Conversion naming convention guide
Conversion action names are the labels your team reads when deciding where money goes, and after two years of undocumented additions most accounts have several actions whose names no longer say what they measure. The convention that survives encodes three things in the name — platform or property, the conversion type, and the source that produces it — so that anyone opening the account in a year can tell what an action is without asking the person who created it.
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Conversion naming · what breaks
Where teams get this wrong — Conversion naming
- 01
Names that describe the tag, not the conversion
GTM Tag 4 tells the next person nothing.
- 02
Duplicate names across accounts
Two actions called Purchase in different accounts, measuring different things.
- 03
Renaming without recording it
Historical reports become uninterpretable.
Conversion naming · the fix
What a correct implementation looks like — Conversion naming
A consistent pattern across all platforms
So the same conversion is recognisable everywhere.
The source encoded in the name
Web, server, offline import, call.
Deprecated actions marked, not deleted
History matters, and deletion loses it.
A record of renames with dates
So reports spanning the change can be read.
Conversion naming · architecture
The pattern — Conversion naming
Three components. Any consistent scheme works; this one has survived contact with real accounts.
- 1
Property or platform
Which site or account this belongs to. Essential in multi-property setups.
- 2
Conversion type
purchase, lead, booking, call, signup. From a fixed short vocabulary.
- 3
Source
web, server, offline, call. Says how the conversion arrives, which is what people most often need to know.
- 4
Optional qualifier
new-customer, qualified, attended. Where you split a type into meaningful variants.
- 5
Deprecation marker
A prefix or suffix on retired actions, so they're visible as retired rather than confusing.
Conversion naming · diagnose
Common mistakes and how to validate each — Conversion naming
Ordered by how often we find them. Each one has a specific check rather than a general instruction to be careful.
- 01
Names inherited from a template
Read your action list. Anything you can't explain in one sentence needs renaming.
- 02
Source omitted
Two actions called Purchase, one web and one offline import, is a genuine and common confusion.
- 03
Deleted rather than deprecated
Check whether historical reports still make sense. Deletion loses the history.
- 04
Renamed silently
Ask whether anyone recorded the date. Without it, any report spanning the change is unreadable.
- 05
Different conventions per platform
Compare your Google and Meta action names. If they don't correspond, cross-platform reporting is manual.
Conversion naming · prove
How to prove your implementation is right — Conversion naming
Against your own records and a live payload, not against a preview screen.
Source of truth
your own conversion action inventory across every platform
- A complete inventory of conversion actions across all platforms.
- Every name explainable in one sentence without tribal knowledge.
- Source encoded in every name.
- Renames and deprecations dated and recorded.
- Checked on a live conversion, not in preview mode.
- Reconciled over a fully closed window, matched per record.
- Re-checked 30 days later.
Conversion naming · free audit
What we check in the free audit
- Names inherited from a template
- Source omitted
- Deleted rather than deprecated
- Renamed silently
- Different conventions per platform
Checked against
your own conversion action inventory across every platform
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Conversion naming · when not to buy
What this reference deliberately leaves out — Conversion naming
Stated openly, because a reference that's silent about its own gaps is the dangerous kind.
- There's no universally correct scheme. What matters is that yours is documented and applied consistently.
- Platform naming constraints differ — character limits and permitted characters vary. Check before standardising.
- This is naming, not conversion action configuration, which is covered separately.
- Vendor documentation is the authority, not this page. Where the two disagree, the vendor is right and we'd like to know so we can correct it.
- Parameter names and behaviour change. Anything here is accurate as we last verified it; verify against the current documentation before you rely on it for a build.
Conversion naming · what we deliver
The checklist — Conversion naming
Every action name says what it measures
Without needing tribal knowledge.
The source is in the name
Web, server, offline, call.
No duplicate names within an account
And ideally none across the portfolio.
Deprecated actions are labelled
Rather than deleted or left ambiguous.
Renames are dated and recorded
Somewhere findable.
Pricing
Pick the package that fits your ad spend
Browser-side starter
$400One-time fee · lifetime ownership
Repairs and verifies your existing browser-side setup against this reference, on a live conversion.
- Implementation checked against the spec
- Verified on a live conversion
- Reconciled against your own records
- Written handover
1st-party server-side
Recommended$800One-time fee · most popular
Money events sent from your own records through a first-party container on your subdomain, built to this specification.
- First-party server container on your own subdomain
- Events from your records, not the browser
- Deduplicated on a shared event ID at every destination
- First-party cookies beyond Safari's 7-day cap
- 95%+ accuracy and 8+ Meta EMQ, guaranteed in writing
Full 1st-party stack
$1,800One-time fee · lifetime ownership
Every paid channel server-side plus the offline loop, documented to this standard.
- Everything in 1st-party server-side
- Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit and LinkedIn CAPI
- CRM and offline conversion loop
- Refunds and cancellations corrected wherever each platform allows it
- Monitoring so the next break surfaces in days
FAQ
Conversion naming questions, answered
Property, conversion type and source at minimum — enough that someone opening the account in a year knows what it measures without asking.
Mark them deprecated instead. Deleting loses the historical data and makes reports spanning the change unreadable.
Not the data, but it does break anyone's memory of what a report meant. Record the date so reports spanning the change can be interpreted.
Ideally yes. When Google and Meta actions correspond, cross-platform reporting stops being a manual mapping exercise.
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