Over the past year Google has been enhancing their newest metric that measures in-store visits. This is incredibly important for eCommerce stores that also have retail locations. Many consumers first research online, and then convert offline by visiting the physical store location. With the creation of location services and more and more consumers being logged into their accounts on their cell phones, consumers data can be pieced together that they have visited the same store in-person that they had visited online.
This increase in data will be invaluable over the next couple of years as it gives advertisers insight into the conversion path their consumer take prior to purchasing. Also, it enables advertisers to be more strategic with the advertising channels that they implement. Paid search, product listing ads, display advertising and more are influencers of offline in-store conversions.
This store visit measurement insights will be the most insightful to larger businesses at first, but as the data and tracking improves, even smaller businesses will see the benefit over time. The benefit is already being seen by big business such as PetSmart. Check out this Google case study with PetSmart on how the metrics have helped. One of the most interesting metrics from this case study is that:
- 10–18% of all clicks on PetSmart’s search ads resulted in an in-store visit within 30 days
If you’re currently a business with products to sell online and have a brick and mortar presence, then make sure you are checking your store visit metrics if you are running Google AdWords campaigns. If you’re not already running Local Product Listing ads, we recommend getting them set up to help drive more traffic both virtually and in-person.
Not sure what product or store data is needed to fuel Local Product Listing ads, then contact us to help set up your feeds today!
Brian Roizen is the Cofounder and Chief Architect of Feedonomics, a full-service feed optimization platform that optimizes product data for hundreds of channels. He has been featured on numerous podcasts and eCommerce webinars, and regularly contributes to Search Engine Land and other industry-leading blogs. Brian graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.
