Shane McIntyre
Founder and Director of Growth Marketing
Tracking offline conversions can be extremely valuable for businesses that have a sales process that happens outside the website, such as 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 a few 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’ll be able to 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)
Keep reading below for our Complete Guide to Offline Conversion Tracking.
What is Offline Conversion Tracking?
Offline conversion tracking is the process of tracking customer interactions and conversions that occur 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 so that you can see how your online campaigns are driving offline conversions.
Why is Offline Conversion Tracking Important?
Offline conversion tracking is important because it gives you a complete picture of how your online campaigns are performing.
It can also help you identify which online channels are driving 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 back to your ad platforms.
For example, if you are in a 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 as opposed to “sales”.
What is Optimize for Conversion Value?
“Optimize for conversion value” is a setting in Google Ads that allows you to optimize your ad delivery for conversion value (ROI/ROAS) rather than for conversions.
When you optimize for conversion value, Google Ads will show your ad to people who are more likely to convert at a higher value.
For example, if you’re selling tickets to an event, someone who buys a VIP ticket is more valuable to you than someone who buys a general admission ticket.
If you are a service or SaaS-based business you may have a much higher Average Client Value (ACV) for certain campaigns and markets.
Optimizing for conversion value can help you get more out of your budget by making sure your ads are shown to people who are more likely to convert at a higher value and higher ROAS.
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When to Use Offline Conversion Tracking?
There are a few key scenarios where offline conversion tracking can be used to great effect:
1. When you want to track conversions that happen offline, 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
To track offline conversions, you’ll need to set up a conversion tracking pixel on your website and then add the offline conversion events you want to track.
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 properly.
Once you’ve set up your pixel, you can start tracking offline conversions. 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 effective your campaigns are at driving 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 you’ve completed all of the above steps, you’ll be able to see how many sales your Facebook ads have generated offline.
This will give you a better understanding of your return on investment and help you to optimize your campaigns for better results.
What is FBCLID
FBCLID is a parameter that is added to the end of a Facebook URL when a user clicks on an ad. It is used by Facebook to track conversions from ads.
To set up offline conversions, you need to add the FBCLID parameter to the URL of the page where the conversion takes place.
For example, if you have a thank you page after someone submits a form on your website, 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 you need to do in order 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 in order 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 that you want to track.
For example, if you want to track offline purchases, you would create a “Purchase” event. Once you have created the event, you need to get the event ID.
Finally, you need to pass the event ID and the conversion API token to the offline conversion tracking pixel that you placed on your website.
This pixel will then send the information to Facebook, which will allow you to track offline conversions.
Facebook Conversions API or cAPI documentation can be found here
Facebook Ads and IOS 14
iOS 14 includes 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.
This change has had a major impact on 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 conversions for ads on its platform.
With offline conversions, businesses will be able to 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 effective their ads are at driving offline sales, and will give them a way to continue 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, you can 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, you’ll need to create a Zapier account and connect it to your Facebook Ads account.
Then, you’ll need to select the apps that you want to send data from and to Facebook.
Once you have the apps connected, you’ll be able to 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: Make sure you have enabled auto-tagging and you are capturing 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 an ad that links to your website, Google will generate a GCLID for that user and include it in the URL of the landing page.
You can use this GCLID to track offline conversions, such as phone calls or in-person sales, that occur as a result of the ad click.
To set up offline conversions with GCLID, you’ll need to 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, you can match it up with the corresponding ad click in your Google Ads account and attribute the offline conversion to that ad.
If you’re not a web developer, you can hire someone to help you add the code snippet to your website.
Once you’ve done that, you can start tracking your offline conversions and using them to optimize your Google Ads campaigns.
Google Ads API
If you want to track offline conversions in your Google Ads account, you’ll need to 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 you’ve done this, 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, you need to create a new zap and select Google Ads as your trigger.
Next, you need to select “Offline Conversion” as your action. Finally, you need to 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 stage of your customer journey.
Importing Offline Conversions to Google Ads
To import offline conversions, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking and then create a file with your offline conversion data. Once you have your file ready, you can import it using by going 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 online conversions that happen offline, such as phone calls or store visits.
This allows businesses to see the full 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 that customer data (Firstname, Lastname, Phonenumber, 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 clicks associated with app-related conversions.
CustomerLabs has a great article on GCLID, GBRAID, and WBRAID parameters.
Linked In Offline Conversion Tracking
In order to set up offline conversion tracking for LinkedIn, you’ll need to first create a lead generation form and then install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website.
Once you’ve done both of those things, you’ll be able to track conversions that happen offline and attribute them back to LinkedIn.
This is a great way to see the ROI of your LinkedIn marketing efforts and to make sure that you’re targeting the right leads.
Importing Linked In Offline Conversions
You can upload offline conversions to LinkedIn Ads from your customer relationship management (CRM) system or from a data file.
To upload offline conversions from your CRM system, you need to set up a server-to-server integration with LinkedIn. 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, you need to create a CSV file that contains the offline conversions that you want to upload. The CSV file must include the following columns:
- timestamp
- eventtype
- amount
- currency
- firstname
- lastname
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 different 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 that allows you to manage and deploy marketing tags (such as pixel tags, analytics, and remarketing tags) on your website or mobile app without having to edit your code.
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