In this guide, you will find out why offline conversions are critical to marketing performance, the challenges with them and how to go about using Snitchers identifications data to solve these challenges 👇
The pros and cons of offline conversions
A big problem with Google Ads is that the platform is built to attribute on clicks and conversions. This means there's no way of assessing performance based on the quality of traffic that an ad drives (or to retarget only good fit visitors).
The solution is configuring offline conversions which attribute success to an ad based on someone purchasing your product / service. This steers Google's algorithm toward serving ads to relevant people, resulting in more effective advertising campaigns with clear attribution.
The issue with using offline conversions for B2B? Sales cycles are typically longer than 90 days (which is the maximum time limit for Google Ads). Often making it impossible to send the offline conversion when a customer does actually purchase.
To get around this, some platforms like HubSpot make it possible to trigger offline conversion when a lead moves from e.g. MQL to SQL. This still means that the lead will have needed to fill out a form on your website though.
The impact of this is two-fold:
1️⃣ First off, because a form fill is required to trigger offline conversions, there's no attribution (positive or negative) on all the clicks that never convert.
In other words, that's most of the data you have being wasted with no insights beyond the number of clicks.
2️⃣ If the customer purchases after 90 days, there's no way of firing the offline conversion event, unless you use something like HubSpot.
How Snitcher solves this
Using the identifications you can fire an offline conversion when a quality company clicks on your ads without needing them to fill out a form.
Making it possible to tap into the majority of data that's gone unused.
Firstly, you can now attribute success easily to ads without needing to burn money while waiting for conversions to roll in.
Secondly, you can supply Google algorithm with more data on who you want the platform to serve ads to, which will in turn optimise your advertising campaigns.
Getting set up
Typically we find it takes around 30 minutes to get everything set up.
It might seem a bit intimidating at first if you aren't a developer, the good news is you don't need to be able to write code to configure the offline conversions.
It's helpful to have some experience with Google Tag Manager and Google Ads but not essential. We're also here to help so don't be shy if you need a hand 💪
Step 1 - Create data layer variables
Login to Google Tag Manager.
Use the table below to set up your Data Layer Variables. It's not necessary to create them all. We use Industry and Size, so configure what you need based on your ICP.
Variable Title | Data Layer Variable Name |
SnitcherCompanyName | snitcher.name |
SnitcherCompanyDomain | snitcher.domain |
SnitcherCompanyIndustry | snitcher.industry |
SnitcherCompanySize | snitcher.size |
1 - Select Variables -> New
2 - Select choose a variable type to begin set up
3 - Select Data Layer Variable
4 - Add the Variable Title e.g. SnitcherCompanyIndustry
5 - Data Layer Variable Name e.g. snitcher.industry
6 - Save and Submit
Repeat these steps for the other data layer variables you would like to add e.g. Company Size (as in the table at the top).
🚨 Remember to Submit the changes when your done!
Here's what it should look like if you choose to add all four variables.
Step 2 - Create spotter callback function
1 - Select Tags -> Create a New Tag
2 - Name the tag Spotter Identified
3 - Select the Tag Type as Custom HTML Tag
4 - Copy and Past the Spotter Script (below)
5 - Remember replace ''YOUR-API-TOKEN'' with your Spotter API token. Which can be found here.
6 - Save and Submit your tag
<script>
function myCallback(identification) {
// We want to ignore 'isp' type identifications
if (identification && identification.type !== "isp") {
// The company was successfully identified!
var company = identification.company;
// Sync data into Data Layer
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
window.dataLayer.push({
snitcher: {
name: company.name,
domain: company.domain,
industry: company.industry,
size: company.employee_range,
},
});
}
window.dataLayer.push({ event: "spotter_loaded" });
}
// Spotter API settings
window.SpotterSettings = {
token: "YOUR-API-TOKEN",
callback: myCallback,
};
</script>
🚨 Don't forget to submit the tag :)
Step 3 - Create trigger and filter by desired company details
1 - Select Triggers and Create New
2 - Name the Trigger Spotter ICP Trigger
3 - Select the Trigger Type as Custom Event
4 - Name the Event spotter_loaded
5 - Fire the Trigger on 'Some Custom Events'
6 - Select the variable you would like to filter by e.g. Snitcher Company Industry
7 - Select matches RegEx
8 - Input the industries you want to fire the trigger on - be sure to use the right format 👇
Computer Software|Information Technology and Services|Marketing and Advertising
9 - Save and Submit the trigger
Login to Google Ads
1 - Select Goals -> Conversions -> Summary -> New Conversion action -> Website (next screen)
2 - Enter your domain -> Add a conversion action manually
3 - Select the Goal Category as other
4 - Decide if you want the action (ICP company identification) to steer the Google Ads algorithm or not
5 - Name the conversion ICP visit
6 - Assign a conversion value (work backwards through your sales process conversion rates to calculate one)
7 - Select the count as Every
8 - Configure other settings as desired
9 - Click done
10 - Select Google Tag Manager as the installation method
11 - Copy the Conversion ID and Conversion label (you'll need them in a moment)
Create a Google Ads Conversion Tracking Tag in GTM
1 - Name the Tag Google Ads Conversion - Spotter ICP
2 - Select the Tag Type as Google Ads Conversion Tracking
3 - Paste your Conversion ID and Label from the previous step
4 - Enable conversion linking 'True'
5 - Select the Spotter ICP Trigger
6 - Save and Submit
Check Google Ads is collecting data
Depending on the volume of ICP visitors coming through your ads, you may need to wait a couple days.
It will be visible in Google Ads under Goals -> Conversions -> Summary -> ICP Visit
As always, please feel free to drop us a message if you need a hand, have an idea you would like to discuss or just feel like saying hello 🥳