutoTag and are injected into the GTM tags it generates. This means the browser-side conversion tags fire against the correct action IDs without anyone copy-pasting strings between Google Ads and GTM.
Enter your Customer ID
Your Google Ads Customer ID appears in the top-right corner of the Google Ads UI in the format 123-456-7890. Enter it into AutoTag without the dashes, as a plain 10-digit number. This is the account AutoTag will create conversion actions inside.
If you operate through a Manager Account (MCC), you need to provide both the MCC ID and the child account ID. AutoTag uses the MCC ID as the login-customer-id on API calls and the child ID as the target. Skipping this detail is the most common reason API calls fail with a permission error even though the credentials are valid.
Select project type
Choose the project type that matches your website: Olo.com White Label, Shopify, Thanx, Monkey Media, or Other. Each template ships with a curated list of conversion actions appropriate to that ecommerce stack, so a Shopify site gets events like Purchase and Add to Cart, while an Olo restaurant site picks up Begin Checkout and reservation events.
The project type also drives which event names the AutoTag GTM container ends up firing, so syncing the correct template is what ensures your GTM tags and Google Ads conversion actions line up. Picking the wrong template is easy to fix: change it and re-sync, and AutoTag reconciles the list.
Test the connection
Before saving, click Test Connection. AutoTag hits the Google Ads API with your credentials and returns the list of accessible accounts. If you entered an MCC ID, you'll see the child accounts underneath it. A failed test here is almost always a permissions issue: either the Google account tied to your TagPipes service connection is not linked to the Customer ID, or your MCC is not approved as a manager for the target account.
Resolve those permissions in Google Ads first, then re-test. Skipping the test and saving anyway just defers the same failure to sync time, and a partial sync is harder to clean up than a clean retry.
Sync conversion actions
Click Sync Goals. AutoTag iterates through the event list for your project type and calls the Google Ads API to create each conversion action. If an action with the same name already exists in the account, it is skipped rather than duplicated, so re-syncing is safe and idempotent.
As actions are created, Google returns tag_snippets containing the conversion label for each one. AutoTag extracts these labels and stores them against your project, which is what makes the browser-side GTM tags fire against the right action on the next container build. The sync results panel shows every action AutoTag touched along with its status.
Manager Accounts require the login-customer-id header, which AutoTag adds for you automatically when you supply the MCC ID. Conversion labels are pulled from the tag_snippets returned after creation and written back into your project config. Re-syncing is safe because existing actions with the same name are skipped rather than duplicated.
Troubleshooting
Test Connection fails with a permissions error
Your TagPipes Google service connection needs Google Ads read access on the target Customer ID. If you're targeting a client account through your agency MCC, confirm the MCC has been accepted as a manager in the client account and that your Google login has API access inside the MCC. A freshly-created MCC link can take a few minutes to propagate.
Sync reports "reserved group name" errors
Google Ads reserves certain conversion group names. AutoTag avoids these with unique naming, but if you manually created an action with a reserved name earlier, the sync will skip it. Rename the conflicting action in Google Ads or delete it, then re-sync.
Conversion labels missing from GTM tags after sync
If the sync reported success but the labels didn't land in your GTM tags, the AutoTag container needs to be rebuilt. Conversion labels are injected at container generation time. Go to the project's GTM tab and run a fresh sync to regenerate the tags with the new labels.