Question from Reddit user:
We are using Google shopping network to effectively generate leads that later become in store sales. We know this is working for us but would like to add some value to the leads in Google Ads so that we can target the right products.
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
To track your high-value offline sales and attribute them back to the specific Google Shopping clicks that generated the leads, you need to use Google’s Offline Conversion Tracking feature, which is done via a process called Conversion Import that requires sending data directly to Google’s servers.
The only scalable, automated, and accurate way to implement this is by using the Google Ads API to upload the conversion data from your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Point of Sale (POS) system, a process that can be managed and orchestrated using a server-side solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform, or even through the Google Ads web interface for simpler setups.
The long answer is:
Your situation is a perfect use case for closing the loop between the online ad click and the offline sale, a necessity for businesses with physical stores.
Simply using standard website conversion tracking (like a form submission) only captures the lead generation event, not the final, valuable sale that happens 99% of the time in your store.
This leaves Google Ads blind to the true value of its performance, leading to inefficient bidding and ad spend.
To fix this, you must implement Enhanced Offline Conversion Tracking (also known as Conversion Import).
The process starts with ensuring that when a user clicks your Google Shopping ad, the Google Click ID (gclid) is captured on your website’s landing page using Google Tag Manager and immediately passed into your CRM or lead management system alongside the lead’s information.
This gclid is the vital link between the online ad and the offline transaction.
Once the sale occurs in-store, your POS or CRM system will have the lead’s details, the final transaction amount, and the originating gclid.
The next step is to get this data back to Google Ads, and this is where the Google Ads API comes in as the most robust solution.
You would create a script or connector hosted on a stable, server-side environment like Google Cloud Platform or an integrated solution like Stape to periodically connect to your CRM/POS database, securely retrieve the gclid, transaction value, and timestamp for all new sales, and upload this data directly to the Google Ads platform using the Google Ads API’s Upload Service.
By sending these real-world conversion events, Google Ads can attribute the final sale value back to the exact product, ad group, and campaign that led to the initial click, allowing you to use value-based bidding (like Target ROAS) to maximize the profitability of your Google Shopping network efforts.
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