9X ROAS Through Offline Conversion Tracking For Family Piano Dealer

The Challenge

Berries Barn Pianos, a family-owned piano dealer in Norwich UK, faced the classic small business dilemma: how to compete effectively in paid search while working with limited budgets and an offline sales cycles.

As a high-value lead generation business, the company struggled with several interconnected challenges:

• Blind optimization: Google Ads was optimizing for website leads (showroom bookings and contact form fills), but the business had no way to tell the algorithm which leads actually converted into piano sales. This meant Google couldn't learn the difference between a quality lead and wasted budget.
• Long sales cycles: Piano purchases involve significant consideration, showroom visits, and negotiations. Most conversions happened offline, weeks after the initial ad click, making it difficult to measure true ROI.
• Unqualified lead volume: The brand received many enquiries from people wanting to sell their old pianos rather than buy new ones, wasting budget and time for a small business with liimited resources.
• Limited algorithmic learning: With low conversion volumes typical of high-ticket items and no feedback about which leads closed, Google's machine learning had insufficient quality data to improve performance.
• Small business constraints: As a family business, they couldn't afford expensive CRM integrations or complex marketing technology stacks.

The Strategy

My approach centered on closing the data loop between online advertising and offline sales, while making it easier for qualified customers to engage and harder for unqualified ones to waste time.

Core Strategic Principles

• Offline conversion tracking: Implement a system to feed actual sales data back to Google Ads, enabling the algorithm to learn which clicks drive revenue, not just form fills
• Lead qualification at source: Use website improvements to filter out unqualified enquiries before they enter the system
• Value-based bidding: Pass piano values to Google Ads to optimize for high-value sales, not just lead volume
• Practical automation: Build a solution using accessible tools (Zapier) and existing applications (Xero) that a small business can maintain without a full-time tech team

Implementation & Key Optimizations

1. Website Contact Form Redesign

The first step was improving the user experience while simultaneously filtering leads. I redesigned the contact form with:

• Streamlined design: Simplified the Contact page and form to essential information only, decreasing friction for qualified buyers
• Subject dropdown: Added a clear dropdown allowing visitors to specify their enquiry type (e.g., "Buying a piano", "Selling a piano", "Piano tuning", "General enquiry"). This simple addition immediately filtered out unqualified leads looking to sell rather than buy.
• Conditional logic: Different enquiry types triggered different workflows, ensuring purchase enquiries received priority attention
• Mobile optimization: Ensured the form worked seamlessly on mobile devices, where many customers browsed

2. Product-Specific Enquiry System

To make it easier for customers to enquire about specific pianos they were viewing:

• "Enquire about this piano" buttons: Added prominent CTA buttons to all product pages
• JavaScript auto-fill: When clicked, these buttons automatically pre-populated the contact form with the piano model, price, and product details using localStorage variables
• Piano value tracking: Created a custom data layer variable capturing the specific piano's value, which could be passed to Google Ads for value-based optimization
• Reduced friction: Customers no longer had to manually describe which piano they were interested in, significantly improving conversion rates

3. Visual Enhancement: AI-Generated Backgrounds

To help the brand stand out in a competitive market:

• Product image enhancement: Used AI tools to generate professional backgrounds for piano product photos, helping cutomers imagine their new piano in their home or studio.
• Brand consistency: Created a cohesive visual identity across all product listings
• Improved ad performance: Enhanced images led to higher click-through rates in Shopping ads and display placements for PMAX

4. Offline Conversion Tracking via Zapier

This was the most critical optimization. I built an automated workflow that closed the loop between online enquiries and offline sales:

The Workflow

1. Lead capture: When someone submitted an enquiry form, Zapier captured the lead data including hashed email address, piano value, and Google Click ID (GCLID)
2. CRM logging: The enquiry was automatically logged in a simple spreadsheet CRM system
3. Automated upload: Zapier monitored for status updates and automatically sent offline conversion data to Google Ads via the Enhanced Conversions for Leads API
4. Email matching: Google matched the hashed email addresses to the original ad click, attributing the sale to the correct campaign, ad group, and keyword

Technical Implementation

• Enhanced Conversions for Leads: Leveraged Google's ECL feature to match offline sales to online clicks using email hashing
• GCLID preservation: Ensured Google Click IDs were captured and stored with each lead for accurate attribution
• Conversion value passing: Sent actual piano sale values to Google Ads, enabling value-based bidding strategies
• No-code automation: Built the entire system in Zapier, requiring no custom development or expensive integrations

Campaign Optimization Strategy

With offline conversion data flowing, I restructured the campaigns to leverage this new intelligence:

Account Consolidation

• Fewer, better campaigns: Consolidated multiple low-volume campaigns into focused themes with sufficient conversion data
• Broad match strategy: Used broad match keywords with strong conversion data to let Google's AI find qualified buyers
• Smart Bidding: Switched to Target ROAS bidding now that the system could see actual sale values

Value-Based Optimization

• Piano-level value signals: Passed specific piano values to Google, allowing the algorithm to bid more aggressively for high-value instruments
• Qualified lead optimization: Configured conversion actions to track "purchase enquiry" separately from other form fills, focusing budget on qualified buyers
• ROAS targets: Set profitable ROAS targets based on actual sale data rather than guesses about lead value

Results

The combination of offline conversion tracking, website improvements, and smart bidding delivered transformative results for the family business:

Revenue & Efficiency

• 9X ROAS from offline conversions – For the first time, the business could measure and prove the return on ad spend from leads that started online but converted offline
• 35% decrease in average CPC – As the algorithm learned which searches drove actual sales, it optimized bids away from non-converting traffic
• Improved budget efficiency: Same ad budget driving higher-quality clicks and more valuable conversions

Lead Quality & Volume

• 40% increase in purchase enquiries – The streamlined form with product pre-fill made it easier for qualified buyers to reach out
• Deprioritization of "selling piano" actions – The subject dropdown filtered these out and avoided treating them as qualified leads
• Higher conversion rate: From enquiry to showroom visit to sale, each stage improved as lead quality increased

Business Impact

• Data-driven decisions: The business could now identify which products, keywords, and campaigns drove actual sales
• Competitive advantage: Professional product imagery and smooth enquiry process set them apart from competitors still using basic phone photos
• Scalable system: The Zapier automation requires minimal maintenance and can handle growing volumes

Key Takeaways

This project demonstrated that small businesses can achieve enterprise-level performance with the right strategic approach:

• Small businesses don't need to be excluded from advanced algorithmic benefits: Setting up offline conversions and building data flows through accessible tools like Zapier can help small businesses make the most of their limited budgets. You don't need expensive enterprise software to leverage Google's AI – you just need clean data and smart workflows.
• Smart Bidding works even with low conversion volumes: Value-based bidding with a consolidated account structure drives growth even when budgets and total conversion volume are low. The complexity of an account structure should be a factor of data volume and budget. Big brands with large budgets can afford to break out accounts into granular segments, but small brands collecting less data need to consolidate even more aggressively to give algorithms sufficient learning data.
• Small website adjustments can have large impacts on digital marketing performance: Simple changes like a subject dropdown or auto-filled enquiry forms can dramatically improve both user experience and campaign efficiency. Align your advertising strategy with your digital user journey and leverage your website to help train the algorithms.
• Offline conversion tracking is essential for high-ticket items: For businesses with long sales cycles and offline conversions, measuring only online form fills leaves Google optimizing blind. Closing the loop enables true ROI measurement and much better performance.
• Lead qualification should start at the website: Don't wait until leads are in your CRM to qualify them. Use form design and conditional logic to filter out unqualified traffic before it consumes budget and staff resources.