Tracking offline conversions can be extremely valuable for businesses with a sales process outside the website. Examples are over the phone or in person.
Offline conversion tracking allows you to see which of your online marketing efforts are driving revenue so you can invest more in the channels that are working best.
There are steps to setting up offline conversions which involve capturing click data from your paid channels and then linking it to the sales data that you’re tracking in another system, such as your CRM or POS system,
Once you’ve linked the two systems, you can see which online clicks led to sales and adjust your marketing accordingly.
In addition, by linking your CRM or POS back to your paid channels, you can start to optimize conversion value (e.g., revenue or sales volume)
What is Offline Conversion Tracking?
Offline conversion tracking tracks customer interactions and conversions offline, such as in a brick-and-mortar store, service-based company, or over the phone.
This data can then be imported into Google Ads or Facebook Ads. This will let you see how your online campaigns are driving offline conversions.
Why is Offline Conversion Tracking Important?
Offline conversion tracking is essential because it gives you a complete picture of how your online campaigns are performing.
It can also help you identify which online channels drive the most offline conversions and the highest ROI so that you can allocate your marketing budget accordingly.
Offline conversions also push back critical touchpoints in the customer journey to your ad platforms.
For example, service-based industry, you may have multiple touchpoints from contact, prospect, and sale.
Those touch points can be pushed back as conversion goals and provide invaluable insights for optimizing your ad campaigns.
Finally, in highly variable revenue models, your client value and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) may differ from market to market or campaign to campaign.
Correctly capturing and optimizing for conversion value allows you to focus on driving revenue instead of “sales.”
What is Optimize for Conversion Value?
“Optimize for conversion value” is a setting in Google Ads optimizing ad delivery for conversion value (ROI/ROAS) rather than for conversions.
When you optimize for conversion value, Google Ads will show the ad to people likely to convert at a higher value.
For example, if you’re selling tickets to an event, a VIP ticket is more valuable to you than a general admission ticket.
If you are a service or SaaS-based business, you may have a much higher Average Client Value (ACV) for specific campaigns and markets.
Optimizing for conversion value can help you get more out of your budget by making sure your ads are more likely to convert at a higher value and higher ROAS.
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When to Use Offline Conversion Tracking?
1. When you want to track offline conversions, such as in a brick-and-mortar store, service-based industry, or sales process with multiple touch points.
2. When you want to attribute conversions to specific touchpoints, such as a phone call with a sales rep, proposal, quote, application, or other milestones in your customer journey.
What Is Needed to Track Offline Conversions
You’ll need to set up a conversion tracking pixel on your website to track offline conversions and then add the offline conversion events you want to follow.
The pixel will fire when someone visits your website, and the offline conversion events will be tracked in your pixel’s data.
To set up a conversion tracking pixel, you’ll need to:
1. Create a pixel on your website.
2. Install the pixel code on your website.
3. Add the offline conversion events you want to track.
4. Test the pixel to make sure it’s working correctly.
You can start tracking offline conversions once you’ve set up your pixel. To do this, you’ll need to:
1. Collect the data for your offline conversions.
2. Send the data to your pixel.
3. View the data in your pixel’s reports.
4. Take action on the data you see in your reports.
We also highly recommend capturing Google Click ID (GCLID) and Facebook Click ID (FBCLID) parameters in your funnel and pushing that back into your CRM.
Facebook Offline Conversion Tracking
If you’re running ads on Facebook, you can use offline conversion tracking to see how effectively your campaigns drive in-person sales.
To set up Facebook Offline Conversion tracking, you’ll need to:
1. Connect your Facebook pixel to your CRM or point-of-sale systems such as Zoho, SalesForce, or Shopify.
2. Create custom conversions in Facebook Ads Manager.
3. Set up offline event tracking in your CRM or point-of-sale system.
4. Send your offline conversion data to Facebook.
Once set up, one will see the number of offline sales your Facebook ads have generated.
This will give an understanding of your return on investment and help optimize your campaigns for better results.
What is FBCLID
FBCLID is a parameter added to the end of a Facebook URL when a user clicks on an ad. Facebook uses it to track conversions from ads.
To set up offline conversions, add the FBCLID parameter to the page URL where the conversion occurs.
In the thank you page after submitting a form, you would also capture the FBCLID and push it back to your CRM or sales enablement tool.
What is Facebook Conversion API
There are a few things to set up offline conversions with Facebook.
First, you need to generate a Facebook Conversion API token. This token will allow you to access the Facebook Conversion API, which you need to create and track offline conversions.
Next, you need to create a custom event on Facebook. This event will be associated with the offline conversion you want to track.
For example, if you want to track offline purchases, you would create a “Purchase” event. Once you have completed the event, you must get the event ID.
Finally, you must pass the event ID and conversion API token to the offline conversion tracking pixel you placed on your website.
This pixel will then send the information to Facebook, allowing you to track offline conversions.
Facebook Conversions API or API documentation can be found here.
Facebook Ads and IOS 14
iOS 14 has a feature that allows users to opt out of having their Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) shared with developers.
When this setting is enabled, developers will no longer have access to the IDFA for that user and will be unable to track them for advertising purposes.
The change significantly impacted Facebook’s ad business, as the company relies heavily on IDFA for targeting and measurement.
In response to the new setting, Facebook is introducing a new way to track offline ad conversions on its platform.
With offline conversions, businesses can upload a list of customers who have made a purchase, and Facebook will match those customers with users who have seen the business’s ads.
This will allow businesses to see how effectively their ads drive offline sales. It will give a way to target and measure the performance of their ad campaigns on Facebook, even with the new IDFA setting in place
Zapier Facebook Conversions
With this integration, send data from your CRM or ecommerce platform to Facebook, and Facebook will match the data with users who have installed your app.
With this integration, send data from your CRM or ecommerce platform to Facebook, and Facebook will match the data with users who have installed your app.
To set up this integration, create a Zapier account and connect to a Facebook Ads account.
Then, you’ll need to select the apps you want to send data from and to Facebook.
Once the apps are connected, you can map the data fields and parameters between the two platforms.
Google Offline Conversion Tracking
Google’s offline conversion tracking lets you measure the sales you’ve generated from your AdWords campaigns, even when customers don’t purchase items online. You can track phone calls, store visits, and other types of conversions that happen offline.
Google has a great article on creating and setting up offline conversions.
Pro tip: Ensure you have enabled auto-tagging and capture the GCLID in your funnel.
What is GCLID
The Google Click ID (GCLID) is a unique identifier that Google uses to track interactions with your website.
When a user clicks on a specific ad that links to your website, Google will generate a GCLID for that user and include it in the URL of the landing page.
This GCLID can track offline conversions, such as phone calls or in-person sales. It occurs as a result of the ad click.
To set up offline conversions with GCLID, add a snippet of code to your website’s landing page.
This code will capture the GCLID from the URL and pass it to your conversion tracking system.
Once you have the GCLID, match it up with the corresponding ad click in your Google Ads account and attribute the offline conversion to that ad.
For those unfamiliar with web development, you can hire someone to help you add the code snippet to your website.
Once done, start tracking your offline conversions and use them to optimize your Google Ads campaigns.
Google Ads API
To track offline conversions in your Google Ads account, you must set up offline conversions in the Google Ads API. This process involves creating a conversion tracker and linking it to your Google Ads account. Once done, you can start tracking offline conversions by uploading conversion data to Google Ads.
Zapier Google Ads Offline Conversions
Setting up Offline Conversions in Zapier requires a few steps. First, create a new zap and select Google Ads as your trigger.
Next, you need to select “Offline Conversion” as your action. Finally, enter your Google Ads account information and select the offline conversion you want to track.
You can use Zapier to push conversion data from your CRM back to Google Ads at each customer journey stage.
Importing Offline Conversions to Google Ads
You’ll need to set up conversion tracking to import offline conversions and then create a file with your offline conversion data. Once the master file is ready, import it to Tools – Measurement – Conversions.
You have two ways to connect your offline data back to your ads.
1. Using the Google Click Identifier (GCLID)
2. Enhanced Conversions for Leads
Google Enhanced Conversions for Leads
Google Enhanced Conversions for Leads allows businesses to track and attribute offline conversions, such as phone calls or store visits.
This allows businesses to see the total value of their online marketing campaigns and attribute leads and sales to the correct channels.
Google enhanced conversions for leads work by using first-party data that is then hashed and attributed back to the click.
When a sale is imported offline, Google matches customer data (Firstname, Lastname, Phone number, Email, etc.) and ties it back to the click.
What are Google WBRAID and GBRAID Parameters
With the roll-out of IOS 14, clicks can contain either a WBRAID parameter or a GBRAID parameter.
This is in response to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework.
WBRAID tracks clicks associated with web conversions, and GBRAID tracks click associated with app-related modifications.
CustomerLabs has a great article on GCLID, GBRAID, and WBRAID parameters.
LinkedIn Offline Conversion Tracking
To set up offline conversion tracking for LinkedIn, you must create a lead generation form and install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website.
Once you’ve done both, you can track offline conversions and attribute them to LinkedIn.
This is a way to see the ROI of your LinkedIn marketing efforts and ensure you’re targeting suitable leads.
Importing Linked In Offline Conversions
You can upload offline conversions to LinkedIn Ads from a customer relationship management (CRM) system or a data file:
You need to set up a server-to-server integration with LinkedIn to upload offline conversions from your CRM system. For information about setting up a server-to-server integration, see Setting up server-to-server integrations.
To upload offline conversions from a data file, create a CSV file containing the offline conversions you want to upload. The CSV file must include the following columns:
- timestamp
- event type
- amount
- currency
- firstname
- last name
Popular Tools to Manage Offline Conversions
- Zapier – Zapier is a cloud-based application that allows users to connect and automate various web applications
- Make – Make is a no-code automation platform and is supported by a variety of platforms.
- LeadsBridge – Ledsbridge offers a wide range of integrations with popular CRM, marketing, and sales platforms, making it easy for users to transfer leads between different systems.
- LiveRamp – LiveRamp is a data onboarding platform that helps marketers connect their customer data to over 100 marketing platforms.
- Adobe Marketo – Marketo allows businesses to automate and measure marketing activities and provides a single view of the customer.
- Ruler Analytics – Ruler Analytics provides out-of-the-box integration for offline conversions, call tracking, and lead attribution.
- Google Tag Manager – Google Tag Manager is a free tool allowing the management and deployment of marketing tags (such as pixel tags, analytics, and remarketing tags) on your website or mobile app. There is no need to edit your code.
Growth Marketing Expert Discusses Offline Conversions
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