What are offline conversions?

Targeted actions that occur outside the site: call, visit to the office, payment through a manager, purchase in a store. The advertising system doesn’t see them, so it optimizes for what it sees—applications, not money.

How to link advertising with sales from CRM?

Via visit ID. When you submit an application, it is saved in the transaction card, and when the transaction is closed with payment, the fact and amount are transferred back to the advertising system. This is how the algorithm finds out which applications become money.

Do promo codes work for ad tracking?

They work where there is no digital footprint: outdoor advertising, radio, print, offline events. The limitation is that the promotional code underestimates the result - some people do not remember it and do not name it. It is impossible to calculate absolute numbers; you can compare channels with each other.

How does static call tracking differ from dynamic call tracking?

Static assigns a separate number to a carrier: behind a billboard, behind a radio spot, behind a business card. Dynamic replaces the number on the site so that each visitor sees his own, and connects the call with the source of the visit. The first is needed for offline, the second for the web.

What percentage of sales will remain unsourced?

Some will always remain: people come based on a recommendation, remember an old ad, call from someone else’s phone. A practical guideline is to monitor the size of this share: as long as it is within a third, the conclusions about the channels are meaningful, then the picture becomes distorted.

Is it possible to get by with a survey “how did you hear about us”?

As the only method - no. People confuse sources and name the last thing they remembered: usually a search, even if the decision was formed by advertising two weeks earlier. As an additional signal next to technical methods - yes, it catches what the technique does not catch.

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PerformanceSeptember 5, 20269 min

Offline conversions: how to link advertising to sales that are not included in analytics

Half of sales happen off-site: a call, a visit, payment from the manager. I’m looking at five ways to get these deals to advertising systems - from promotional codes and individual numbers to downloading offline conversions from CRM, and the blind spots of each.

As long as the deal is closed on the website, everything is simple. As soon as a call, visit or manager appears between advertising and money, the advertising system ceases to understand what is happening - and begins to optimize for what it sees.

The algorithm always optimizes for the goal that you showed it. If you show applications, it will bring applications. Money is not involved in this picture.

1. Two different problems that confuse

First: the application is in the CRM, but it is not known where the person came from. Solved by marking and call tracking.

Second: the source is known, but it is unknown whether the person bought it or not. This can be solved by transferring the transaction status back to the advertising system.

These are different tasks, and the second one is more important. Knowing the source of requests is useful, but if out of a thousand requests from channel A every twentieth pays, and out of a hundred requests from channel B, every third pays, then without the second half of the data you will be scaling the wrong channel.

2. Five ways and the blind spot of each

Method	What closes	Blind spot
Dynamic call tracking	Calls from the site	Doesn't see calls via offline carrier
Individual numbers on media	Outdoor advertising, print, radio	You need to write down the number
Promo codes	Anything where there is no digital footprint	Some people don't mention the code
Loading conversions from CRM	Connection of the application with money	Need ID on card
Poll at the entrance	What technology doesn't catch	People confuse sources

The right column explains why at least two methods are used. Each method has a sales category that it does not see in principle, and it is closed only by another method.

3. Visit ID is the foundation of everything

The most technical part and the most important. When a person submits a request, the ID of his visit from the analytics system should be saved along with it in the CRM.

Without it, loading offline conversions is impossible in principle: you can tell the system “this deal was closed for such and such an amount,” but you will not be able to indicate which visit to attribute it to.

This is done once at the stage of setting up forms. If forms already work without this field, adding it is the first task; everything else comes from above.

4. Promotional codes: the only trace from offline

For outdoor, radio, print and events, a promo code is the only thing a person brings with him. No other trace exists there.

Rules that increase the share of named codes:

the code is short and pronounceable: it must be memorized by ear;
the code has a meaning for a person - a discount, a gift, priority;
the code is different for different media, otherwise there is nothing to compare;
the manager is obliged to ask about the code, and not wait for it to be called.

The last point gives more than the rest combined. A promotional code that is not asked for is given by a minority.

5. It's all understated, and that's okay.

None of the methods gives the complete picture. Not everyone will name the promotional code, not everyone will write down the number, and the identifier will be lost when changing devices.

Practical conclusion: Absolute figures for offline attribution are unreliable, relative figures are quite. If twenty people named a promotional code on channel A, and two on channel B, the ratio is indicative, even if in reality there were forty and four.

Therefore, decisions are made by comparing channels with each other, and not by absolute values.

6. Count the share of the unidentified

A separate metric that almost no one keeps: what share of sales remains without a source.

As long as it is within a third, the conclusions by channel are meaningful. If more than half, any comparisons of channels are guesswork, and you need to work not with advertising, but with fixing the source.

The dynamics of this share are also important: its sharp increase usually means that something has broken in the data transmission, and not that people suddenly began to come from nowhere.

7. In what order to implement

The visit ID in the deal card—nothing can be built without it.
Transferring transaction status and amount back to advertising systems.
Call tracking if there are a lot of calls.
Promotional codes for offline media.
Polling at the input as an additional signal.

The first two points do more than the other three combined: they convert advertising optimization from applications to money. How this relates to the calculation of payback - in analysis bundles CPL, CAC and LTV.

8. Summary

As long as the advertising system sees only applications, it will bring applications. In order for her to bring money, the fact of payment must be returned to her - and for this she needs a visit identifier in CRM.

For offline media, the technique does not work at all; promotional codes and individual numbers remain there. Both methods underestimate, so they compare channels with each other, and do not count the absolute.