Google’s Ads Help page “Set up Conversion Lift based on users” now lists Search and Performance Max among its supported campaign types. Trade press reads that as self-serve access, yet the first line of the page still reads “Conversion Lift isn’t available for all Google Ads accounts. To use Conversion Lift, contact your Google account representative.” The detail that matters for results: the entry bar counts only observed conversions, while the headline iROAS or iCPA can blend in modeled ones.
What Changed on the Help Page
An archived copy of the same Google Ads Help article from 22 April covered Video, Discovery and Demand Gen, and told advertisers interested in “Display, Search, Shopping, or Performance Max campaigns” to “reach out to your Google account representative for more information.” The current copy lists “Display, Search, Video, Demand Gen, App Campaigns and Performance Max campaigns,” with a note that iOS-targeted app campaigns and Travel Ads aren’t supported. When each edit landed between April and October is not known.
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable wrote on 8 October that advertisers “no longer need a Google Ads representative.” PPC News Feed described “self-serve access for Search and Performance Max campaigns” a day earlier. No Google announcement turned up in our check. The opening rep line is still on the page; a second one, under “Before you begin,” now covers “new campaign types in alpha or beta phase.” Shopping, named in April’s rep-only list, does not appear in the current supported list; the page says nothing about why.
What Is Conversion Lift Based on Users?
Google’s help page says “Conversion Lift measures the incremental number of conversions, site visits, and any other action directly driven by your ad.” Advertisers set a holdback between 1% and 50%, and the report focuses on either incremental conversions with incremental cost per action (iCPA) or incremental conversion value with incremental return on ad spend (iROAS). A campaign can sit in only one study at a time, whether Brand Lift, Search Lift or Conversion Lift.
The Entry Bar Counts Less Than the Result Shows
To open a study an account needs at least 1,000 observed conversions, and the page is blunt about what falls outside the count: “Conversions with supplementary data don’t count towards the minimum required conversions.” A minimum campaign budget of $5,000 USD applies as well; the page doesn’t say whether that is daily or total. The account also needs at least one conversion action compatible with Conversion Lift. Google’s FAQ says most advertisers run about 1–2 studies per year.
The result is a different matter. The page says Conversion Lift “now uses statistical modeling to enable measurement for conversion types that were previously unmeasurable, like store sales and offline leads,” and lists store visits and sales plus app conversions as the sources. Supplementary conversions enter a study when the advertiser selects the conversion actions marked with a “warning” icon in the conversion type picker. In the Summary and Overall tabs, the iROAS or iCPA values “include both observed incrementality and supplementary conversion.” For eligible Demand Gen-only studies the report also includes projected cool-down conversions by default. That cool-down rule is not stated for Search or Performance Max.
Reading the Number Before Moving Budget
Attribution is the number most teams already know: tagged sessions and credited conversions in analytics, which depend on consistent campaign tagging, including clean UTM-tagged campaign URLs. Lift is a separate study result, and it is the one that can carry modeled conversions inside its headline figure. Three checks follow from the page itself:
- Open the “Conversion goal” tab, which shows results by category and a separate section for supplementary conversions. In eligible Demand Gen-only studies, the results tooltip or reporting dashboard shows results without the cool-down projection.
- Run the study for 14 days or more. Google reports up to a 17% drop in Absolute Lift in studies with a long conversion lag that run shorter.
- Fix tracking before launch. The “Ensuring data strength” section recommends enhanced conversions, consent mode, advanced consent mode and Google tag gateway; our note on Google’s Data Strength Uplift metric and its four differently footnoted percentages covers the related claims.
Diagnostics run during setup, and an advertiser can save a study regardless of warning severity. Google recommends resolving the gaps anyway. The page states no pricing, regions or rollout dates, so an account that clears 1,000 observed conversions and $5,000 should still check the opening representative line before planning around a launch.
