Google is enhancing its advertising system to track the impact that online ads actually have on offline purchases. At its annual advertiser conference, Google announced a tool that'll track the way people spend money in brick-and-mortar stores.
Ad clicks from Google's online advertising system will be connected to purchases. This will help advertisers truly see if their ads are making a difference.
This system doesn't include data on the exact purchases made or the exact amount spent, but it can still be useful when Google is pulling data from countless individuals.
Google will use login information like emails to figure out who is clicking on ads. It'll then connect that to data from merchants and credit card issuers. Ultimately it believes it can tell with a relatively high level of accuracy if digital ads influenced consumer activity.
Only a portion of purchases can be tracked, however. Cash payments aren't tracked and nor are the 30% of US debit/credit cards that Google can't access.
User privacy isn't at-risk, according to the company. Senior VP of ads and commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, says "incredibly smart people" designed the tool to make it "secure and safe."
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