What Google and Meta count as a conversion for a restaurant
For most restaurants, the conversions Google and Meta report are actions on the ad or the website - a tap on Directions, a call, a menu view, a click on the reservation button - not guests who came in. They are signs of interest, and the ad systems will chase whichever ones they are given.
The word on the report
The monthly ad report says the campaign produced a few hundred conversions. It's a satisfying word. It sounds like guests. In most restaurant accounts it means something much smaller, and it's worth knowing exactly what before the next budget conversation.
What Google counts
If your Google Ads account is linked to your Business Profile, Google automatically records what it calls local actions: taps on Directions, taps on Call, clicks through to your website, menu views, clicks on an Order button, and a catch-all for things like saving or sharing the listing. Each one is a person doing something on your listing after seeing an ad. None of them is a person walking in.
Google can also report store visits. These are estimates. In Google's own description they are modeled from anonymous, aggregated data and extrapolated to the wider population. They need enough ad traffic and foot traffic to pass Google's privacy thresholds, which a single location on a modest budget may not, and they can't be tied to an individual click or guest.
On top of that sits whatever was set up on the website: a click on the reservation button, a completed online order, a contact form. By default, Google credits an ad with any of these that happens within 30 days of a click.
What Meta counts
Meta works the same way with different labels. Its results are either actions on the ad itself - link clicks, calls, messages, video views - or events its pixel sees on your website, such as a menu page view, a click on the reservation button or an online order. By default, an ad is credited with a result that happens within seven days of a click, or within one day of someone simply having seen it.
That last part matters in a restaurant. A regular who was always going to book for Saturday, scrolled past your ad on Friday and reserved that evening can be counted as a result of the ad.
Why this matters more than the report
None of this is dishonest. The platforms count what they can see, and what they can see is the phone. Where this gets difficult is what happens next: both systems use those same conversions to decide who sees your ads. Tell Google that a tap on Directions is success and it will find more people who tap Directions. Tell Meta that a menu view is success and it will find people who look at menus.
Some of those people come in and spend. Many were coming anyway, or never arrive. The system can't tell the difference, because nobody told it what happened at the table.
What a better signal looks like
The reframe is to ask what you'd want the platforms to chase if they could see everything. Not the tap - the check. Both Google and Meta can take in sales that happened away from the website and treat them as conversions, with their value. It's rarely set up in a restaurant, because it means connecting the ad accounts to the register and matching one to the other.
That's what the restauWant app does. It matches campaigns to the checks they brought in and sends the verified ones back to Google and Meta as conversions, with the amount, so the same budget starts learning from guests who spent rather than people who tapped. Checks start going to both as soon as the register and the ad accounts are connected, and you review each batch before it goes.
Six things to check in your own accounts
- Open the conversions list in Google Ads - and read what each one actually is: a tap, a call, a page view or a sale.
- See which ones the campaigns are chasing - the conversions marked primary are the ones Google bids toward.
- Check whether store visits appear - and remember they are modeled estimates.
- In Meta, look at the result each campaign is set to get - and the attribution setting beside it.
- Ask how many reported results were view-through - credited to an ad that was seen, not clicked.
- Ask whether any real sales are being sent back - to either platform.
What is a conversion in Google Ads for a restaurant?
Usually an action on your listing or your site: a tap on Directions or Call, a menu view, a click on the reservation button or an online order. It isn't a confirmed visit unless real sales are being sent back.
Are Google store visits accurate?
They are estimates. Google models them from anonymous, aggregated data, and they can't be tied to an individual guest or check.
Why don't my ad conversions match my sales?
Because they count different things. Conversions count actions on a phone; sales count checks at the register. The two only line up when the ads and the register are matched.
Can I send my restaurant's sales to Google and Meta?
Yes. Both accept sales that happened offline as conversions. In the restauWant app, verified checks go back with their amount once the accounts are connected.
