Upload Offline Conversions to Google Ads, Step by Step

Uploading offline conversions sends Google the sale it never saw: the order that closes after the click, the value that lands days later. The DIY route is a scheduled Google Sheet keyed to the Google Click ID (GCLID), and it still works in 2026 — only the Google Ads API upload path was cut off on June 15. The lever most stores miss is the number in that sheet. Upload profit, not revenue, and bidding optimizes for margin.

What offline conversions are, and why upload them

Smart Bidding learns from the conversions it can see. For a store that only fires a purchase tag on-site, that means revenue at checkout: it never sees the refund three weeks later, the shipping that ate the margin, or the fact that “it does not know your COGS.” Offline conversion import is how you send the real outcome back to Google after the fact, so the algorithm bids on what happened, not on what the pixel guessed.

The mechanic is a match. You captured a GCLID when the visitor clicked; you attach that GCLID to the order; later you send Google a row that says “this click became this conversion, worth this much, at this time.” Google credits the click and Smart Bidding folds the value into its model.

How to upload offline conversions, step by step

This is the no-new-tool route: a Google Sheet and the Google Ads interface, nothing bought. One r/PPC operator’s line on this whole topic was that “there isn’t much information on this anywhere,” so here is the whole loop.

• In Google Ads, create an offline conversion action: Goals → Conversions → New → Import → then the manual Google Sheets or file route.
• Capture the GCLID on every order. Google appends it to your landing-page URL; store it in a hidden checkout field and save it on the order record.
• Build a sheet with the columns below, one row per order.
• Set the conversion value to profit, not revenue (the formula is under “Where your numbers live”).
• Upload it, or schedule the sheet to upload daily.
• Confirm it landed: Google Ads → Goals → Conversions → Uploads shows the row count and any errors.

The sheet is the copyable artifact. These are the columns Google expects:

Column	What goes in it
Google Click ID	The gclid you captured at checkout
Conversion Name	The exact name of your offline conversion action
Conversion Time	When the order closed, in your account time zone
Conversion Value	The order’s profit, not its revenue
Conversion Currency	USD

What changed on June 15, 2026

The headline scared a lot of people into thinking offline conversions were going away. They are not. What changed is one specific pipe: the Google Ads API stopped accepting new advertisers for its UploadClickConversions request, and that work is migrating to the Data Manager API. If you upload through the interface, none of this touches you. Here is the whole decision in one table.

Upload route	Cut off June 15?	What to do
Google Sheet / CSV (Google Ads UI)	No	Keep using it. It is the route in this guide.
Google Ads API (your script or a connector)	New setups only	Importing before the cutoff kept you allowlisted to migrate; new starts get a “not allowlisted” error. Move to the Data Manager API.
Data Manager	No; it is the destination	Google’s go-forward hub. Pair the GCLID with first-party data; GCLID-only is now the legacy path.

So the DIY sheet above is the durable route: it did not change, and it is the one you control end to end.

Where your numbers live

The GCLID and the timestamp are plumbing. The value is the decision. Don’t send revenue — send what the order was actually worth to you:

GCLID

Appended to your landing URL as ?gclid=…; capture it to a hidden field and save it on the order

Conversion time

Your order record’s paid/fulfilled timestamp, in the account time zone

Order revenue

Your store’s order export

COGS, shipping, fees, refunds

Product cost, the carrier invoice (not the rate you charged), your processor statement, your refund rate

The conversion value you upload is one line of arithmetic: contribution margin = revenue − COGS − shipping − payment fees − expected refunds. That per-order margin is what belongs in the Conversion Value column. If you’re not sure the margin number is right, derive it first: your break-even ROAS is built from the same ratio, and the calculator there shows you the figure to feed Google. Pulling these four cost lines cleanly is where most stores stall, and that difficulty is the finding, not a failure — it is exactly what the scan does for you.

Upload profit, not revenue

Here is the turn most tutorials never take. Everything above works whether you upload revenue or margin. If you upload revenue, you have taught Google to buy more revenue, and it will, including the orders that lose you money on shipping and fees. You are uploading revenue. Upload profit instead: feed Smart Bidding the contribution margin per order and it starts optimizing for the money you keep, not the money that passes through.

That is a bigger build than one sheet, and it is the real system under this whole page. If you want the short version of whether it is worth it for your account, the clean test is the first thing I run: see how the scan works.