Google tracks you into the physical store

In-Store Attribution Transaction Reporting

The pilot project revolves around AdWords, the ads people see when browsing Google’s search results. Whenever a consumer clicks an ad, Google pushes him or her to the web shop, but can only check whether a purchase is made online. It hopes to change that with the In-Store Attribution Reporting pilot.

Now that both channels, offline and online, intertwine into multichannel, Google wants to get to know whether consumers are moved to buy a product in physical stores after seeing AdWords-ads. That is why it is collaborating with data companies like Acxiom and Epsilon, both of whom have already done similar tests for Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Facebook, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Bothered by a shifting advertising market

It is no surprise Google is trying to expand its reach and therefore its income as more Google users are shifting from desktop computers and tablets to smartphones, which impacts Google’s business model in two ways: the advertisement rates are sensibly lower and the competition is way bigger (like Facebook).

That does explain the rather disappointing quarterly results Google presented yesterday. The search giant managed to increase its advertising volume 26 % (which means 26 % more AdWord clicks are being generated), but the average ad price has dropped 9 % since last year. Specialists believe this price drop is because of the smartphone surge.

That quarterly turnover reached 15.42 billion dollars (some 11 billion euro), 19 % more than the same period last year, with net profit at 3.45 billion dollars (nearly 2.5 billion euro), which was 3.35 billion dollars last year.