The short answer
Most accounts report a form submission as the conversion, so the platform learns to find people who fill in forms. That is not the same as finding people who buy.
Sending the later outcome back, when you know it, is usually the single largest improvement available in a mature account.
Why it matters so much
| Optimising towards | What the platform finds |
|---|---|
| Form submissions | People who fill in forms, including time-wasters |
| Qualified leads | People who match your criteria |
| Closed sales | People who buy |
| Revenue value | People who buy more |
Each row down the table is a better target and a longer feedback loop. The practical choice is usually qualified leads, because closed sales may take months for a considered service.
What you need in place
- A click identifier captured with each enquiry and stored with it.
- A record of what happened to each enquiry: qualified, quoted, won, lost.
- A way to send that back, either by upload or through an API.
- Enough volume that the platform can learn from it.
- Consent covering the data you send back.
Point one is the part people miss. If the click identifier is not captured at the moment of submission, the lead cannot be matched back later and the whole approach is unavailable.
Capture the identifier properly
The click identifier arrives in the URL when someone lands from an ad. It needs storing with the enquiry, not just left in the browser, because the conversion is confirmed days or weeks later.
A hidden field populated from the landing URL and saved with the form submission is the usual approach, and it is a small piece of work with a large payoff.
Be realistic about volume
Platforms need a reasonable number of conversions to optimise. For a low-volume service business, sending back closed sales may produce too few events to be useful, and qualified leads is the better signal.
Pick the point in your funnel that has enough volume to learn from and is still correlated with revenue. That is usually earlier than you would like and later than a form fill.