Google Ads Overview: Video Excludes GA4 Imports

Google has added two things to the Overview page in Google Ads. Video impressions now appear in the Conversion paths card. A new “Performance by stage” card groups your results into Awareness, Consideration and Action.

It looks like a fuller picture of your funnel. For some accounts, it is not.

Google's own help page says the video data leaves out conversions imported from Google Analytics 4. If your account counts leads or sales through GA4 imports, the new view can look complete while it misses part of the story. This post explains what the card shows, where the gap is, and how to check your account in two minutes.

What the new Overview features show

Here is what Google's help page for the Overview page says, in Google's words.

On the Conversion paths card: “The Conversion paths overview card now includes video impressions in the conversion path analysis.” Google adds: “To differentiate video impressions from video views, video impressions are marked with an eye icon.”

The new “Performance by stage” card splits your metrics into three stages:

Awareness: impressions, CPM, frequency, unique reach and awareness lift.
Consideration: views, cost per view, video played to 100%, branded searches, search lift and view-through conversions.
Action: conversions, cost per action and conversion lift.

For a business that runs YouTube or Demand Gen alongside Search, this is a tidy summary. It puts upper-funnel activity next to the leads and sales you pay for.

One caution before you lean on it. A video impression in a conversion path shows that someone saw your ad before they converted. It does not prove the ad caused the conversion. Relevant Audience makes the same point in its write-up: impressions show exposure, not causation. If you need to know whether video caused conversions, Google's lift studies, which this card can show when they are set up, are the tool for that.

The gap Google states on its own help page

The key line sits on the same help page:

“For video events in conversion paths, video impressions are shown for web conversions but imported Google Analytics 4 conversions aren't included.”

There is a second rule for the stage card:

“For ‘Conversions’ and ‘Conversion Lift’, only biddable conversions are included.”

Put simply:

If a conversion is imported from GA4, it still appears in conversion paths, but you will not see video impressions in its path.
The Conversions figure in the stage card only counts biddable conversions. The help page does not define “biddable”. Elsewhere, Google says primary actions are reported in the “Conversions” column and used for bidding, as long as the goal they belong to is used for bidding. Secondary actions are “for observation only” and sit in “All conversions”. Custom goals are the exception: Google says actions in a custom goal are used for bidding “regardless of whether they're set as ‘primary’ or ‘secondary’”.

Google adds that your “Include in Conversions”, “Count” and cross-device settings also change the number you see in that report.

These rules can stack. Google says conversion actions created through the Google Analytics interface are set as secondary by default. So a GA4 conversion created from the Analytics side, and never switched to primary, would not count in the card's Conversions figure (unless it sits in a custom goal). And even if it is primary, its path will not show video impressions.

Google does not explain why GA4 imports are left out of the video data. It may be a technical limit of how imported data joins with ad exposure data. It may change later. For now, the help page is the rule to work from.

Why this matters for UK SMEs on GA4 imports

There are two common ways to count conversions in Google Ads. You can use a Google Ads conversion action fired by the Google tag on your website. Or you can import key events from GA4 into Google Ads.

In our audits, we see some accounts that rely on GA4 imports for their main lead or sale. It is a reasonable setup. One GA4 property feeds your reporting and your ads, and there is one less tag to manage.

The risk is not the import itself. The risk is reading the new Overview cards as if they apply to you when they only partly do.

Picture a hypothetical business running Search plus a YouTube campaign, with every lead counted through a GA4 import. The owner opens the Overview page and sees the Conversion paths card. No eye icons appear before the leads. The natural read is “nobody who converted saw our video, so the video is doing nothing”. That read may be wrong. The help page says imported GA4 conversions are not included in the video impression data. Absence of evidence here is not evidence of absence.

The reverse mistake is just as easy. An account with native web conversions sees plenty of eye icons and decides the video is driving leads. The card shows exposure, not cause. Either way, a budget decision made on the card alone can move money in the wrong direction.

This is the same pattern we cover in our Google Ads conversion tracking audit: the ads may be fine, but the measurement under them is incomplete.

The two-minute check: does the card apply to you?

You do not need a developer for this. You need access to the Google Ads account.

Before you start. If you do not see the Performance by stage card yet, that may simply be timing: Google has not said when every account gets it, or which campaign types are eligible.

Step 1. Find your conversion actions.
In Google Ads, open the Goals menu, then Conversions, then Summary, and look at the Goals tab. This lists your conversion actions and goals.

Step 2. Find out where each one comes from.
Hover over each conversion action. Google says the hover card shows the “Conversion source”, along with its value, window, count and attribution model. Note whether your main lead or sale comes from your website (the Google tag) or from Google Analytics.

If you prefer a report, go to the Campaigns table, click the segment icon, choose Conversions, then Conversion source. Google says GA conversions appear in the “Google Analytics” row.

Step 3. Check primary or secondary.
In the same Summary view, look at the Action optimisation column. It shows “Primary” or “Secondary (observe only)”. Primary actions in a goal used for bidding are biddable. Secondary actions are not, unless they sit in a custom goal. Only biddable conversions count in the stage card's Conversions figure.

Step 4. Check the status.
Look at the Status column. Google says “Misconfigured” means “Conversions have stopped recording entirely due to a setup error or a broken tag.” Other statuses, such as “Needs attention”, “No recent conversions” or “Inactive”, also deserve a look. Fix anything that is not “Active” before you read any card.

Step 5. Decide what the card means for you.

Main conversion is a native web conversion, set to primary, status Active: the card applies. Read it as exposure, not proof.
Main conversion is a GA4 import: the video impression data does not cover it. Do not judge video from the Conversion paths card.
Main conversion is secondary: it will not count in the stage card's Conversions figure, and unless it sits in a custom goal, it is not steering your bidding either. That second point matters more than the card.

If you work through these steps and the answers do not match what you expected, that gap is often where wasted spend hides. Our wasted spend analysis includes this check.

An agency observation: the UI can look normal when it is not

This one is from our own Google Ads account, not a client's.

In a recent audit of our own account, we found the primary lead conversion had not received a tag ping for over a week. The status column said “Misconfigured”. Everything else looked normal. Campaigns were serving. Clicks were coming in. The Overview page still showed charts.

Nobody had looked at the Status column. The dashboard did not shout about it. The only way to know was to check.

That is the point of this post. A new card on the Overview page draws the eye. The conversion actions underneath it decide whether the card means anything.

The wider lesson: a new card is not better data

Google adds reporting views often. Each one makes the account look more complete. None of them fixes what is under the hood.

The Performance by stage card is a useful summary. But it is built on the same conversion actions as everything else in the account. If those actions are imported, secondary, duplicated or broken, the card inherits the problem. It just shows it in a cleaner layout.

So before you trust a new card, ask three questions:

Which conversions feed it? Google tells you on the help page. Read the small print.
Are those conversions healthy? Check status, source and primary or secondary.
Would I change budget because of it? If yes, confirm the pattern somewhere else first: in GA4, in your CRM, or in your sales figures.

This is how we think about measurement more broadly. Platform reporting is one view, not the truth. Our media measurement framework sets out how to build numbers that marketing and finance can both trust. If consent settings could be thinning your data too, read our guide to Google Ads consent mode in the UK. If you run WooCommerce, our Site Kit conversion tracking check covers a related setup. For the other Google Ads changes since June, see Google Ads changes since June 2026: 11 questions answered.

Cutting wasted spend starts with measurement you can trust. A prettier dashboard does not give you that. A two-minute check of your conversion actions might.

Not sure what your account is really counting?

Our free Wasted Spend + Tracking Confidence Check looks at where your Google Ads budget goes and whether your tracking is strong enough to trust the numbers. That includes the conversion sources, primary and secondary settings and status checks in this post. When we manage accounts, we charge a flat fee, never a percentage of your spend, so we have no reason to tell you to spend more.

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Google Ads' Overview Page Now Shows Video Impressions in Conversion Paths, but Not for GA4 Imports. Check Yours in Two Minutes