Google Data Manager API and Enhanced Conversions for Leads: What Changed in 2026

If you send leads or closed deals from your CRM back to Google Ads, 2026 brought a quiet but important change: since June 15, 2026, the Google Ads API no longer accepts new integrations for offline conversions - including enhanced conversions for leads. The new primary interface is the Data Manager API. At the same time, Google simplified the enhanced conversions settings.

This article explains what the Data Manager API is, what changed for advertisers and tools, how enhanced conversions for leads work and which data you need to prepare correctly. As of October 2026.

Key points

• The Data Manager API has been generally available since December 2025. It sends conversions and audience data to Google Ads and other Google products.
• Since June 15, 2026, it's the primary interface for offline conversions. New integrations via the Google Ads API are rejected.
• Existing integrations can keep running for now. Google hasn't published a shutdown date.
• Enhanced conversions for leads attribute deals from your CRM to an ad even without a gclid, using a hashed email address or phone number.
• Since June 2026, enhanced conversions have one shared setting for web and leads.
• If you use a tracking tool, the change mostly affects you indirectly: the vendor has to switch interfaces, not you.

What is the Google Data Manager API?

The Data Manager API lets businesses and tools send their own data to Google once and use it across several ad products. Google made it generally available on December 9, 2025 (Google Ads Developer Blog). At launch, it could:

• Import conversions for Google Ads: offline conversions and enhanced conversions for leads.
• Upload audiences for Google Ads and Display & Video 360, such as Customer Match.
• Optionally encrypt the data in transit.

Since May 2026, store sales, more GA4 events and Google Marketing Platform destinations have been added (Google Ads Developer Blog).

Don't confuse it with Data Manager in the Google Ads interface under Tools > Data manager. That's where you connect sources like HubSpot, Google Sheets or BigQuery without code. The API builds on the same system but is aimed at developers and tools.

What changed in 2026

Sources: Google Ads API deprecations, Google Ads Developer Blog, Google Ads Help.

The key distinction is between new and existing integrations. According to Google, anyone who was already using the Google Ads API for offline conversions before the change can continue while they migrate to the Data Manager API. Google describes this as a transition. There's no fixed end date yet. Dates like "March 2027" circulating in some blogs don't appear in any Google source we found.

Who is affected? Mainly developers and tools that upload conversions via API. If you import offline conversions by CSV, through the Data Manager connections in Google Ads or only via the Google tag, you don't need to rebuild anything.

Enhanced conversions: web and leads

Enhanced conversions add hashed customer data such as an email address or phone number to conversions. Google matches this data with signed-in Google accounts that saw or clicked an ad. That way, conversions get attributed that would otherwise be lost, for example because of missing cookies or device switches.

There are two variants:

• Enhanced conversions for web: The Google tag sends the hashed data directly with the conversion on the website, for example after a purchase.
• Enhanced conversions for leads: The Google tag captures the hashed email or phone number when the form is submitted. When the lead later becomes a customer in your CRM, you upload that conversion with the same hashed data. Google connects the two and attributes the deal to the original ad (Google Ads Help).

For lead generation, the second variant is the interesting one: the real value isn't created at the form but weeks later when the deal closes. With enhanced conversions for leads, Google learns which keywords and ads bring real customers and can bid accordingly, for example with value-based bidding.

What about the gclid?

The gclid still matters. Google recommends always sending it when you have it. The hashed customer data covers the cases where the gclid is missing or lost. Without a Google tag that captures customer data on the website, the gclid is actually required. Our guide to UTMs and click IDs explains how to store the gclid and other click IDs reliably.

For iOS traffic, Google sometimes uses gbraid or wbraid instead of the gclid. The Data Manager API accepts these IDs as well.

How enhanced conversions for leads work

1. Turn on the setting

   In Google Ads, go to Goals > Settings > Customer data use, turn on enhanced conversions and accept the customer data terms.

2. Capture customer data in the form

   The Google tag captures the email address or phone number when the lead form is submitted and sends it to Google hashed.

3. Store the lead in your CRM

   Email, phone number and, if available, gclid, gbraid or wbraid are stored with the lead.

4. Upload conversions

   When the lead qualifies or becomes a customer, the conversion goes to an import-type conversion action with the same customer data. Google recommends daily uploads.

5. Check diagnostics

   The enhanced conversions diagnostics report in Google Ads shows whether the data arrives and gets matched.

Mind the time limits: enhanced conversions for leads must be uploaded within 63 days, gclid imports within 90 days of the click (Google Ads Help). With long sales cycles, it's worth sending intermediate steps like "qualified lead" as well, not just the final deal.

Prepare the data correctly

As with Meta, every character counts: Google compares hashes, and a single space or uppercase letter produces a completely different hash. The rules according to the Data Manager documentation:

Email:   " John.Smith@Gmail.com "  →  "johnsmith@gmail.com"
Email:   "Info@Company.com"        →  "info@company.com"
Phone:   "(415) 555-0123"          →  "+14155550123"
Name:    "Dr. Anna Miller"         →  "anna" / "miller"

• Email: lowercase, remove all spaces. Only for gmail.com and googlemail.com, also remove dots before the @ and everything after a "+".
• Phone number: in international E.164 format with a "+" and country code. Note: Meta expects the number without the "+". Using the same normalization for both platforms costs you matches.
• Names: lowercase, without titles or suffixes.
• Hashing: SHA-256, as a hex or Base64 value. Zip code and country aren't hashed.

How to prepare the same data for Meta is covered in our guide to Meta Event Match Quality.

Consent: no consent signal, no attribution

For users in the EEA, Google expects two consent signals with every uploaded conversion: ad_user_data (may user data be sent to Google for advertising?) and ad_personalization (may it be used for personalized advertising?). On the website, these signals come from Consent Mode v2 in your consent banner. When uploading, they're sent per conversion or per request.

Google is clear about it: if the signals are missing, conversions may not be attributed. Which data you may share with Google depends on your consent setup and privacy policy. Check with your data protection advisor.

Common mistakes

• Unnormalized data: Uppercase letters, spaces or phone numbers without a country code prevent matching.
• Duplicate conversions: Without a unique transaction ID, the same deal gets counted multiple times. Always use the same ID per deal, including for later adjustments.
• Late uploads: Anything arriving after 63 or 90 days is discarded.
• Wrong conversion action: Enhanced conversions for leads need an import-type conversion action in the right Google Ads account.
• Missing consent signals: especially for users in the EEA.
• One bad record stops everything: The Data Manager API rejects the whole request if one event is invalid. The Google Ads API used to skip invalid entries individually.

What to do now

1. Ask your tracking vendor or development team which interface sends your conversions to Google and what the plan for the Data Manager API looks like.
2. Check the enhanced conversions setting in Google Ads and accept the customer data terms if you haven't yet.
3. Capture email and phone number in your lead forms and store gclid, gbraid and wbraid with the lead.
4. Send consent signals that match your Consent Mode v2 setup.
5. Upload daily with stable transaction IDs and check the diagnostics report regularly.

What this changes for your metrics is covered in our guide to measuring real ROAS in lead generation: only once deals and revenue reach Google does the algorithm optimize for customers instead of form fills.

How LeadMetrics helps

LeadMetrics sends conversions server-side to Google Ads via the Conversion API:

• Leads, purchases and won deals: You decide per project which LeadMetrics event arrives as which Google Ads conversion - including deals that close weeks later in your CRM, for example in HubSpot.
• gclid and customer data: Every conversion includes the gclid and, if available, the SHA-256 hashed email address and phone number. Email addresses are lowercased and cleaned first; for Gmail addresses, dots before the @ are removed too.
• Value and currency for purchases and won deals, so Google can optimize for revenue.
• Log per lead: For each lead, you see which events were sent to Google.

The LeadMetrics tracking script captures the gclid on the first visit and attaches it to the lead via session ID, email or phone number up to 90 days back. That keeps the connection to the ad intact even when the deal closes much later in your CRM. More on this in From CRM Lead to Real Conversion.