Offline conversions tracking explained

Using offline conversions tracking, which includes collecting and sending purchase data to ad platforms, can help create a customer profile and contribute to campaign optimization. In this blog post, we will explain offline conversion tracking, how it works, and provide guides on setting up offline conversion tracking for Google Ads, Meta Ads, and Microsoft Ads.

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:

• Accurate event measurement. It provides accurate data about customers and their purchasing habits. This can include what they buy, where they purchase it, how long it takes them to make a decision, and how much they spend. Information can then be used to inform marketing strategies or adjust pricing accordingly.
• ROI measurement and optimization. Offline conversions provide real-time insights that help you understand exactly how many sales your ads lead to, whether in-store or through phone orders. This helps to understand how effective campaigns are and if you need to tweak anything to increase ROI further.
• Lookalike customer portrait and customer experience improvement. Offline conversions are effective for gathering both qualitative and quantitative data. For example, businesses can use surveys or conduct interviews with store personnel who interact with customers to gain a deeper understanding of the shopper experience, interests, and feedback on products or services. This helps businesses improve their services for a better customer experience.

Offline conversion tracking can be applied for the following cases:

• Offline store visit and purchase. You are running an ad campaign on some platform, let's say Google Ads. A customer clicks on the ad to view the product details, then visits the physical store to make a purchase.
• Phone call conversion. Similarly, as in the example above, the first interaction happens online, but to complete the transaction, a person calls your office.
• In-person consultations or demos. A lead signs up for a free consultation or demo after clicking a Google or Meta ad. During such a meeting, a person decides to make a purchase.

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

• Manually uploading a CSV file on the platform (Google Ads, Meta Ads, Microsoft Ads)
• Building a custom integration
• Using third-party connectors like Zapier

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 Stape's Conversion Tracking CRM apps or a server Google Tag Manager container.

• Stape Conversion Tracking CRM apps can automatically track the status of your leads within the CRM. Any lead status updates are transmitted as conversion events to the desired platform. With server-side tracking, every conversion is recorded and shared accurately and securely.

• The integration with server GTM 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:

• works in real-time, no manual work is required.
• costs way less than building your own integration or using a specialized connector.

Stape has developed several CRM applications that can send data on lead status updates from CRM to the platform you need. The apps can also automatically create Customer Match lists in Google Ads, filling them in with data from CRM.

We currently support the following CRMs:

• Zoho CRM
• HighLevel 
• PipeDrive 
• HubSpot CRM
• Salesforce CRM
• Odoo CRM
• Klaviyo CRM
• ActiveCampaign CRM

If your CRM isn't in the list of apps, you can use Stape's Offline Conversion tracking tags.

You can upload or send offline event data to Facebook by configuring server-side tracking for Meta. It matches this data to people who saw or clicked your ads. When a match is found, the action is counted as an offline conversion Facebook Ads event.

Read more on Facebook offline conversion using server GTM.

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.

• Allows you to track and attribute sales to AdWords campaigns.
• Allows feeding 1st party data to Google and attribute conversions of those users who either opted out of tracking or used ad blockers.
• Allows seeing behavior conversion tracking without event modeling data.

Google Ads offline conversion tag uses Firebase for authentication and the 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.

The offline events are coming from systems like CRM, POS, and include such user data as email address, phone number, or an internal customer ID.

What is typically missing are the browser and ad-platform identifiers that actually enable attribution in third-party platforms (e.g., Google Ads, Meta Ads). Examples of such identifiers are  _fbp, _fbc, gclid, FPID, or _ga. They are usually collected during the user's first website interaction and are not automatically sent to offline systems.

In this case, a server-side enrichment becomes useful. Instead of expecting every system to pass all identifiers through the entire customer journey, the enrichment process matches incoming offline events (for example, via email or external ID) against previously stored user profiles. Once a match is found, the system can restore missing identifiers from earlier interactions and attach them to the offline event before the data is sent to advertising platforms. By successfully linking these delayed CRM updates back to the original visitors, you establish precise GA4 lead-quality tracking and reveal true pipeline value instead of relying on initial form submissions alone.

That’s what Stape’s Enricher power-up can do to improve the attribution of offline conversions to the online activity. It can be easily and quickly configured within Stape’s admin account; follow a detailed guide on how to configure the Enricher.

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.