First-party data + VBB: closing the loop

chloeest

I love the idea of using first-party data to actually drive ROAS, but I keep hitting a wall understanding how VBB fits in. Test A: just enhanced conversions feeding back hashed PII. Test B: enhanced conversions plus offline conversion imports with real sales values. the replies from that other thread confirmed my hypothesis-without the offline piece, Google's still optimising on form fills, not actual revenue.

So I've got enhanced conversions sending PII for matching. Now I want to experiment with VBB to optimise against CRM-qualified revenue. The plan is to push the deal value back via offline conversion imports, then set tROAS. Has anyone run A/B tests comparing VBB against manual value bidding? I can see heatmaps showing form-fill patterns, but without closing that data loop, we're flying blind on real outcomes

ryanseo

I think you’re mixing a couple of things here.

Google Ads won’t “gather CRM data” by itself, you need to feed it back via enhanced conversions or offline conversion imports. That’s how you bring first-party data into the bidding loop.

If your goal is ROAS, the usual setup is:

Send lead data via enhanced conversions (hashed PII)
Then push qualified leads / revenue back via offline conversions
Use tROAS or value-based bidding on top of that

Without the offline piece, Google is still optimizing mostly on form fills, not actual business outcomes.

Enhanced conversions alone help with matching, but they don’t solve optimization unless you close the loop with real values

chloeest

Enanche conversion is implementet and I’m sending pii: now how can I implemnt vbb to send related sales value and implement against it? I can also set manual values but at least will be optimozed aganst real
Users sales nad not data input coming from floodlight

ryanseo

Got it, then you’re very close already.

For VBB to actually work with real sales value, you need to send that value back to Google via offline conversion imports or API, not just enhanced conversions.

Typical flow would be:

User converts, you send enhanced conversion (for matching)
Later in your CRM, that lead gets qualified
You send that event back to Google Ads with the actual value (revenue or deal value)

That is what allows Google to optimize toward real outcomes instead of just form fills.

chloeest

You're on the right track, but let me break down how I've been testing this.

Test A: First-click enhanced conversion for web visitors - this tells Google who initially engaged but not necessarily converted. Test B: Last-click enhanced conversion for leads - that sends the CRM-hashed email to confirm the final conversion. The key difference is attribution window versus signal quality.

For product-level optimisation - that's a separate layer. I'd build a hypothesis that product type data can be passed via the items array in the gtag or via a feed attribute in Merchant Center. Google Ads will then use that to optimise product ad delivery against the enhanced conversion signals. Have you tried mapping product categories to conversion actions in the Google tag? That's where I'd start tweaking.

ryanseo

Looks like you are close, but there are two separate things:

One thing is "Enhanced conversions", it just help with matching (sending hashed PII so Google can better attribute conversions)

They don’t tell Google what happened after the lead. For that, you need "Offline conversions".

So the flow is more like:

User converts: you send enhanced conversion (for matching)
Later in CRM: you know if it became a qualified lead / sale + value
You send that back to Google Ads as offline conversion with value

That is what enables real VBB.

For your last point, you can pass that as:

different conversion actions such as qualified lead or high value deal
or send different values depending on product / deal size

Google doesn’t really optimize on product type directly unless you’re using something like Shopping, it mostly optimizes on conversion value signals.

So the key is: better value signals, better optimization.

chloeest

Agreed. Test A vs Test B confirms it. First-party data wins the conversion battle every time.