Offline conversions tracking explained

Tracking offline conversion allows the recording of customer conversions made by phone, in-store orders, offline deals etc. That means via all of the interactions made in the real world: your customer saw an ad and went into your store to make a purchase, for example.

Everything that occurred outside of your website is considered an offline conversion. 

There are various methods to track offline sales (manual upload of CSV file, built-in custom integrations, using connectors). We will focus on the working mechanism of the server GTM for offline conversion tracking.

After a user makes an offline purchase, a webhook is triggered, and the CRM sends a webhook to the server GTM containing the order details and user information. In the server GTM container, a Client listens for incoming webhook events. It processes the event to the corresponding tags (Facebook offline conversion tag, Google Ads offline conversion tag, Microsoft Ads offline conversion tag). After it, the conversion data is matched with online identifier (e.g., click ID) and forwarded to a platform such as Meta Ads, Google Ads, or Microsoft Ads.

Tracking offline conversions provides numerous benefits for businesses:

Offline conversion tracking can be applied for the following cases:

There are a few ways to set up offline conversion tracking:

Each approach has its drawbacks. Custom integrations require hiring developers to build a connection between your CRM and platform. Tools like Zapier are easier to set up, but they can become expensive, especially when dealing with a lot of events. Manual uploads involve significant effort to properly format and prepare the CSV file.

A new way of integrating offline conversion tracking is by using server Google Tag Manager container. This integration is possible because sGTM can directly communicate with marketing or analytics platforms API. 

Webhooks from your CRM or POS can be configured to send data to server Google Tag Manager, which distributes the information about offline conversions for analytics and ad network use.

The main two benefits of setting up offline conversions through sGTM are:

Stape can offer the following ways of configuration: 

You can upload offline event data to Facebook, which will match events to people who saw or clicked FB ads. If FB can identify a person and match them with the ad, it will count the event as a conversion towards the ad campaign. 

The logic of the FB offline conversion tag is exceptionally similar to the Stape's FB conversion API tag. But there are some additional parameters and steps required to set up the Facebook offline conversion tag.

Setting up FB offline conversions using the sGTM tag might be the best solution for those already familiar with server-side tagging. Setting up won't take long, and you can save money by not using connectors or hiring developers.

Google Ads offline conversion might not only be the way to track users who converted offline but also an accurate way to track online conversion without relying on machine learning algorithms.

Google Ads offline conversion tag uses Firebase for authentication and Google Ads developer's account. We simplified the process of creating these two entities for Stape users, which is why the list of needed things to set up Google Ads offline conversions depends on whether you are a stape user.  

You can set up offline conversion data into Microsoft Ads by uploading events that occurred outside of online interactions. When matched with users who interacted with Bing ads, these events are recorded as conversions. This process is similar to using Facebook's offline conversion API, with added details on setup requirements and additional parameters necessary for proper implementation.

To track offline sales in Google Analytics you should create a custom dimension for offline conversion data, create a CSV file (download the data from CRM, making sure it has unique identifiers like the User ID or GA Client ID), and import offline sales into Google Analytics ( “Admin → Data Import”).

The way to notify Facebook and Google Ads depends on the setup you've chosen. If you are using manual configuration, upload a CSV file with conversion data on the corresponding platform. If you are using the server GTM, then the platforms will be notified automatically.

Online conversions happen on the website or app, while offline conversions are made in-store, over the phone, or at a demo meeting. They are also tracked in a different way. Online conversions are automatically captured via tracking scripts on the website. Offline conversions are gathered from the CRM system and transmitted to the server GTM container via webhooks.

By understanding how conversion tracking works and what data it can provide, businesses can make more informed decisions regarding their marketing efforts - and see a boost in sales as a result. If you're interested in implementing an offline conversion tracking solution for your business but aren't sure where to start, contact our team of experts at Stape support. We'd be happy to help you get started on the path to increased offline sales.