Google Ads Integration

ScaleUp connects to your Google Ads account using Google's official OAuth 2.0 authentication flow. When you click the connect button in the ScaleUp app, you are redirected to Google's sign-in page where you authorize ScaleUp to manage conversion actions on your behalf. Your Google password is never shared with ScaleUp — only a scoped access token is exchanged.

The OAuth token grants ScaleUp only the specific permissions it needs: reading account information and managing conversion actions. It cannot access your billing, change your campaign settings, modify your ads, or adjust your budgets. If you ever want to revoke access, you can do so from your Google account security settings or by uninstalling the app.

ScaleUp supports connecting multiple Google Ads accounts from a single Shopify store. This is common for merchants who run separate accounts for different markets, brands, or campaign types. Each account goes through the same secure OAuth flow and gets its own set of conversion actions.

Once you connect your Google Ads account, ScaleUp automatically creates the conversion actions needed for proper tracking. This includes a primary purchase conversion action (used for Smart Bidding optimization) and supporting actions for add-to-cart, checkout initiation, and page view events.

Each conversion action is configured with the correct category, counting method, attribution window, and value settings. The purchase action is set to count every conversion (since each purchase is a unique transaction), while micro-conversion actions like add-to-cart are configured appropriately to avoid inflating conversion counts.

ScaleUp also enables Enhanced Conversions on the purchase conversion action automatically. This means hashed first-party customer data (email, phone, address) is sent alongside every purchase event, recovering 15-20% of conversions that cookie-based tracking misses. There is no separate setup step for Enhanced Conversions — it is part of the standard integration.

ScaleUp tracks four key events across the entire shopping journey, giving Google Ads visibility into every stage of the conversion funnel. This is critical for Smart Bidding algorithms that use micro-conversion signals to identify high-intent shoppers before they purchase.

The page_view event fires on every storefront page, providing the broadest audience signal. The add_to_cart event captures product interest and intent, including which specific product, variant, and quantity were added. The begin_checkout event signals high purchase intent as the customer enters the checkout flow. The purchase event records the completed transaction with full order details including transaction ID, revenue, tax, shipping, and item-level product data.

Each event is sent to Google Ads with the appropriate conversion value. Purchase events carry the actual order total. Micro-conversion events (add-to-cart, begin checkout) can be configured with estimated values based on your average conversion rate, or sent as zero-value events that serve purely as bidding signals.

This full-funnel approach is especially valuable for Performance Max and Smart Shopping campaigns, where Google's algorithms need rich behavioral data to identify which audiences and placements drive the best results at every stage of the funnel.

Duplicate conversions are one of the most common and costly tracking errors in Google Ads. They happen when a customer refreshes the thank-you page, revisits their order confirmation via email, or when multiple tracking methods fire for the same purchase. Duplicate conversions inflate your reported ROAS, skew Smart Bidding decisions, and make it impossible to trust your data.

ScaleUp prevents duplicates by attaching Shopify's unique order ID as the transaction ID on every purchase conversion event. Google Ads uses this transaction ID as a deduplication key — if it receives a second conversion event with the same transaction ID within the attribution window, it discards the duplicate.

This deduplication is automatic and requires no configuration. Every purchase event sent by ScaleUp includes the Shopify order number, ensuring that even if the Web Pixel fires multiple times for the same order (for example, due to page refreshes or checkout retries), Google Ads only counts the conversion once.

Google Consent Mode v2 is required for advertisers targeting users in the European Economic Area (EEA). It ensures that Google Ads tracking respects the consent choices visitors make through your cookie consent banner. Without Consent Mode, Google may restrict your ability to run remarketing and use audience features in the EEA.

ScaleUp implements Consent Mode v2 with support for all four consent signals: ad_storage (controls whether advertising cookies can be set), analytics_storage (controls whether analytics cookies can be set), ad_user_data (controls whether user data can be sent to Google for advertising), and ad_personalization (controls whether data can be used for ad personalization).

When a visitor has not yet interacted with your consent banner, ScaleUp sends the default consent state you configure. Once the visitor makes a choice, ScaleUp updates the consent signals in real time. If consent is denied, Google Ads switches to conversion modeling — using aggregated, anonymized data to estimate conversions without setting cookies or processing personal data.

ScaleUp integrates with Shopify's built-in consent management as well as popular third-party consent management platforms. The consent state is read automatically from Shopify's Customer Privacy API, so there is no manual consent mapping to configure.