Google Shares AdWords ‘Store Visits’ Metric Data

Last December, we reported on Google’s launch of its “store visits” metric to help-location businesses connect the influence of their AdWords ads to in-store visits. Now, the company is sharing data about how this feature has been helping businesses.

Surojit Chatterjee, Google’s Director of Product Management for Mobile Search Ads, explains in a blog post that U.S. retailers measured an average of 4 times more conversions overall and 10 times more conversions on mobile when including store visits data. Advertisers in the U.S. travel and auto sectors, where driving a consumer to a dealership or a hotel is of great value, saw 2 times higher conversions when including the store visits data. In other words, an auto dealer can attribute twice as much impact for every click on their AdWords search ads by being able to include visits to their showrooms.

In the blog post, Chatterjee highlights Sephora and Buffalo Wild Wings as two brands that have experienced major success with store visits.

“With AdWords store visits data, Sephora is able to measure how digital advertising acts as a magnet to draw customers into its 803 U.S. stores,” said Chatterjee. “Sephora learned that it receives an 18 percent higher store visits rate from mobile clicks compared to desktop. Based on that data, Sephora optimized its mobile bidding strategy to achieve a 25 percent higher return on ad spend than when measuring the impact of paid search on e-commerce sales alone. With insights from store visits, Sephora continues to use Local Inventory Ads to let customers looking for lipstick, eyeliner, or perfume know when those products are available at a nearby store.”

Chatterjee also wrote that national restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings saw an 84 percent lift in conversion after optimizing bids incorporating store visits data.

“Throughout the year, we’ll continue to share best practices and stories from customers already using these insights to improve their businesses,” said Chatterjee. “And we’ll be launching store visits conversions in 10 additional countries, starting today, in Australia and Canada. We look forward to working with you to build better online to offline experiences for your customers.”

Google is not the only company providing solutions to tie the connection between mobile advertising and activity inside physical stores, but the search giant certainly has a compelling reason to make the case that mobile search ads are worth the investment, as more networks and apps compete for ad dollars on mobile.

Store visits are an estimated metric that is based on sampled and anonymized data from users that have Location History enabled on their smartphones. Google states that the estimate thresholds are held to a “strict, highly conservative confidence level,” as with all of the measurements under the Estimated Total Conversions umbrella.

Google is also testing a “store transactions” metric, to report on actual sales that are derived from clicks on AdWords mobile ads, but the company hasn’t yet provided any details about its release.