This blog post was written by Lee Smith-Bryan, Manager SEO / SEM at cj Advertising.
At cj, our Search team believes in closed-loop marketing. That means, we believe that every avenue of conversion should be tracked, and we should be able to report on it.
If our Search team manages your PPC campaign, you’ve experienced this—both forms and calls can be tracked to individual cases, and you’re able to articulate a CPL and cost per signed case number.
AdWords Introduces Offline Conversion Tracking
As of Sept. 5, 2013, AdWords debuted offline conversion tracking. In essence, the new feature enables PPC-originated offline conversions to be directed back into AdWords. A quick explanation of the process from Search Engine Land Author Ginny Marvin explains the process as follows:
Once a user clicks on your ad, AdWords assigns a unique click ID (GCLID). That GCLID gets saved along with the lead information you capture. Now when that user completes an offline conversion event, you can upload the GCLID to AdWords along with the type and date of conversion as well as any order value.
Your offline and online conversions are then all included in AdWords to help you optimize your campaigns based on data that encompasses the full sales funnel. You can set up as many offline conversion types as you need — qualified leads, closed sales, etc. — and track and optimize for each step along your sales cycle.
Why Offline Conversion Tracking is Important
A click on an AdWords ad doesn’t directly lead to an online conversion, such as a form, but that click can indirectly lead to the person beginning the conversion funnel cycle. That in turn may lead the person to visiting your office and becoming a case.
Learn More
The new feature is called AdWords Conversion Import, and you can see a Google Product Manager explain things in a little more depth.
To find out more about how we plan to utilize offline conversion tracking, contact your Client Services team.
