[simple10]

Google is notorious for over-reporting ad data for all sorts of reasons.

One super important thing to know is conversions could also be landing page views depending on how the ad account is setup. By default, Google will use any type of conversion configured in the ad account for displaying stats in the campaign. It's a bit tricky with Google Ads to configure a specific campaign to only report conversions as app installs, signups (leads), or sales.

Best practice is to mostly ignore the data reported in Google Ads dashboard (unless you really know what you're doing) and instead rely on your own metrics. Run multiple campaigns to different audiences and different landing pages to be able to more easily verify what's actually working. Fortunately, it's fairly easy -- although not straight forward -- to pipe Google Ads data into a Google Sheet and merge it with actual data from your website. I'm not sure how this works with pre-registration ads since I've never run that specific type of campaign.

[no_wizard]

This seems like it should be a lawsuit waiting to happen. If I was running ad spend through Google and they were giving me inflated reports routinely, its willful on part of the company, and feels like grounds for a lawsuit.

[mrguyorama]

The problem is that it's one of those things that to take it to court, you need some starting proof, but the entire system is designed to be opaque.

[simple10]

It's not necessarily inaccurate data from a legal perspective. But it's often unexpected data where it's getting reported in a less useful way in the dashboard.

And yes, there are almost always ongoing class action lawsuits agains major ad platforms for failing to properly filter out bots and click fraud. There's very little incentive for Google and Meta to do more than the bare minimum in fighting bots.