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Offline Conversions

Optimize your ad spend to find your best leads and customers.

Connect your Google Ads Account

Sync Offline Click and Call Conversions with Census

1. Create or find your custom conversion event in Google Ads

Google Ads has extensive documentation on creating offline conversion events. The main steps are:
  1. 1.
    Create a new conversion action.
  2. 2.
    Select the data source for this conversion action as Import.
  3. 3.
    Select Other data sources or CRMs.
  4. 4.
    Select Track conversions from clicks or Track conversions from calls.
  5. 5.
    Enter a name for the conversion action that you're creating. Hold onto this name exactly as entered -- spelling and capitalization will be important when syncing these conversions via Census!
  6. 6.
    Choose your counting option for the conversion action, either One conversion or Every conversion. Many offline conversions occur only once (e.g. "Reached onboarding milestone X"). In this case, select the counting option One conversion to protect yourself from accidentally syncing duplicate conversions.
  7. 7.
    Complete the set-up for this conversion event, selecting your desired conversion window (we recommend using the maximum 90-days) and ads attribution model.
Important: After creating a new conversion action, Google recommends waiting 6 hours before syncing conversions for that conversion action. If you sync conversions during the first 6 hours, it can take two days for those conversions to appear on your reports.

2. Create your Census Model for the Conversion Action

Navigate to the Models page.​
Here you can write SQL queries that contain the conversion action you want to send to Google Ads.
Google Ads Offline Click and Call Conversions require a specific set of properties. We'll want a model that has the following three required fields:
  • The Google Click ID (also often known as the gclid)
  • The Conversion Name, spelled exactly as it is found in Google Ads
  • The Conversion Timestamp, __ with timezone specified -- either using your warehouse's "timestamp with timezone" datatype, or hard-coded in a string (e.g. '2021-03-04 09:23:57+0000').
Optional properties include:
  • Conversion Value, positive non-zero decimal values accepted (e.g. 1.00 USD = 1.00)
  • Currency Code, the ISO 4217 3-character currency code (e.g. 'USD')
  • External Attribution Credit and Model, calculated outside Google Ads
Once you have created your model, click save.

3. Create your Sync

Now head to the Sync page and click the Add Sync button
In the "What data do you want to sync?" section
  • For the Connection, select the data warehouse you connected in the Prerequisites Step 2
  • For the Source, select the model you created in step 2 of this section
Next up is the "Where do you want to sync data to?" section
  • Pick Google Ads as the Connection
  • For Object, pick Click Conversion or Call Conversion
For the "How should changes to the source be synced?" section
  • Append will be selected by default
  • Pick the right mapping key, the Google Click ID in your model
Finally, select the fields you want to update in the Mapper in the "Which Fields should be updated?" section. Here simply map the fields from your model to the properties of the Click or Call Conversion.
The end result should look something like this:
Click the Next button to see the final preview which will have a recap of what will happen when you start the sync.

4. Confirm the conversions are now in Google Ads

It may take around 3 hours for synced offline conversions to show up in your Google Ads account. When they do, they'll appear in reporting on these conversion actions. To learn more about reporting on these conversions, you may wish to visit this Google Ads help article.

🔄 Supported Sync Behaviors

Behaviors
Supported?
Update or Create
Identifier: Google Click ID ("gclid")
Contact us if you're looking for additional Sync Behaviors!
Learn more about our sync behaviors on our Core Concept page.