Conversions for some advertisers start online and finish offline. For example, a consumer initiates research online for a purchase, clicks on an ad, and then telephones a call center to complete the purchase. These types of conversions are called offline conversions. Offline conversion diagnostics helps you understand and monitor for issues with your conversion uploads or edits when using the Campaign Manager 360 API.
How it works
After you have gathered the offline conversion data you can upload them with any one of the techniques Upload from the Search Ads 360 API, Upload from the Campaign Manager 360 API, and Upload from a bulksheet. Note that the offline diagnostics discussed in this article are only available for users of the Campaign Manager 360 Conversion API. Learn more About uploading offline conversions, and editing offline conversions via the Campaign Manager 360 API.
You can view the status of the conversion action and also the additional details like diagnostics metrics. Hover over the status column of the conversion action you should be able to view a dialogue box. The dialogue box contains details such as needs attention, recording conversions, and improve data quality and many others. You should be able to view the “Go to diagnostics” along with these messages for conversion actions that have uploaded offline conversion via the Campaign Manager 360 Conversion API.
To check the accuracy of the offline conversions data upload, the diagnostics page can be helpful. The Diagnostics page gives you an overview of the quality of the data uploaded and error messages.
Instructions
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- From the page menu, under “Tools and settings”, click Conversions, then click Summary.
- Status column should show the conversion action status( active, no recent conversions, needs attention, and many more).
- Note: To check the Diagnostics page hover over the status column under the conversions.
Types of status under Diagnostics
| Status | Color | Label | Description |
| Green | Active and optimal | Your offline data setup is active and optimal for downstream processing. | |
| Blue | Active with improvements available | Your offline setup is active, but there are further improvements you could make. | |
| Yellow | Active with major errors | Your offline setup is active, but there are errors that require your attention. | |
| Red | Not received data in the last 2 days | Your offline setup has not received data in the last 2 days, there may be something wrong. |
Diagnostic page gives you the overview about the offline uploaded data with status, alerts, messages, and graphs. You can check the status like needs attention, no recent conversion, good, and excellent, with the alerts with description and percentage breakdown for the same. Expand the alerts to check for detailed description and fix accordingly.
Another part of the diagnostics page is “History” which is explained through the graphs. You can select the dates from the dropdown (for example for the last 7 days). The graphs consist of bars with 2 colors:
- Blue bar: Successfully imported event
- Red bars: Events with error
Types of diagnostic errors and their meaning
The table below will help with making sense of the diagnostic error message you view in the UI. This list may change over time.
| Diagnostic Error Message | Description |
| Missing required field | One or more required fields (for example: Time used, floodlight activity id and more) are currently incomplete. To continue, please ensure all required information is provided. Review the API documentation for more information. |
| Negative Values | Events contain negative values or negative quantity. Please re-upload the data with positive values/quantity. |
| Missing Conversion Identifier | Uploaded identifiers leading to the imported events are missing. Check that your data source includes the correct identifiers. |
| Multiple Conversion Identifiers Provided | More than one conversion identifier provided. Please choose a single identifier type for each conversion upload. Review the API documentation for more information. |
| Enhanced Conversions Not Enabled or Misconfigured | The account is not set up correctly to use enhanced conversions. This feature requires enabling enhanced conversions and accepting the terms of service. Please verify your account settings and ensure you have completed all the necessary steps to activate this feature. Review the documentation here for more information. |
| Enhanced Conversions: User Identifier Limit Exceeded | A maximum of five user identifiers (hashed emails, hashed phone numbers, or addresses) can be associated with a single conversion. Please reduce the number of user identifiers you are providing to ensure compliance with this limit. |
| Enhanced Conversions: Invalid Identifier Attachment | User identifiers can only be associated with existing conversions by using a valid match_id. Please ensure you are providing the correct match_id when attempting to link user identifiers to conversions. |
| Enhanced Conversions: Missing User Identifier | To create a UserIdentifier, you must provide at least one of the following: a hashed email, a hashed phone number, or address information. Please include at least one of these fields in each UserIdentifier you submit. |
| Enhanced Conversions: Invalid SHA256 Hash Format | The hashed phone number and/or hashed email provided is not in a valid SHA256 format. Ensure that the data has been correctly hashed using the SHA256 algorithm before submitting it as a user identifier. |
| Enhanced Conversions: Invalid Address Field | The address provided in the UserIdentifier is not valid or contains errors. Please ensure that the address is correctly formatted and includes all required information. |
| Invalid custom variable configuration | There is a detected issue with a custom Floodlight variable. This could be due to a typo in the type, a repeated index, or a value that's too long. Please review and correct the custom variable settings. |
| Invalid conversion identifier | The click/identifier leading to the imported event can't be found. Make sure your data source is set up to include correct identifiers. If you are uploading conversions with a gclid, ensure that the gclid is unmodified (not truncated, or case-converted), and ensure that it's a gclid value that is known to SA360. This can be done via the gclsrc parameter that came through with the click. Ensure the value of that string contains 'ds'. If uploading with a match_id, ensure that the online tag is properly sending the match_id, the uploaded conversion is within 60 days of the tag fire containing the match_id, and that you've waited at least 2 hours after the tag fire with the match_id to upload or edit the offline conversion. |
| Click too recent | Can't import uploaded data that contains events/clicks that occurred less than 6 hours ago. Try uploading again in 6 hours. |
| Click too old | Imported events can't be recorded because they occurred before this conversion action's lookback window. Configure your import to get the most recent data. |
| Missing Floodlight Configuration ID | The floodlight configuration ID was not found in the system. Verify that the ID is correct and that the configuration has been properly set up. |
| Conversions too old for update | Imported events can't be recorded because conversions over 28 days old may not be updated. Configure your import to get the most recent data. |
| Encrypted User ID: Update not supported | Encrypted User ID adjustment is not supported. |
| Custom Variables: Update not supported | Custom Variables adjustment is not supported. |
| Child-Directed Treatment: Update not supported | Child-Directed Treatment adjustment is not supported. |
| Limit Ad Tracking: Update not supported | Limit Ad Tracking adjustment is not supported. |
| Ad User Data Consent: Update not supported | Ad User Data Consent adjustment is not supported. |
| Cart Data: Missing Cart Items Information |
One or more required fields are currently incomplete, to continue. Ensure all required information is provided:
|
| Cart Data: Missing Cart Information | One or more required fields are currently incomplete, to continue. Ensure all required information is provided (for example, merchantFeedLabel) |
| Cart Data: Negative Values/Quantity | Events contain negative quantity or price. Re-upload the data with positive values or quantity. |
| Cart Data: Invalid Language Code | The merchant_feed_language field requires a valid two-letter ISO 639-1 language code. Enter a valid two-letter language code (for example, "en" for English, "fr" for French) |
| Cart Data: Insert not supported | Cart data insertion isn't supported. |
| Cart Data: Unsupported Update | Cart data adjustment is not supported. |
Best practices for offline upload data
Uploading the data on a regular basis might help to check the performance and bid accordingly for accurate results.
- Upload Frequently: Uploading data frequently can help systems that depend on it like bid opt. If you can stream data or upload multiple batches per day, that can help ensure these systems are best set for success. If your system cannot do that, try to at least upload a batch of conversions per day. Set up alerts or automated processes to indicate any missed uploads.
- Timestamp validation: Implement a check to ensure that the timestamps of uploaded conversions fall within the acceptable lookback window from when the conversion occurred. The ideal size of this window will depend on your business model.
- Standardized upload procedures: Create a well defined process for conversion uploads. This includes consistent formatting, pre-upload data cleaning, and error checks.
- Monitor trends: Track your consistency metric over time. Look for patterns of inconsistency and proactively investigate the reasons behind them.
- Refine lookback window: Analyze your data to determine if your current lookback window is optimal. Adjust if needed, keeping in mind your business goals and typical conversion timeframes.