Do I need conversion tracking to run Google Ads?

Yes — running Google Ads without conversion tracking means paying for clicks with no way to know which ones become customers. Google's bidding is machine learning: it optimizes toward whatever conversions it can see, and if it sees none, it optimizes toward clicks.

That gap compounds. Smart Bidding strategies like Maximize Conversions or Target ROAS literally cannot function without conversion data, so untracked accounts are locked out of the bidding tools that make modern Google Ads work.

Minimum viable setup: track form submissions and phone calls as conversions, import them into Google Ads, and confirm the numbers reconcile with what your CRM says actually happened.