when should you use the Offline Conversions API?

The Conversions API on Meta allows businesses to send first-party conversion events directly to Meta. This is crucial for improving attribution and optimization for ad campaigns. Attribution in this context refers to how Meta credits an ad for a conversion, with the default setting being a 7-day click and 1-day view attribution. Optimization involves Meta showing your ad to people most likely to perform your desired action, based on the Performance Goal set within the ad.

The offline Conversions API should be used when a customer's website activity does not trigger a conversion event. For instance:

• A purchase is made in a physical store.
• A salesperson closes a sale offline without the customer visiting your website.

In such cases, offline or CRM events can be sent to Meta to ensure accurate tracking and attribution of conversions that occur outside of the digital environment.

To avoid duplicate events when using the Conversions API, it's necessary to deduplicate online conversions. This means ensuring that the same event is not counted twice if it is sent from both your CRM and website. While deduplication is possible, it requires technical expertise. A simpler approach is to only send offline or CRM events to Meta when there is no website element involved in the conversion.