Match rate: NO_MATCHES or LOW
Google Ads reports match rate as NO_MATCHES, LOW, HIGH or INSUFFICIENT_VOLUME. NO_MATCHES means zero matches. LOW means 0 to 15 percent. Check the hashing first, then add the match keys the send is missing, email, address and phone. Do not act on INSUFFICIENT_VOLUME until enough valid sends have arrived.
At a glance
- Where it shows
- The Match rate column of the Impact table in the enhanced conversions diagnostics report, under Goals, Summary, then the conversion action and Diagnostics.
- What stops
- No ad stops. Conversions still count, with fewer of them tied to a signed-in person.
- How serious
- No policy risk. The cost is conversions matched to fewer people than the bidding model expects.
- How long
- Google says the match rate column updates within 24 hours.
What it means
The match rate tells you how many of your hashed sends matched a signed-in Google user. Google's buckets are NO_MATCHES for zero matches, LOW for 0 to 15 percent, HIGH above 15 percent, and INSUFFICIENT_VOLUME when there are fewer than 20 valid sends to judge.
A rate of Unknown means privacy requirements were not met, so the bucket stays blank by design. It is not a failure in the send.
What actually triggers it
Hashing done wrong
The diagnostics name data not hashed with SHA-256 as a cause of unresolved Ads API errors. A send that hashes the raw value, or a different encoding, matches nothing even though the data looks right.
Only email sent
Google's page recommends sending more match keys: email, address and phone number. A send carrying email alone matches fewer people than one with all three.
Too few valid sends to read
INSUFFICIENT_VOLUME means fewer than 20 valid sends, so the rate is not yet a rate. Changing the setup at this point changes nothing you can measure.
Customers whose details differ from their Google account
Google's page gives this as the reason behind its Low number of matched conversions alert: few customers have Google accounts, or they give details that differ from what their Google account holds. A work email typed into a form, where the Google account uses a personal one, is one example. More match keys is the lever.
Fix it in this order
- Open Goals > Summary, click the conversion action, select Diagnostics, and find the Impact table. Read the match rate bucket before acting.
- If the rate reads INSUFFICIENT_VOLUME, wait for more valid sends and stop there.
- Confirm each email and address is hashed with SHA-256 after trim and lowercase, and that the phone number is in E.164 format before hashing.
- Add the missing match keys to the send: email, address and phone number, in the form the site already captures.
- Read the report again after a day of new sends, and watch the Coverage figure beside the match rate, which shows the share of conversions carrying enough user data.
The column shows a bucket, not a percentage, so a real improvement can stay inside LOW, which covers everything from 0 to 15 percent. Judge the change by Coverage and the trend across days, not by one reading of the bucket.
Often confused with
Needs attention
A data quality tier that reflects errors in the setup. Read it separately from the match rate, which measures matching, not errors.
Setup issues detected
Errors in the send, listed as alerts. A low match can also show there as the Low number of matched conversions alert, with the same fix: more match keys.
No user-provided data matches
No sends matched at all, on the leads report. Here the rate is zero or low; there the report names the cause.