Importing offline conversions is essential for understanding customer journeys, sales sources and ROI and reporting on multiple touchpoints in many funnels. Google Analytics 4 allows to report such conversions by uploading them. This can be done using manual offline events import or using an API integration. This blog post outlines both approaches.
What is offline conversion?
One common example of offline conversion tracking is when a customer completes a purchase through a payment system on a proprietary back-office platform. In this scenario, the customer may have initially interacted with the company's website or app, but ultimately finished the transaction offline. By implementing offline conversion tracking, you can attribute the sale to the appropriate online marketing efforts that led the customer to make the purchase, even though it occurred outside of the website or app.
Another example of offline conversion tracking is CRM qualification and won deals conversions. In this case, a potential customer may have filled out a lead form on the company's website or engaged with their content, but the actual conversion (such as a sale or contract signing) happens offline after the lead has been qualified by the sales team.
How offline conversion tracking works in Google Analytics
When a visitor interacts with your website or app, Google Analytics 4 assigns them a unique identifier called a Client Id. This Client Id is stored in the user's browser or device and is used to track their online behavior. When an offline conversion occurs, such as a payment processed offline, CRM deal closed won or subscription activation, it needs to be matched to an identifier that can be recognized by Google Analytics - Client Id.
In order to associate these purchases with the sources, you'll need to collect additional information from the customer, such as their email address or phone number, associating it with Client Id known to Google Analytics 4 at the time of online form completion or tracked phone call.
By uploading offline conversion data that is matched with the online visitor data using the collected customer information to GA4, GA4 can attribute the offline conversion to the corresponding online visitor. This allows you to understand which online marketing channels, campaigns, or content contributed to the offline conversion.
To associate offline conversions with online visitor sources, follow these steps:
- Collect customer information: when a form is completed on the website, collect relevant customer information such as email address, phone number, or a unique identifier, associating it with Google Analytics Client Id. Third-party call tracking services can be used to associate phone number with the Client Ids.
- When an offline conversion occurs, match offline conversion with online visitor by looking up the Client Id by a customer identifier and upload it to Google Analytics using events data import, measurement protocol or Able CDP integration.
Uploading offline conversions using events data import feature
Google Analytics 4 offers a method to upload offline conversions using event data import. Importing events with this method requires preparing a CSV file with event details and uploading it in the Data Import user interface in Google Analytics.
The CSV file with data should contain details of each conversion, including Google Analytics Client Id (or app_instance_id), event name and details – for example, purchase items that should be included in the conversion, as well as a timestamp indicating when the event occurred.
Only events that occurred in the last 72 hours can be uploaded this way.
Pros: doesn’t require any additional software.
Cons: requires creating a proprietary method for capturing and storing Google Analytics Client Ids, requires manual preparation and upload of a data file every few days.
Uploading offline conversions using Google Analytics Measurement Protocol
Google Analytics Measurement Protocol provides a way to automate import of offline conversions to Google Analytics.
The process of data preparation is similar: each offline conversion must be associated with Google Analytics Client Id that belongs to the customer and then, instead of uploading a file, the offline conversions can be sent to the Google Analytics API.
Pros: allows to create a fully automated unattended process.
Cons: a proprietary process for capturing and storing Google Analytics Client Id is still required, as well as creating an API integration, monitoring it and updating when API changes.
Importing offline conversions into Google Analytics using Able CDP
Able CDP offers an easy-to-use method of importing offline conversions into Google Analytics continuously. Able combines tracking of Client Ids and associating customers with their Clients Ids once they sign up, receiving conversions from popular applications such as payment systems or CRMs and sending them to Google Analytics.
Google Analytics Client Id is tracked when a lead, a contact or a sign-up form is completed. It is then associated with customer details such as an e-mail or a phone number, which allows Able to retrieve Client Id by an offline identifier, establishing association of an offline conversion with the visitor and ensuring Google Analytics would link the offline conversion with pre-existing user online activity through the Client Id, sending it to Measurement Protocol.
If a call tracking provider such as CallRail is used, Able would receive associations between phone numbers and website visitors from it, and then use the same process to attribute offline conversions to online visitors’ ids.
In addition to recording Client Ids, Able records Session Ids, which enables attribution in Google Analytics by the Session Source dimension, in addition to First User Source. This dimension requires an online session to be active at the time when offline conversion occurs, in order to display it’s Session Source, Channel and other session metrics.
Pros: no coding required, can be set up quickly and runs completely unattended, importing offline conversions into Google Analytics 4 in real time.
Cons: subscription fee.
Attributing offline conversions to web forms
Able CDP provides form tracking that stores source and Client Id of each customer. Able’s form tracking automatically recognizes static web forms (for example, common Wordpress plugins or Webflow), supports dynamic lead magnet widgets such as Sumo, as well as provides a simple method to integrate with single-page application JavaScript forms (such as React.JS and Vue.JS). Tracking of popular e-commerce check-out forms such as WooCommerce is supported as well. Once a form is tracked, Able stores Google Analytics Client Id, allowing to associate any further activity related to this customer with the original Client Id, making sure both First User Source and Session Source dimensions are available for reporting.
Attributing offline conversions to phone calls
When a potential customer visits a website, Google Analytics assigns a unique Client Id to that user's session. Call tracking providers can capture this Client Id and associate it with a specific phone number displayed on the website using dynamic number insertion (DNI) technology. DNI dynamically replaces the default phone number on a website with a unique trackable phone number for each visitor.
When a customer calls the trackable phone number, the call tracking provider logs the call details, including the associated Client Id. This information is then passed back to Google Analytics, allowing the platform to attribute the offline conversion (the phone call) to the corresponding online session.
Able CDP supports attributing offline conversions to calls tracked by CallRail and Paycall.
Attributing offline conversions
Once an offline conversion happens, Able attributes the conversion to the original Google Analytics Client id and sends it to Google Analytics Measurement Protocol in real time. Because the offline conversion is attributed to the original Client Id of the visitor, Google Analytics can use it to display the conversion as originating from the marketing channel, source and campaign associated with the visitor – allowing to measure return on ad spend (RoAS) from each channel and analyze what conversion events and touchpoints happen prior to the purchase
Able receives offline conversions from popular payment systems such as Stripe, CRMs including Salesforce and Scoro, e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Kajabi, as well as many others. It can also be integrated with proprietary back-office platforms using an offline conversions REST API. If the REST API is used, tracking of Google Analytics Client Ids and attributing sales to them can be performed by Able, making the integration much easier, compared to a direct integration with Google Analytics Measurement Protocol or using integration services such as Zapier.
How to set up offline conversions import
- Sign up for an Able CDP account
- Install tracking code on the website. You'll be provided step-by-step instructions after registration
- Connect Able to sources of offline conversions such as CRM or payment systems
- Connect Able to Google Analytics measurement protocol