Sonar Optimize: Data Enrichment for Google Ads

Sonar Optimize connects Triple Whale to Google Ads and sends eligible website events with first-party customer data. These additional signals can help Google match more conversions to prior ad interactions and give Smart Bidding better conversion data to learn from.

Sonar Optimize sends configured event data to Google Ads. The events displayed in Google Ads may differ from the events Triple Whale sends.

The Triple Pixel captures visits, interactions, and conversions on your site. Sonar Optimize enriches eligible events with first-party data from connected sources, then sends the events to Google Ads through the configured Sonar conversion actions.

For standard events such as Purchase, Sonar sends event data according to the shop’s configured event mappings and exclusions.

Sign in to Google using a user that can authorize the Google Ads account and manage its conversion settings.

Before setup, confirm whether conversion actions are owned by the individual Google Ads account or by a manager account. Connect Sonar to the account that owns the conversion actions you intend to map. If ownership changes later, Sonar may need to be reconnected or remapped.

Do not replace your current Primary conversion action during initial setup. Create or map Sonar actions as Secondary until delivery is stable and you have reviewed the incoming conversion volume and value.

If another service already sends the same purchases to Google Ads, identify which conversion actions it uses. You can collect data from separate actions during testing, but do not include two actions representing the same purchase in the same bidding goal unless you intentionally want both counted.

With that sorted, here’s the full connection flow to link your Google Ads account for the first time:

Once your Google Ads account is connected, return to the Sonar Overview page to begin configuring how data flows through the integration.

Two navigation paths to the Sonar Overview page:

Once you reach the Sonar Overview page, find Google in the Sonar Optimize section.

What you see depends on where you left off:

The Google setup wizard has four steps:

Select which events you want to send to Google and map each event to its Google conversion action. The available options are:

Create a separate Google Ads conversion action for each event you send from Triple Whale. Separate actions make it easier to validate delivery and control which events Google uses for bidding.

Sonar requires two settings to be completed in the connected Google Ads account. Both settings are located under Goals → Conversions → Settings:

The wizard labels this page Exclude orders from Google Optimization. Use it to filter orders and conversions that should not be sent.

Triple Whale excludes draft orders, POS orders, returns, Google Shop orders, and Shop app orders from the conversion events it sends to Google. You can add exclusions based on order tags or Shopify sales channels.

If you offer subscriptions, exclude recurring subscription purchases so renewals are not sent as new purchase conversions.

If you do not know the channel code, see Shopify Sales Channel Names and Codes.

A confirmation window displays: Success! Your Google configuration is now complete. You are then taken to the Google delivery dashboard, where the integration should show Connected and Sonar should be on.

Triple Whale automatically monitors and validates the setup, but you should also validate delivery in Triple Whale and Google Ads before changing campaign goals.

Primary actions can be used by Smart Bidding when their goal is selected. Secondary actions are observation-only in standard goals, but Google can still use Secondary actions included in a custom goal for reporting and bidding.

For more information, see Google’s guide to primary and secondary conversion actions.

Start with one campaign so you can evaluate the Sonar conversion before changing the account-wide Primary action. Learn more about campaign-specific conversion goals.

Run the campaign and monitor the results. You can test additional campaigns or campaign types before migrating your account-wide goal to Sonar.

After testing and collecting enough data, change the selected Sonar conversion action to Primary so campaigns using that goal category can use it for bidding.

After the Sonar action is Primary, campaigns using that goal category will use Sonar as their main conversion source.

Return to Sonar Optimize whenever you need to review delivery or edit the integration.

After changing a connected account, conversion owner, mapped action, or event selection, repeat the delivery checks before changing bidding goals.

Open the action’s diagnostic details in Google Ads. Confirm Enhanced Conversions for Leads is enabled, Customer data terms are accepted in the conversion-owning account, the action is active, and recent events have had enough time to process.

Disconnecting and reconnecting the Google integration may not delete the saved Sonar configuration. If the Google conversion owner changed or the existing actions cannot be remapped, contact Triple Whale Support before creating duplicate conversion actions.

Sonar can send eligible web orders that remain after your configured exclusions. This does not mean Google automatically attributes every sent order to Google Ads.

Google attributes an accepted conversion only when it can connect the event to an eligible Google Ads interaction under the account’s attribution settings. Sending an event alone does not guarantee that Google will report it as a Google Ads conversion.

For a standard ecommerce setup, use one validated Sonar Purchase action as the Primary purchase signal. Keep other Sonar actions Secondary unless a specific campaign intentionally uses a custom goal.

Do not remap a Sonar event to a label containing historical data from another source unless the migration path has been confirmed. Keeping a new Sonar action separate makes delivery and performance easier to compare.

Yes. Use campaign-specific custom goals. Remember that actions included in a custom goal can be used for bidding even when the action is marked Secondary.