How does Bing Ads track conversions for store visits or offline purchases?

Bing Ads (now known as Microsoft Advertising) tracks store visits and offline purchases using a feature called Offline Conversion Tracking. This feature enables advertisers to measure the impact of their digital ads on offline behavior, such as in-store visits, phone calls, or in-person purchases. Since these actions happen offline (outside of a website or app), Bing Ads cannot directly track them in real-time but allows you to manually upload conversion data.

Here's how Bing Ads tracks store visits and offline purchases:

1. Offline Conversion Tracking Setup
To track offline conversions, you need to use Offline Conversion Tracking in Microsoft Advertising. This setup involves integrating online and offline data sources, then uploading conversion data to Microsoft Advertising for reporting and optimization.

Step-by-Step Setup for Offline Conversion Tracking:
Create an Offline Conversion Goal in Microsoft Advertising:

Go to the Tools section in Microsoft Advertising.

Under Measurement, select Offline Conversions.

Create a new offline conversion goal, specifying the type of offline action you want to track (e.g., store visit, in-store purchase, phone call).

This goal will allow you to associate offline actions with specific ad campaigns, keywords, or ads.

Track the Online Touchpoints Leading to Offline Actions:

To associate offline conversions with online behavior (such as clicks on your ads), you need to collect identifiers like Click ID (GCLID) or Transaction ID. When someone clicks on your ad, Microsoft Ads generates a unique ID (such as Click ID) that you can use to track the corresponding offline conversion.

If your business has an online component (e.g., a click to call ad or a store locator tool), you can capture these identifiers when a user engages with your ad.

Capture Offline Data:

When the offline event occurs (such as a store visit or purchase), record the relevant data (e.g., store visit, product purchased, time of visit).

For example, if a user clicks on your ad and later visits your store, you will need to associate that visit with the corresponding Click ID or transaction ID.

Upload Offline Conversion Data:

After capturing the offline conversion data, you need to upload it to Microsoft Advertising using the Offline Conversions Import feature. This can be done through:

Manual upload: Prepare a CSV file with the Click ID, conversion event (e.g., store visit or purchase), and conversion value, and then upload it to Microsoft Advertising.

Automated uploads: If you have a CRM or other data system that tracks offline events, you can automate the upload process using the Offline Conversion API.

Link Offline Conversions to Online Campaigns:

Once the offline conversion data is uploaded, Microsoft Advertising can match it with the corresponding clicks from the campaign and display the results in your reports.

You can then track how many store visits or offline purchases are attributable to your online ads and gain insights into the ROI of your campaigns.

2. Store Visit Tracking (Using Location Extensions)
Microsoft Advertising doesn't directly track in-store visits automatically like some platforms (e.g., Google Ads with their store visit tracking), but you can still leverage Location Extensions to measure store visits indirectly. Location extensions provide ad details like your business address, phone number, and hours, helping users find your physical locations.

While store visit tracking is not as sophisticated as Google's, Location Extensions can still play an important role:

Location Extension Setup: When users click on your ad with location extensions, they might interact with maps or directions to your store. If they later visit your store, you can attribute that visit to your campaign through Offline Conversion Tracking (by uploading the visit data manually as mentioned above).

Local Campaigns: For businesses with physical stores, setting up Local Campaigns in Bing Ads can optimize your campaigns for store visits, using geographic data to target users who are more likely to visit your store.

3. Phone Call Tracking
If your business relies on phone calls for conversions (such as orders or inquiries), you can also track phone calls as offline conversions. Microsoft Advertising provides Call Extensions and Call Tracking features to help link phone call interactions with ad performance.

Call Extensions: Include a phone number directly in your ad, making it easy for users to call your business.

Call Tracking: When a user clicks on the call extension, Microsoft Advertising can track the duration of the call, and if the call leads to a conversion (e.g., a sale or appointment), it can be uploaded as an offline conversion.

4. Using Audience Lists to Optimize for Offline Conversions
Once you've set up offline conversion tracking and have a list of offline actions (e.g., store visits, in-store purchases), you can use this data to refine your audience targeting. For example:

Remarketing: If you have a list of users who clicked on your ad but did not convert offline (i.e., didn't visit the store or make a purchase), you can target them with remarketing ads to encourage conversion.

Excluding Non-Converters: You can exclude users who clicked your ad but didn't visit the store or make a purchase to optimize your campaigns for better return on ad spend (ROAS).

5. Attribution and Reporting
After you've uploaded offline conversion data to Microsoft Advertising, you can analyze the results using Attribution Models to understand how digital interactions contribute to offline purchases or store visits. Attribution models will help you understand the customer journey and where your ads played a role in driving offline conversions.

Summary of Steps:
Set Up Offline Conversion Tracking in Microsoft Advertising.

Capture Identifiers like Click ID when users interact with your ads.

Track and Record Offline Actions, such as store visits or purchases.

Upload Offline Conversion Data to Microsoft Advertising manually or automatically.

Use Location Extensions for indirect store visit tracking and optimize campaigns.

Utilize Call Tracking for phone call conversions.

Leverage Attribution Models to analyze the contribution of online ads to offline conversions.

By integrating offline conversion tracking and optimizing your campaigns based on offline actions, you can get a more accurate view of how your digital ads contribute to in-store visits, purchases, and overall offline performance.