Linnworks knows what you sold. Google Ads is guessing.
We send actual order values from Linnworks to Google Ads, including phone orders that never touch your website, and keep marketplace sales out so your ads only get credit for orders they actually won.
- Linnworks
- Google Ads
- Amazon
- eBay
Your Google Ads account knows about the orders your website’s tag saw, at whatever value that tag happened to report. Linnworks knows about all of them: web orders, phone orders keyed in by your sales team, and everything arriving from Amazon and eBay. The gap between those two views is why Smart Bidding can spend confidently in the wrong direction.
Linnworks order values can be sent to Google Ads as offline conversions, provided each order can be linked to an ad click through a stored click identifier or hashed contact details. Anything else gets left out on purpose.
The mistake that makes this worse
The tempting version is to export every Linnworks order and upload the lot. That tells Google Ads it drove your Amazon sales, your eBay repeat buyers and the chap who has phoned in his order every fortnight since 2019. Your ROAS looks magnificent and your bidding is now based on fiction. The rule we apply instead is evidence: an order only goes to Google Ads when something shows a click led to it, and the table below is how that works in practice.
How each Linnworks channel is treated
| Order source | Can it be attributed? | What we’d do |
|---|---|---|
| Your web shop | Yes, if the tag captured the click | Send the Linnworks value, deduplicated against the web tag |
| Phone order following a web enquiry | Often, when the enquiry stored a click ID or email | Send it with the real value |
| Phone order from a call tracked to an ad | Sometimes, depending on your call tracking | Send it where a click reference exists |
| Phone order from a regular customer | No | Leave it out |
| Amazon or eBay | Almost never | Leave it out, whatever the temptation |
| Trade or EDI orders | Rarely | Leave out unless an enquiry links them |
Marketplaces deserve the plainest answer. A sale on Amazon happened inside Amazon, often with the buyer’s real email hidden from you, so there’s usually nothing to match and no honest reason to claim it. Linnworks typically records a source and subsource against each order, which does much of this sorting for us.
How can a phone order be tied to an ad click at all?
A phone order only connects to an ad if something joins the caller to the click. In practice that’s one of two things captured when they enquired: a click identifier (GCLID, with gbraid and wbraid covering some Apple traffic), or an email or phone number that can be sent hashed and matched by Google. A customer who clicks an ad, asks a question through your site and then rings to order can be linked, provided your sales team records the same email against the order. Someone who saw your name on a van and rang has no click behind them and stays unattributed.
So a small operational change is usually needed: asking for an email on phone orders, and entering it the same way each time.
Consent plays a part as well. A click identifier kept against an enquiry relies on your cookie banner having allowed it, and if a visitor denied ad_user_data their hashed details are never collected. Some orders that deserve the credit will slip through for that reason, so the sync records how many matched and the gap stays visible.
Which number to send
Order totals in Linnworks may include VAT and postage, and those distort bidding if some orders include them and others don’t. We’d agree a single definition, normally net product value, and apply it everywhere. Refunds and cancellations can then go back as conversion adjustments. If you want bids to reflect what you keep, bidding on profit takes this further, although SKU-level costs need to be reliable first.
The double-counting check
Web orders are the awkward ones, because your site’s Google Ads tag has already reported them. Sending them again from Linnworks would count each sale twice unless the same order reference goes with both, or the tag’s action is demoted to secondary. We settle that before anything goes live.
What does Linnworks need to hold for this to work?
Very little that’s unusual. Each order needs a stable reference, a customer email in a consistent field, a value we can trust and a date. The click details usually live elsewhere, in your website’s database or a small table we add, so the join happens on email or order reference outside Linnworks. Your order screens stay exactly as they were, with no new steps for the warehouse team.
Getting it built
The sync reads from the Linnworks API and runs in accounts you own, and our ERP order values service explains the wider approach. If orders are still being rekeyed into Linnworks by hand, our sister site covers order automation. Linnworks syncs start from £2,500 ex VAT, quoted as a fixed price once we’ve seen your channels and what each one records.
Common questions
Straight answers to what people ask before they get in touch.
Can you send Amazon and eBay orders from Linnworks to Google Ads?
Technically yes, but we’d advise against it. Those sales happened inside the marketplace, usually with no Google Ads click behind them and often without the buyer’s real email. Sending them would give your ads credit they didn’t earn and would push Smart Bidding towards the wrong customers.
What do our phone team need to do differently?
Usually one thing: record the customer’s email on the order, consistently. That gives us a way to connect the order to an earlier enquiry. Some teams also add a short source choice, such as “saw an ad”, which is useful for checking but can’t be sent as proof of a click.
Do we need to replace our website’s Google Ads tag?
Keep it. The tag still does the job of capturing the click and reporting web orders as they happen. We decide whether it stays primary with Linnworks adding phone orders only, or whether Linnworks takes over values with the tag as secondary. Either way, one sale is counted once.
What happens to returns processed in Linnworks?
Where Linnworks records a refund or cancellation against an order we’ve already sent, we can send a conversion adjustment so the value in Google Ads comes down. Partial refunds work the same way. We agree during scoping which refund types count, because a lost parcel isn’t the same as a changed mind.
How much of our revenue will end up attributed?
We can’t give a figure until we’ve seen your orders, and we’d distrust anyone who did. It depends on how many customers enquire online first, how consistently contact details are recorded and what consent allows. An audit shows what your data could support before you commit to a build.