Google has recently announced a new feature for AdWords users in the form of store visits metrics. These metrics will help advertisers to obtain a better insight into store visits by drilling down to keyword or ad-group level.
Advertisers will be able to use the metrics to view store visits by day, week or month, giving a greater insight into what works for them and when it works. This comes at a good time for advertisers, with traffic peaking during the holiday season.
The store visits metrics will enable retailers to obtain data about their offline ROI based on users’ online behaviour, with the metrics telling advertisers which products shown in their adverts are doing the most to drive visits to bricks and mortar stores.
Google says advertisers are enjoying ten times as many mobile conversions and four times as many conversions overall by using this information to improve their advertising performance.
Advertisers that make use of the opening times and click to call functionality of bricks and mortar businesses are enjoying very good conversion rates. Google can track this because so many users have Google accounts and tend to stay logged in to these accounts on their mobile devices. If a user sees something in an advert and subsequently visits a store, this can be tracked.
In most cases, the visit needs to happen within 30 days of the user seeing the ad to count; however, Google has extended this to 90 days for more expensive purchases, such as vehicles, that require more thought before a sale is made.
Google uses a combination of GPS and Wi-Fi signals to track the location of the customer. A pretty accurate reading can be achieved − in some cases, even down to which section of the store the user visited. The data is collected anonymously and will not be transmitted by users who have disabled their location history. The data that is collected is backed up by surveys, which are used to validate the information Google collects.
There are currently only a handful of advertisers that are really able to make good use of the system; however, it is being rolled out to a wider audience over time as the ability to really analyse the information improves and location data becomes more accurate in a wider range of locations around the world.
