Offline conversions and value-based bidding are not new, yet they are often underutilised by advertisers.
We know that ads don’t always lead to a conversion on a last-click basis. Often, a customer will convert at a later date.Â
If you track these sales in your CRM tied back to the original point of contact, you can (and should!) import them back into your Ads account. This provides more visibility on what keywords and ads are actually generating business impact.
If you have a multi-step process from initial contact to sale, you can import each step and assign a value to each part of the journey.
How will this improve my marketing efforts?
Once you have imported Offline Conversions and assigned values, you can harness the power of value-based bidding (VBB).
By using a Target Return On Ad Spend (tROAS) bidding strategy in conjunction with offline conversion tracking (OCT), you’re instructing Google’s algorithm to “find me customers that will most likely purchase after initial contact”.
Put simply, you’ll be optimising for higher quality leads and you’ll be able to report on the true value your Google Ads are driving.
How to I get started?
The first step is getting your CRM in order. Are you tracking sales as they happen and are they linked back to the initial conversion?
Salesforce, Zapier and HubSpot all support the automatic importing of offline conversions into your Google Ads account.
Alternatively, you can import offline conversions directly through the Google Ads platform using an Excel, CSV or Google Sheet template and Google Click Identifier (GCLID) data.
With this in place, you can use Google’s conversion value calculator to assign your conversions’ values. Then you’re ready to implement a value-based bidding strategy!
If you need support getting set-up, speak to our Media team.
