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Google yesterday announced the launch of its new ‘Store Visits’ metric which will be an additional feature to the Estimated Total Conversions function developed last year.
eCommerce is a vastly growing industry, yet around 95% of transactions still occur in store, and the gap in analysis between online browsing and in-store purchase has become a massive issue for retailers in measuring the success of their online activity.
There is often a large discrepancy between a stores online traffic and sales due to the consumer completing the sales process offline, which leads ecommerce retailers to believe they are losing the customer at the online check-out when in fact that isn’t entirely true – and the customer has simply decided to make the purchase in store. I can testify to this myself on a consumer level, as I’ve often found myself browsing through outfits online and then popping into the retail store itself to try them on. Sometimes it’s just less hassle, especially if you’re unsure about something and you want to try it on first (variances in store sizing can be an absolute nightmare these days due to the rise of ‘vanity sizing’ – yes seriously, that’s a thing now).
There are a few ways an online store can try to hang on to these customers at the check-out, e.g. offering a more streamlined returns process or even a free courier pick up for their mainland returns; however the launch of the ‘Store Visits’ metric will be of huge benefit to these retailers in more accurately analyzing the customer journey.
Whilst it’s important to note that the metric will measure store visits and not actual sales, this is a massive step forward in terms of tracking both online and offline customer conversions. At the time of launch, Google said ‘If visits to your physical locations—like hotels, auto dealerships, restaurants, and retail stores—are important to your business, you can use conversion tracking to help you see how your ad clicks influence store visits’. The search giant further stated that retailers will be able to ‘see which campaigns and devices drive the most store visits to your business. Understand your return on investment (ROI) and make more informed decisions about your ad creatives, spend, bid strategies, and other elements of your campaigns.’
The feature will be rolled out to eligible advertisers in the US over the coming weeks and according to the Adwords Blog, you can learn more about the product by getting in touch with your Google Adwords representative.