Paid Media
Search Engine Optimization
Data & Insights
Closing the Loop on Revenue Attribution for a Commercial Lighting Supplier
A leading ecommerce provider of commercial and industrial lighting solutions, offering fixtures, poles, accessories, and custom fabrication for businesses, municipalities, schools, and contractors nationwide. With extensive in-stock inventory, fast shipping, and decades of industry expertise, they deliver reliable products for projects of any size. Their broad selection, competitive pricing, and knowledgeable support team, paired with an easy-to-use website, have made them a trusted partner and industry leader.
The Challenge
When this company partnered with Marcel Digital, they faced a major attribution gap: while online transactions were tracked effectively, a large portion of their revenue came from phone orders that couldn’t be tied back to digital campaigns. This lack of visibility made it difficult to understand true performance, optimize budgets, or make informed marketing decisions. Key challenges include:
A Blind Spot in Phone-Driven Revenue Attribution
Phone orders were generating substantial revenue, but none of it was being accurately attributed to campaigns or keywords, leaving major gaps in performance reporting.
Disconnected Marketing and Sales Data Systems
Google Ads, CallRail, and NetSuite operated independently, preventing the company from understanding how digital advertising influenced both online and offline conversions.
Risk of Inefficient Spend and Missed Growth Opportunities
Without accurate attribution, strong campaigns risked being undervalued, while underperforming ones could continue receiving budget, limiting growth and overall ROI.
The Solution
Marcel Digital approached the attribution challenge by first understanding how the company’s systems captured and stored data across Google Ads, CallRail, and NetSuite. With that clarity, we designed a custom integration that connected offline phone sales to digital campaigns, giving the organization full visibility into how both web and call-driven revenue were generated.
Creating a Clear Foundation Through Discovery & System Mapping
We began with a detailed discovery process to understand how CallRail captured Google Click IDs (GCLIDs) and how NetSuite stored sales data. This allowed us to determine the best way to link the two systems and create a reliable path for attribution.
Developing a Custom Integration Pipeline
Marcel Digital built a tailored data pipeline that matched NetSuite sales records with CallRail’s captured GCLIDs. This automated connection enriched each sale with campaign and keyword data, then pushed those offline conversions back into Google Ads for accurate reporting.
Delivering Real-Time Attribution for Smarter Optimization
By closing the loop between platforms, the company gained the ability to measure true ROI across both online and phone-driven sales. Despite the technical challenges of syncing systems without established API workflows, the final integration provided actionable, real-time insights that empowered smarter budget allocation and campaign optimization.
The Results
Within months of launching the closed-loop attribution system, the company gained full visibility into how both online and phone-driven sales were generated. This clarity transformed their optimization strategy, allowing budgets to be shifted toward true revenue drivers and enabling faster, more accurate decision-making across campaigns.
Performance Max Became the Top Revenue Driver
By month four, Performance Max outperformed both Search and Shopping. Phone-attributed revenue even surpassed tracked website sales, despite only partial call volume being imported, revealing how much hidden value had been previously unaccounted for.
Smarter Budget Allocation Through Revenue-Based Insights
With clear campaign-level ROI, underperforming initiatives were paused, while budget was redirected toward high-intent keywords and product-specific queries that delivered stronger conversion rates. This shift not only increased efficiency but also boosted sales of lower-volume SKUs.
A Durable Closed-Loop Attribution Model With Richer Audiences
The custom NetSuite-BigQuery-Google Ads integration provided ongoing unified revenue reporting at the campaign and keyword level. This enabled confident budgeting, faster testing, and more precise optimization. Marcel Digital then activated new audience strategies by converting quote recipients into high-intent retargeting pools and refreshing purchaser audiences to improve prospecting quality across channels.
