Offline conversion tracking glossary: 30 terms explained in plain words

A lot of the confusion in this topic is vocabulary. Here are the terms that come up, in plain words. Bookmark it, and tell me what's missing.

Offline conversion: a sale or qualified lead that happens away from your website, reported back to the ad platform.

Click ID: a code an ad platform adds to your page address when someone clicks an ad. It names the click.

GCLID: Google's click ID. Google adds it as ?gclid= when auto-tagging is on.

GBRAID and WBRAID: click IDs Google uses on some iOS traffic instead of a GCLID.

fbclid: Meta's click ID.

ttclid: TikTok's click ID.

li_fat_id: LinkedIn's click ID.

Auto-tagging: the Google Ads setting that adds the GCLID to your landing page address.

Conversions API (CAPI): a way to send events from your server to Meta, instead of from the browser. TikTok's equivalent is called the Events API, and LinkedIn also has a Conversions API.

Pixel: a browser script that reports what a visitor does on your site.

Server-side tracking: sending events from a server, which doesn't depend on the visitor's browser.

Dataset: Meta's container for the events you send. It replaced the separate offline event sets.

Event: one thing that happened, like a lead, a booking or a purchase.

Event ID: a label that lets a platform treat a browser event and a server event as the same one.

Deduplication: making sure the same sale isn't counted twice.

Match key: the identifier used to tie an event to a person, usually a hashed email or phone.

Hashing: turning an email or phone into a scrambled string that can be matched but not read.

Event Match Quality (EMQ): Meta's 0 to 10 score for how well your details let it find the person.

Enhanced conversions for leads: a Google method that matches offline conversions on hashed email or phone when the click ID is missing.

Conversion action: a goal in Google Ads. It can be primary, which steers bidding, or secondary, which only reports.

Smart Bidding: Google's automatic bidding, which learns from your primary conversions.

Attribution window: how long after an event or click a platform will still credit it.

Sales cycle: the time from first click to closed deal.

Lead stage: where a person is in your pipeline, like new, qualified, booked, won.

Qualified lead: a lead your team accepted as a real prospect.

Showed: the person attended the appointment or call.

Offline import: uploading conversions from a file.

Webhook: a web request one system sends to another when something happens.

Delivery log: a record of what was sent for each conversion, and what happened.

Safari ITP: Safari's limits on cookies and tracking, which shorten how long a click ID survives.

Ten more terms, because they came up.

Secondary conversion: a Google Ads conversion that reports but doesn't steer bidding.

Match rate: the share of events a platform could tie to a person.

Hashed identity: an email or phone, scrambled so it can be matched but not read.

First-party cookie: a cookie set by your own domain, as opposed to a third party's.

Consent: a visitor's permission for you to set cookies or send data, which matters especially in the EU.

Server container: a server that receives events and forwards them, used in server-side tagging.

Data layer: a structured object on your page that holds information for tags to read.

UTM parameters: tags added to a link to record the source, medium and campaign.

Lead source: where a lead came from, as recorded in the CRM.

Value: the amount attached to a conversion, which lets the platform learn what a sale is worth.

That's 40. Tell me what's still missing.

Which term would you add, or which one still doesn't make sense?