Dreamdata Google Offline Conversions: Train the Google Ads AI to produce more B2B revenue
Today we’re announcing the launch of Dreamdata’s Google Offline Conversions integration!
With this new release, we’re making it a whole lot easier to drive high-quality leads through Google Ads by leaving the hard work to Google.
Dreamdata’s Google Offline Conversions feature enables B2B marketers to automatically and continually feed pipeline data straight back to Google Ads.
The Google Ads AI then digests this data to focus on targeting high-quality leads, ultimately resulting in a much lower CPA and a better ROAS.
And all you’ve got to do is turn on Dreamdata’s Google Offline Conversion, set up your Google Ads campaign with automated bidding, and watch the magic happen.
In this post, we’re diving into how and why this feature is a game changer to many B2B marketers. We’ll look at:
The limits of traditional Google website conversion tracking for B2Bs
What is Google Offline Conversions?
Why Google Offline Conversions takes Google Smart Bidding to the next level
Why B2B marketers haven’t been connecting Google Offline Conversions and Google Smart Bidding?
Dreamdata’s Google Offline Conversions integration - automation of Google Ads optimisation
What to expect when you set up Offline Conversions and Smart Bidding: based on our initial experiments Jump straight here —>
TL;DR
We’ve launched the Dreamdata Google Offline Conversion integration which enables B2B marketers to automate their Google Ads Optimisation and deliver better ROAS and ROI.
Google allows marketers to feed pipeline conversion data back to Google Ads through Offline Conversions. This enables B2B marketers to tell the Google Ads AI what high-quality leads look like.
However, without specialist tools, setting up Google Offline Conversions can be challenging. It requires tech support which marketers don’t often get, as well as existing accurate end-to-end B2B customer journey tracking.
That’s why we launched Dreamdata Google Offline Conversions, enabling:
End-to-end B2B customer journey tracking - for accurate conversion data.
Automatic and daily conversion data upload to Google Ads - in a fully privacy-compliant way.
Simple and easy setup - with no need for engineering time (+100 hours) and cost
The limits of traditional Google website conversion tracking for B2Bs
Google’s ‘traditional’ website conversion tracking is the bread and butter of conversion performance on Google Ads. It’s easy to set up and helps track whether or not ad clicks are resulting in sign-ups, demo bookings, content downloads, etc.
However, not all conversions are captured automatically through website conversion tracking.
In the world of B2B, most meaningful conversions, i.e. those that actually show the buyer is moving towards purchase, take place outside the Google universe.
To put it another way, when you’re buying 100s and 1000s of clicks, you want to know (and you want Google to know) whether those clicks are generating pipeline and revenue - beyond the demo booking.
This lead data, which isn’t captured through traditional tracking, is crucial for Google Ads to know what quality leads actually look like. It’s the missing link.
And Google knows it.
That’s where Google Offline Conversions tracking comes in.
What is Google Offline Conversions?
Google Offline Conversions allows marketers to feed pipeline conversion data back to Google Ads.
Think of it as a backdoor to the AI engine in Google Ads which allows you to send feedback on the quality of the clicks you’re buying.
And why is this soooo useful?
Well, it finally allows B2B marketers to overcome the limitations of traditional web tracking. It provides the insight Google Ads needs to know what a quality conversion looks like.
It also offers B2B marketers the key to Google Smart Bidding, which basically allows Google to automatically place your ads in front of the right people at the right time.
What is Google Smart Bidding?
Google Smart Bidding is an AI-powered feature within the Google Ads suite that automatically optimises bids in real-time to achieve the best possible performance for your advertising campaigns.
It takes into account various signals and factors, such as device type, location, time of day, and audience demographics, to adjust bids for each ad auction - all held within the GCLID that is sent over through Offline Conversions.
This helps maximise results and save marketers time and agony by eliminating the need for manual bid adjustments.
The benefits of Google Offline Conversions for B2B marketers
There are three incredible benefits Google Offline Conversions brings to the B2B marketer.
Better ad performance
The main benefit is the significant improvement in ad campaign performance.
On the one hand, you’re telling Google what a quality lead looks like. This means that it can much better target look-alike audiences, and as such drive a better quality and quantity of leads.
On the other, the machine learning algorithms behind Google Ads can identify the optimal bid for each ad auction, which increases the chances of winning those auctions.
The combined effect is ultimately, more pipeline, better ROAS and lower CPA.
Improved efficiency
All of the process set out above, the targeting, the bidding, etc. happens automatically - saving B2B marketers valuable time and resources.
Instead of spending countless hours manually adjusting bids, marketers can focus on other strategic aspects of their campaigns.
Continuous improvement
With Google Offline Conversions, the algorithms will constantly learn from campaign performance data, refining and improving bid adjustments over time, based on real pipeline data.
This continuous learning ensures that B2B marketers' campaigns become more effective and efficient as more data is collected and analysed.
Why haven’t B2B marketers been connecting Google Offline Conversions and Google Smart Bidding?
Google Offline Conversions + Smart Bidding = $
It’s a no-brainer really.
So why haven’t we seen wholesale adoption of Google Offline Conversions by B2B marketers?
There are typically a number of reasons for this.
Lack of awareness on the value of Google Offline Conversions
Google hasn’t done a good job of showcasing the feature which allows B2B marketers to feed pipeline data directly to Google Ads that will then train Google’s AI to automatically bring higher-quality leads and boost your ROAS.
As a result many B2B marketers are simply not aware of its existence and the benefits that come with it (see benefits above).
Setting up Google Offline Conversions is challenging
But even where there is knowledge of this, the challenge of setting it up sends them running for the hills.
Not to mention, that most B2B marketers don’t get the tech support they need to set it up.
According to the agencies we’ve talked with while building this new feature - it easily takes 100 hours of work to get this up and running for an engineer who knows what they are trying to do.
Just check out Google’s instructions for doing this 👇
Add to this, Google’s recommendation for importing the offline data on a daily basis, and you’ve got a time-consuming tech challenge to overcome.
Not having accurate B2B pipeline journey data
Even in the cases where awareness of the value AND the engineering help is there, there might not be accurate pipeline journey data available to send to Google.
For Google Offline Conversions to work effectively, it requires a significant amount of historical conversion data.
Yet once again, this is not something many B2B marketers have readily available.
Especially, with the sunsetting of 3rd party cookies - which to some extent offered a stopgap here.
In fact, many B2B marketers continue to work with insufficient or low-quality data linking marketing activities to pipeline and revenue.
Which means that even if the Google Offline Conversion-Smart Bidding is set up, the data that’s fed to the Google AI would be inaccurate, leading to suboptimal bid adjustments and ultimately reduced confidence in the automated bidding system.
Dreamdata Google Offline Conversions: automating your Google Ads optimisation
With Dreamdata, B2B marketers can easily overcome all these limitations.
Dreamdata’s Offline Conversions feature automatically feeds offline conversions data into Google Ads at the click of a button.
Providing B2B marketers with:
End-to-end B2B customer journey tracking - for accurate conversion data.
Automatic and daily conversion data upload to Google Ads- in a fully privacy-compliant way.
Simple and easy setup - no need for engineering time and cost (save yourself 100 hours).
In overall you are combining accurate Digital Marketing Analytics with your Customer Journey Analytics. By collecting and analyzing data across various digital marketing channels, marketers gain deeper insights into customer interactions and behaviors, which helps ensure that the conversion data sent to Google Ads is highly actionable.
How Google Offline Conversions works with Dreamdata:
Dreamdata tracks every touch of every user in every account by integrating all the relevant data sources on the B2B marketing tech stack - see integrations here.
This includes the Google Click ID from ad clicks (think of this as a reference code for Google which enables it to recall device type, location, time of day, and audience demographics.)
Dreamdata then cleans, transforms and models all this data to establish a single source of data truth.
These data insights then enable B2B marketers to identify what’s working and what isn’t.
That is, which clicks and conversions are seeing successful leads down the customer journey.
This data about which leads continue down the sales pipeline is then automatically fed to Google Ads, through Google Offline Conversions.
You can also check out Dreamdata’s LinkedIn Offline Conversion feature. And see how you can add data points to your CRM here.
Once you turn on Smart Bidding and set a relevant conversion-based goal, then the Google Ads AI engine will through pattern detection continue to improve both the quality and the number of leads it can detect.
Automatically putting you ahead of the competition at the right time and at the right cost. Boosting your ROAS and Google Ads ROI.
Dreamdata will continue automatically feeding your latest conversion data on a daily basis to ensure Google always has the latest quality data!
What to expect when you set up Offline Conversions and Smart Bidding
Ok, so what happens in practice once you turn this on?
Well, following a test period on a small number of our own campaigns these are the main observations:
Clicks and impressions dropped and became more expensive. 😱
We got much higher quality conversions (leads) coming through.
We in turn gave us a much better ROAS on the campaigns.
We also notices that it took approximately 15 conversions per month before Offline Conversions had an effect on the campaigns.
These weren’t surprising.
After all, the goal of Google Offline Conversions is to get more Conversions. And because your goal is now Conversions, and no longer Click or Impressions, you will inevitably see a considerable drop in both Clicks and Impressions, in favour of an increase in valuable conversions. (Make sure to communicate this with the team!)
This is exactly what any B2B marketer should want.
It’s exactly what we want, which is why, following our initial experiments, we have switched Smart Bidding on for all our campaigns!
