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Search company Google has announced that it will soon be rolling out AdWords improvements to better measure in-store visits in the Estimated Total Conversions (ETC) tool.
In an effort to assist marketers with targeting the increasingly complex paths to purchase that consumers take, Google is letting advertisers link AdWords with My Business to get more insights on search campaigns.
When announcing the new AdWords feature on its blog, Google explained how brick and mortar still had a part to play by quoting eMarketer research that revealed how 95% of retail sales take place in physical stores.
Source of store visits
Store visit conversion’s extra tools will show advertisers which campaigns and devices drive the most store visits to their business. With this data, marketers can adjust their ad creative, spend and bidding strategies.
Office Depot has already run inventory-based ads to let customers understand whether their local store has specific products. Before running the campaign, the retailer used store insights to help it understand the products that were driving the most visits.
Elsewhere, animal retailer PetSmart analysed AdWords insights to discover that 10-18% of search ad clicks led to a store visit. PetSmart now uses maps and directions to help consumers find their way to stores to buy products.
Location and inventory information
Underlining the importance of location information in ads, Google’s research reported how 70% of consumers have used ad features such as directions or the call button while 74% want to see the inventory levels of a nearby store.
To allay any fears that consumers might have about being tracked as they move between shops, Google stressed that store visits are estimated using aggregated, anonymised data from a sample set of users who have Location History enabled.
The updates to ETC will occur over the next few weeks, but to begin with the tools will only be made available to eligible advertisers in the US.
