Offline conversion tracking is how you indicate to advertising platforms like Google Ads that a customer converted after leaving your site.
Offline conversion tracking is how you indicate to advertising platforms like Google Ads that a customer converted after leaving your site. Any conversion action happening outside of your website—even if it happens on another digital channel like social media or a third-party marketplace—is considered an offline conversion.
Complete article in Shopify Blog.
Some examples of offline conversions include:
- A potential client books a call with a sales rep and then converts later over the phone.
- A customer clicks an ad and later purchases something in-store.
- A customer signs up for subscriptions via a subscription platform, such as Recharge.
- A customer lands on your product page, then converts via a third-party marketplace like Amazon Marketplace.
Measuring offline conversions allows you to connect your ad spend to real-life results so you can understand how effective your campaigns are. Without this, you run the risk of undervaluing (and underspending on) high-performing campaigns because you don’t have the complete picture.
Google Ad’s Google Click ID (GCLID) is the most direct method of tracking offline conversions. Other ad platforms like Meta and Bing also have their own version of this functionality.