Send the approved sale back to Google

Nadia Lindqvist, Affiliate tracking, updated 20 October 2026

Summarize with:

The network approves or rejects the sale days after the click, and a browser tag has already called it a purchase. When the sale you want Google to count is the one the offer pays, use a tracker that documents a Google upload. A hosted checkout fits when the same platform stored the gclid and charged the buyer. Data Manager or the Google Ads API is the route you build when you already keep those click ids in a system you control.

Google's offline conversions article describes the process. Save the GCLID when the ad is clicked, then pass that id back with the conversion type and the time it happened.

“you give that GCLID back to Google Ads along with a few details about the type of conversion it was and when it happened.”

Google Help: About offline conversions Oct 2026

See which entry plan sends the sale

Quick answer

Tracker. Best for an approval the offer actually pays.
Hosted checkout. Best for a checkout that stored the gclid and charged the buyer.
Data Manager or the API. Best for click ids you already keep and upload on a schedule.

What has to exist before the upload

Google matches an offline sale to an ad click when four things are true. The table is the checklist. The sections below explain each row.

What has to exist before Google accepts an offline click conversion
Requirement	What has to be true
Auto-tagging	On. Google's import setup states that auto-tagging has to be on before offline conversions can be imported.
Stored gclid	Kept with the click and uploaded exactly as captured. The same page says the GCLID is case sensitive.
Conversion action	An offline click conversion. The API name for that action is in the API section below.
Who uploads	A tracker, the checkout that stored the click, or an import you run yourself.

“The GCLID is case sensitive, so make sure you're uploading it correctly.”

Google Help: Set up offline conversion imports Oct 2026

The approval arrives after the tag

You send Google traffic to a landing page. The click carries a gclid. The visitor submits a form or clicks through to the offer, and the thank-you page loads. The network still has to approve, hold, or reject that lead, and the decision can land hours later or the next day.

A Purchase tag on that thank-you URL reports a sale the offer may never pay. Offline import is the path that sends the conversion once the payable result is known, matched to the gclid you kept from the click. The purchase gap calculator compares Ads Manager purchases with approved, held, and rejected sales. That difference is what this upload is for.

The same delay explains why a Meta thank-you event and a Google browser tag fail in the same way. The Conversions API guide is the Meta version of this choice: fire on the page you control, or wait for the postback.

How to set up offline conversions in Google Ads

Start with auto-tagging, the first row of the checklist. Without it, the ad click never receives a gclid, and a later file has no id to return.

Create the offline click conversion action in the account that spent the money. Google's setup page asks you to wait four to six hours after that action exists before you upload conversions to it. An upload during that wait targets an action that is still activating.

Capture the gclid on the click, character for character, including capitals. Changing the string, trimming it, or lowercasing it breaks the match the checklist is there to protect. Store it where the later sale can still find it: a tracker field, a hidden field on your lander, or the order record if you host the checkout.

Some clicks, including many iOS paths, arrive with a wbraid or a gbraid and no gclid. The API section lists which of those ids an upload can carry. Keep whichever id the click actually had.

The migration notice in the API section also mentions enhanced conversions for leads. That upload uses hashed customer data. The affiliate path here is the click id stored at the click, which is a different identifier from an email on a lead form.

Hold the gclid until the network answers

The tracker writes the click, including the Google click id, when the visitor arrives. The network's postback is the later message, and it carries the payout plus the status it was built to report. If you install the postback for the approved sale, the record the tracker holds is the payable result. If the postback fires on every lead, the record is the lead.

The postback builder shows the click id and payout macros each tracker supports. The id has to survive the hop to the network and come back on that URL. Buyers who pass the gclid in a subid and upload the conversion after approval are talking about this loop. It works when the approval still carries the same id. It stops when the program never returns the id, because the upload then has no key to match to the ad click.

Voluum homepage with the headline about one ad tracking platform, a dashboard preview, and counts of advertisers and events.

Voluum's Google Ads guide says conversions are reported back to Google with an S2S postback after the network has reported into Voluum. The same guide tells you to check that the Google click id is saved under External ID. A conversion with an empty External ID leaves Voluum with nothing to return to Google. Plans for Voluum are on the Voluum review.

RedTrack homepage with the AdTracker badge, the headline Track every conversion, and a cube diagram of tracking layers.

RedTrack's Google Ads page describes a pre-built integration that sends online and offline conversion data back to Google. The same page says you need a custom tracking domain for the Google Ads integration. The longer write-up is the RedTrack review, and the trial sits on the RedTrack pricing page.

Google Ads API offline conversions

Teams that upload from their own server use the Google Ads API. The legacy click-upload guide says the conversion action's type field must be UPLOAD_CLICKS for offline conversions that use click ids. Each conversion needs one of gclid, gbraid, or wbraid.

That guide covers building the upload on your own server. You need the click id stored already, and you need to schedule the call. A tracker that documents its own Google send stores the id and makes the call for you.

“Starting June 15, 2026, offline conversions import and enhanced conversions for leads uploads will be migrated to the Data Manager API and blocked in the Google Ads API.”

Google Help: Data Manager migration Oct 2026

From 15 June 2026, the notice above moves offline conversion import, and the lead upload it names, over to the Data Manager API. Google says those uploads will be blocked in the Google Ads API. If you are writing the call yourself, that is the date the legacy method stops. A click-id upload and a lead-form upload both move, and they still start from different identifiers.

Google Ads offline conversion import

Google's import page lists three pipes: Google Ads Data Manager, the Google Ads API, and a third-party integration with Zapier. Data Manager is the scheduled file. The API is the call in the previous section. Zapier is the connector Google lists for teams that already use that tool.

A tracker that stores the click and receives the postback can run the upload once the approval lands. A file you export and import fits a low volume of approved rows, when you can keep the gclids yourself. Auto-tagging, the unchanged gclid, and the offline click action still apply to that file.

Which trackers document a Google upload on the entry plan

Plan cost, trial length, and whether a card is required sit on the entry-plan checker. The table shows which starting plan's own pages describe a Google conversion upload. The next section covers ElasticFunnels, a funnel platform, so it sits outside this tracker table.

Which entry plan documents a Google conversion upload
Tool	What the page documents	Requirement
RedTrack	Online and offline conversion data, through a pre-built integration.	A custom tracking domain. The integration page calls that domain mandatory.
ClickMagick	A Google conversion when the click carried a gclid or a wbraid.	Email or phone, when Enhanced Conversions is the path you turned on.
Voluum	An S2S postback to Google after the network reports in.	The Google click id saved as External ID.
FunnelFlux	The homepage says the base plan passes conversion data to Google Ads, along with TikTok, Facebook, and Microsoft.	That homepage line is the documentation used here.
BeMob	The pricing table lists other integrations.	A Facebook line on that table is a different integration.
Binom v2	The homepage states that version one includes the Facebook and Google integrations, and that the same integration will soon be added to version two.	v2 follows when the integration in the previous column ships.

ClickMagick's knowledge base is the source for the gclid and wbraid default. Enhanced Conversions, with an email or a phone on the click, is the exception that page allows when those ids are missing. The ClickMagick review and the ClickMagick pricing page hold the visitor allowance and the trial.

FunnelFlux's homepage says the base plan passes conversion data directly to those four ad platforms. Plans for FunnelFlux are on the FunnelFlux review.

BeMob's pricing page lists integrations on Free and on Professional. Neither Free nor Professional lists a Google conversion upload. The event cap is on the BeMob review.

Binom's homepage says the first version includes the Facebook and Google integrations, and that the same integration will soon be available for the second version. The license is on the Binom review.

When the checkout that stored the click uploads the sale

ElasticFunnels is a funnel platform for teams that run paid traffic. It builds the pages, split-tests variants under one URL so the ad keeps a single campaign link, and hosts the checkout, with the click, the order, the rebill, and the refund on one record. The Google upload is the attribution on that record.

ElasticFunnels pricing page. A thin announcement about Affiliate Grand Slam in Rome sits above the header. The headline reads Funnel builder pricing and plans, with Starter at $97, Growth at $197 and Scale at $497 per month.

The Google Ads integration connects with OAuth. For each sale whose click carries a gclid, it uploads a click conversion through the Google Ads API, with the value, currency, order id, and purchase time, to the conversion action you set. Spend syncs from Google Ads every two hours.

A sale whose click had no gclid stays out of that upload. It still shows in ElasticFunnels reports under the traffic source on the tracking link. The missing gclid limits only that Google upload. The order itself remains on the record.

Inbound postbacks from networks such as BuyGoods and ClickBank let ElasticFunnels record sales, refunds, chargebacks, and rebills. That postback is a different connection from the Google upload. A network approval can land in the account when the postback arrives. The upload described on the Google Ads page is the one tied to a gclid on the order click.

Every feature is on every plan, including that upload. Pages, funnels, and a custom domain can be set up during the trial.

Funnel platform

ElasticFunnels

Price (11 Oct 2026): $97/mo
Trial: 14 days, no card

The upload runs when the order click carried a gclid.

Google Ads integration

ElasticFunnels is newer than the platforms buyers usually set it beside, and there is very little independent review coverage of this Google upload. Until you run real volume through the connection, you are largely taking the vendor's word for how that upload behaves. The product has been on the market since 2023, which is why those outside write-ups are still thin. The pages, the same-URL test, and the checkout remain available.

Buyers weighing funnel platforms set ElasticFunnels beside ClickFunnels. The ElasticFunnels review covers the platform.

What buyers run into once the upload is live

People running affiliate offers on Google describe the same loop: pass the gclid into a network subid, then upload when the program reports a payable conversion. The loop depends on the partner. Google assigns the gclid and does not let you rewrite it, so the lander has to collect the value and pass it on.

The upload has no id to match when the affiliate program leaves the click id off the approval. A report that never contained the id gives the tracker nothing to attribute to the ad click. Amazon-style programs come up in those accounts for that reason: the partner's report has no id to join back to the ad click.

ClickMagick's knowledge base says that when an ad network processes an uploaded conversion, it posts the conversion on the date and time of the original click. The time of the conversion itself is a different value. Ads Manager can show the sale on the click day while the network approved it later. That is why a purchase column and an approval export can still disagree after the upload has gone through.

My take

I would start with a tracker when the network approval is the conversion Google needs to record. I would use the hosted checkout when that platform stored the gclid and took the payment. I would hold off on building a custom API integration until those ids are stored in a system you can automate, and the move to Data Manager should be part of that plan.

Changelog

On 20 October 2026, this page first set the gclid upload next to the approval message, the hosted checkout, and the three import pipes Google lists.

Questions

How do you set up offline conversions in Google Ads?

Turn auto-tagging on, create an offline click conversion action, and keep the click id exactly as the ad click delivered it. Give that new action the wait named in the setup section before the first upload.

Are Google Ads API offline conversions the same thing as an import?

The API is one of the three pipes Google lists, beside Data Manager and Zapier. A tracker can send the sale for you. Maintaining the API call yourself is the in-house version of that same job.

Can the upload wait until the network approves the sale?

A tag on the thank-you page fires when that page loads. The offline upload leaves when you send it, so it can follow the postback that marks a payable result, provided that message still carries the click id.

What if the sale has no gclid?

ElasticFunnels keeps that order on the traffic-source report and leaves it out of the Google upload. ClickMagick looks for a gclid or a wbraid on the click, or an email or phone when Enhanced Conversions is on.

What about iOS clicks and wbraid?

Some clicks arrive with wbraid or gbraid. The API section lists those beside gclid as the identifiers an upload can carry. ClickMagick names wbraid in its default Google rule.

Do BeMob and Binom v2 upload the sale to Google?

BeMob leaves a Google conversion upload off the pricing-page integration list. Binom places the Google integration on version one, with version two still waiting on the same integration.

Does a BuyGoods or ClickBank postback send the conversion to Google on its own?

A network postback can record the sale, the refund, or the rebill in ElasticFunnels. The Google upload on its integration page is the order whose click carried a gclid. Those two connections are separate.

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