Google Ads is introducing a new metric, Data Strength Uplift, that helps advertisers estimate how many additional conversions the system was able to account for by using their first-party data. Google unveiled the metric on September 10, 2026, and confirmed its rollout in the October Demand Gen update. It offers a new way to assess measurement quality, rather than a separate metric of advertising profitability.
Key Takeaways
- Data Strength Uplift estimates additional conversions accounted for through first-party data setup.
- Google announced the metric on September 10 and reported its rollout in Google Ads on October 13, 2026.
- An official interface example shows 5% more conversions accounted for over the previous 14 days.
- According to Google’s internal data, advertisers using Google Tag Gateway saw an average increase of more than 20% in conversions accounted for in Demand Gen.
- Data Strength Uplift does not measure an increase in actual sales caused by advertising.
- The metric complements data transfer diagnostics but does not replace checks against CRM data, attribution, and actual revenue.
What Data Strength Uplift Measures
Data Strength Uplift is a metric Google uses to estimate additional conversions recovered in reporting through the setup of an advertiser’s first-party data transmission.
The issue it is intended to help assess is familiar to performance teams: a user may make a purchase or submit a lead after interacting with an ad, but not every such action can be correctly linked to an advertising touchpoint.
Possible reasons include tracking restrictions, missing required identifiers, or incomplete data transmission between a website, CRM, and advertising platform.
First-party data—information a company collects directly from its users or customers—can help match conversions to ad interactions more accurately through Google’s supported mechanisms.
Data Strength Uplift shows the estimated outcome of this setup. However, Google has not published the metric’s complete technical calculation formula, so it should not be interpreted as an exact inventory of every event that would have been lost without additional data.
What an Additional 5% of Conversions Over 14 Days Means
In its September announcement, Google showed an interface example reporting 5% more conversions accounted for over the previous 14 days.
This illustrates how an advertiser can see the effect of configuring data transmission. It does not mean that every account will see precisely a 5% increase.
For example, if a campaign reported 1,000 conversions, an additional 5% would correspond to approximately 50 more events accounted for. But this is a hypothetical illustration of the percentage, not a confirmed formula for calculating Data Strength Uplift.
Importantly, the additional conversions accounted for may have already taken place. The new setup helps the system measure them more accurately; it does not necessarily create new demand.
Google Tag Gateway: Where the More Than 20% Figure for Demand Gen Comes From
Separately, Google published statistics on Google Tag Gateway, a tool that enables Google tag signals to be sent through the advertiser’s infrastructure.
According to the company’s internal analysis, advertisers who used Google Tag Gateway to strengthen data transmission saw an average increase of more than 20% in conversions accounted for in Demand Gen campaigns.
Google says this result is based on global data for the period June 3–17, 2026.
In a broader measurement, Google also reported an average 14% increase in conversions accounted for among advertisers using Google Tag Gateway. For this figure, the company used a different comparison period: July–December 2024 versus January–June 2025.
These results cannot simply be applied to an individual campaign. The effect depends on the initial quality of tracking, conversion structure, tag configuration, and other conditions.
Most importantly, 20% more conversions accounted for does not mean 20% more purchases. It measures the completeness of measurement, not a proven increase in sales.
Which Tools Help Transmit More Data
Data Strength Uplift is part of Google’s broader strategy to connect data sources for advertising analytics.
The main components of this infrastructure are:
- Enhanced Conversions. Uses appropriately prepared first-party customer data, including hashed identifiers, to match conversions more accurately.
- Google Tag Gateway. Helps route Google tag data through the advertiser’s infrastructure.
- Data Manager. Brings together connections to data sources, including CRM and other systems.
- Data Manager API. Provides a programmatic way to transmit and manage data for supported advertising and analytics use cases.
- Diagnostics in Data Manager. Helps identify issues with data transmission and quality.
Not all these tools perform the same function. For example, Google Tag Gateway changes how tag signals are transmitted, while Enhanced Conversions helps match events to advertising interactions.
Proper CRM integration is also important for teams with long sales funnels. UAGEEK previously explained how Google Ads connects online and offline conversions and why successfully uploading an event does not guarantee its attribution.
Why Data Strength Uplift Is Not the Same as Conversion Lift
The names of these two Google tools may cause confusion, even though they answer different questions.
Data Strength Uplift estimates how many additional conversions could be accounted for thanks to data transmission.
Conversion Lift is used to estimate the incremental outcomes caused by advertising, using an experimental approach that compares groups.
For example, a company may improve tracking and see more conversions in Google Ads. But this alone does not prove that advertising generated additional sales compared with a scenario without advertising exposure.
That is why Google is developing separate causal measurement tools, including Conversion Lift and Meridian, to assess advertising’s actual contribution.
UAGEEK explored this distinction in greater detail in its article about Conversion Lift for Google Search and Performance Max.
What Changes for Demand Gen
Demand Gen uses automated optimization strategies, so the quality of conversion signals matters not only for reporting but also for the advertising algorithm’s decisions.
If some valuable events do not reach Google Ads, the system may receive incomplete information about the outcomes of advertising interactions.
Improving data transmission can potentially help assess campaigns more accurately and provide algorithms with more complete signals. However, Data Strength Uplift itself does not guarantee a lower CPA or a higher ROAS.
This is particularly relevant to Demand Gen because users interact with ads in different ways, including views and clicks. Advertisers need to understand which conversion actions are counted and how their attribution is configured.
At the same time, Google is also changing the economics of some Demand Gen campaigns. UAGEEK previously covered the switch from CPC to CPM for some Demand Gen campaigns. This means campaign performance comparisons must take into account not only new conversion signals but also the pricing model.
What Google Has Yet to Explain About the New Metric
Official materials confirm the purpose of Data Strength Uplift and the start of its rollout, but do not provide a complete technical specification.
Specifically, Google has not disclosed in these announcements:
- the full formula for calculating additional conversions accounted for;
- a detailed list of campaigns and reports where the metric is available to every advertiser;
- a universal rollout schedule for all accounts and markets;
- a methodology for independently reproducing the Data Strength Uplift estimate using raw data.
Therefore, the absence of the metric in a particular account does not necessarily indicate a configuration error. The feature is rolling out, and its availability should be checked directly in Google Ads.
What Advertisers Should Check
Before drawing conclusions from Data Strength Uplift, advertisers should check the quality of the data Google Ads already receives.
- Google tag and GTM. Make sure the required events are transmitted correctly and are not duplicated.
- Enhanced Conversions. Check the setup status, availability of the required data, and compliance with user consent requirements.
- Google Tag Gateway. Assess whether this method of transmitting tag signals is suitable for your infrastructure.
- Data Manager. Review connected sources and error diagnostics.
- CRM and offline events. Check whether confirmed sales or qualified leads are transmitted if they are important to the business.
- Conversion actions. Determine which events are used for bid optimization and which are only monitored.
- Reconciliation with business data. Compare reported conversions with actual leads, sales, and revenue, accounting for attribution differences.
If conversions in Google Ads increase after tracking improvements, do not automatically attribute the rise to increased demand. First determine how much of the change reflects more accurate measurement and how much reflects actual business performance.
Conclusion
Data Strength Uplift adds a new layer of transparency to Google Ads: advertisers can assess not only the number of conversions but also how their first-party data infrastructure contributes to measuring them.
For performance teams, this is a useful indicator of analytics quality. But it does not replace CPA, ROAS, CRM data, or experiments that assess advertising’s actual impact.
The key is not to treat additional conversions accounted for as automatically generated profit. The new metric helps reveal how completely Google can see outcomes, not how many new sales were created by enabling a tool.
Sources for Verification
Sources for Verification
Google Ads & Commerce Blog — Drive profitable growth with new data and measurement tools, September 10, 2026. Google’s first official announcement of Data Strength Uplift, an example showing 5% more conversions over 14 days, information on Google Tag Gateway, and Data Manager updates.
Official announcement of Google’s measurement tools
Google Ads & Commerce Blog — Build your data strength with October’s Demand Gen drop, October 13, 2026. Confirmation of the rollout of Data Strength Uplift in Google Ads and an average increase of over 20% in conversions accounted for in Demand Gen with Google Tag Gateway.
October Demand Gen update
Google Ads Help — About enhanced conversions. Description of how first-party customer data is used to match advertising conversions more accurately.
Enhanced Conversions documentation
Google Ads Help — About Data Manager. Official documentation for the tool used to connect data sources for advertising measurement.
Google Ads Data Manager documentation
Google for Developers — Meridian. Description of the open-source marketing mix model for assessing advertising’s contribution, which addresses a different question than Data Strength Uplift.
Meridian documentation
