One of the features of digital advertising that separates it from traditional ad channels is the level of detail in which we are able to track results. Analytics and reporting on digital forms of advertising (paid search, social, banners, etc.) can be very granular (thanks to our frenemy the cookie), informing media buyers’ optimization decisions on a real-time basis. And that’s incredible for brands—when they’re using ads to achieve online goals. But where does that leave businesses that want to drive offline visits to their storefront or event?
For anyone considering digital advertising to bring foot traffic into your location, let Screechy Cat Media walk you through how to track offline store visits from your online ad campaigns.
Where You Can Track Offline Store Visits
Tracking foot traffic from digital advertising can be done across several digital media channels. Google Ads has offline store visit tracking available via search, display, and YouTube campaigns. Meta also provides the ability for advertisers to track foot traffic to physical storefronts, as do most of the major DSPs (demand-side platforms) for banner and video campaigns. TikTok and LinkedIn offer similar offline conversion tracking features.
Tracking Offline Store Visits: How It Works
With all of the various ad platforms that offer store visit tracking, each works a little differently. Generally speaking, tracking offline visits from online ads is possible because of our dependence on our phones: someone sees or clicks on an ad, then brings their phone with them to a physical storefront or event location, and the marketing platform uses the GPS on their phone to register the conversion.
The marketing platforms can tie this visit back to the individual’s logged-in account, then determine if that individual clicked or saw an ad before making the visit.
Depending on the platform, certain actions may be required prior to launching a digital advertising campaign with store visit conversion tracking. On Google Ads, for instance, location extensions must be set up and enabled at the campaign or ad group level. With Facebook, a location must be defined at the Page level, as outlined in this Meta help page.
Each platform has their own restrictions on the types of businesses that qualify; those dealing with sensitive issues like healthcare and children’s products cannot use store visit conversion tracking on platforms like Google, and the feature is limited to select countries. There are also typically traffic minimums on both impressions and in-store traffic in order for store visits to be counted.
How Consumer Privacy is Maintained
As with all conversion actions, the marketing platforms do not report on personally identifiable information; therefore, you won’t be able to see exactly who converted in-store, just the total number of users within that time frame that did. Brands also won’t see any information on items they purchased, or what booths they attended at your event.
Is Tracking Store Visits for You?
If you own a physical storefront or have an event coming up, and would like to see how many people are seeing your ads first, make sure that you have claimed your Google MyBusiness profile and have your storefront or event’s address in your social profiles. For those with multiple locations, ensure that you have profiles set up for each, or, choose a main location to act as your defacto in-store destination.
Setting up digital advertising to track store visit conversions can be tricky if you’re new to this; contact Screechy Cat Media for help with getting your ad campaigns tracking offline store visits today!
