If driving foot traffic to your physical locations, such as retail stores, restaurants, auto dealerships, grocery stores, or any other brick-and-mortar business, is crucial to your success, leveraging store visits conversion tracking can be a game-changer. This feature, available through platforms like Google Ads, allows you to gain deeper insights into how your digital advertising efforts influence visits to your physical stores, providing a more holistic view of your advertising effectiveness.

Understanding Store Visits Conversion Tracking

Store visits conversion tracking is a powerful tool that helps bridge the gap between your online advertising and offline customer actions. With this tracking enabled, you can measure the impact of your digital ads on actual foot traffic to your physical locations. For businesses that operate both online and offline channels, understanding this relationship is vital, as it allows for a more comprehensive understanding of customer behaviour throughout their buying journey.

The Importance of Online-to-Offline (O2O) Strategy

In today’s digital age, the customer journey often begins online. Research shows that a significant percentage of consumers start their buying process by conducting research on the internet. Whether they are searching for the best deals, reading reviews, or comparing products and services, potential customers frequently engage with your digital presence before ever stepping into your store.

Google Ads plays a critical role in influencing these online research decisions. By creating highly targeted ads that appear on Google Search, Display Network, YouTube, or other platforms, businesses can capture the attention of potential customers when they are actively searching for relevant products or services. These ads can drive not only online conversions, such as website purchases or inquiries, but also encourage physical store visits.

Measuring the Full Value of Your Ads

Store visits data provides invaluable insights into the full value of your Google Ads campaigns. While online conversions such as website purchases or form submissions are essential metrics, they do not capture the entire picture. Many customers still prefer to visit a physical location to complete their purchase due to reasons like seeing the product in person, consulting with a sales associate, or taking advantage of in-store offers.

By incorporating store visits into your conversion tracking, you can measure additional conversions that happen offline and assign value to them. This enables you to understand how your online ads influence offline actions, providing a more accurate measure of your campaign’s effectiveness.

Optimising for Omnichannel Performance

Once you have a better understanding of how your ads drive in-store visits, you can optimise your campaigns for omnichannel performance. This means adjusting your digital marketing strategy to deliver consistent, integrated experiences across both online and offline channels. By analysing data from store visits, you can identify which keywords, ad creatives, and audience segments drive the most foot traffic and adapt your campaigns accordingly.

This optimisation allows you to:

1. Maximise Total Return on Ad Spend (ROAS):

By understanding the interplay between online advertising and offline actions, you can allocate your budget more efficiently across channels. This holistic approach ensures that you are getting the highest possible return on your investment.

2. Create Targeted Local Ads:

With insights into store visits, you can develop localised ad campaigns that resonate with specific audiences in certain geographic areas, thereby increasing the likelihood of driving in-store traffic.

3. Leverage Data-Driven Decisions:

Use store visits data to inform broader business decisions, such as store layout changes, staffing, in-store promotions, and inventory management. Understanding what drives people to your physical location can help you tailor the in-store experience to better meet customer expectations.

4.Enhance Customer Experience:

Integrating online and offline strategies allows you to provide a seamless customer journey, from initial online research to the final in-store purchase. This holistic approach can boost customer satisfaction and encourage repeat visits.

Now lets talk about phone calls to your store or stores to complement store visits or foot traffic.

Boost Your Store’s Performance with Google Call Ads: Driving Calls and Supporting Foot Traffic

In an increasingly digital world, businesses must leverage every available tool to connect with potential customers and drive both online and offline engagement. Google Call Ads are an effective solution designed specifically to encourage potential customers to directly call your business. These ads are a perfect complement to store visits and foot traffic strategies, enabling businesses to capture high-intent customers who prefer immediate, personal communication over visiting a physical location.

What are Call Ads?

Call Ads are a unique ad format available through Google Ads that allows businesses to display ads with a prominent “Call” button. These ads appear only on devices capable of making phone calls, such as smartphones, making them particularly valuable for businesses looking to connect with customers in real-time. When a user clicks or taps the “Call” button on a Call Ad, their mobile device automatically initiates a call to the business. This seamless integration makes it easy for potential customers to reach you directly, bypassing the need for additional steps such as filling out a form or navigating through a website.

How Do Call Ads Work?

Call Ads are specifically designed to simplify the process of connecting potential customers with your business by phone. Here is a breakdown of how a Call Ad works:

1. Ad Auction

Your Call Ad participates in an auction on the Google Search Network, where it competes with other ads based on factors such as relevance, bid, and ad quality.

2. Ad Display

If your ad wins the auction, it will be displayed to users on mobile devices searching for relevant keywords or phrases related to your business, products, or services. The ad prominently features a “Call” button.

3. Customer Interaction

When a potential customer taps the “Call” button, their phone’s dialler opens with the number pre-filled—either your business phone number or a Google forwarding number (GFN) depending on your ad settings. This enables a streamlined user experience, minimising friction between seeing the ad and making the call.

4. Call Connection

The customer then taps the “Call” button in their dialler to place the call, instantly connecting with your business. This direct line of communication provides an opportunity to answer questions, provide personalised service, and ultimately drive in-store visits or conversions.

Benefits of Call Ads for Your Store

Call Ads offer a multitude of benefits for businesses that rely on both calls and foot traffic to their physical locations:

1. Drive High-Intent Customers to Your Store

Call Ads capture potential customers who are ready to take immediate action. These are high-intent users who are likely in the decision-making phase of their buying journey. Engaging with them directly over a phone call can provide the information, assurance, or motivation they need to visit your store.

2. Complement Store Visits with Enhanced Customer Engagement

By combining Call Ads with store visits strategies, businesses can create a more robust omnichannel approach. Not every potential customer is ready to walk into a store without prior engagement. Some prefer speaking with a representative first to confirm product availability, check prices, or clarify services. By providing an easy way to call directly from the search results, you build trust and confidence that can convert into in-store foot traffic.

3. Increase Conversion Rates with Direct Communication

One of the key advantages of Call Ads is the ability to connect with customers in real-time. This direct interaction can significantly increase conversion rates by allowing you to address customer needs, answer questions, and provide personalised recommendations immediately, reducing the chances of losing the customer to competitors.

4. Optimise for Local Audiences

Call Ads can be specifically targeted to users within a certain geographic area or radius around your store location. This geo-targeting ensures that your ads are being shown to potential customers who are most likely to visit your physical location, increasing the relevance and effectiveness of your ads.

5. Seamless Integration with Existing Call Assets

If you are already using call assets in your Google Ads campaigns, you can easily integrate those with Call Ads. This integration allows for consistent use of your existing business phone numbers, ensuring brand continuity and enhancing customer trust.

Calls from Ads vs. Calls from Website

It is essential to differentiate between calls from ads and calls from the website to maximise the potential of Call Ads.

• Calls from Ads

These occur directly when a user taps the “Call” button from your Call Ad displayed on Google Search. This action is a direct result of your advertising efforts and is typically high-intent, as the customer is actively searching for related terms and chooses to call your business immediately. This is a powerful moment where you can engage, provide excellent customer service, and convert the call into a store visit or sale.

• Calls from Website

These occur when a customer visits your website after clicking on a different type of ad (such as a Search Ad or Display Ad) and then decides to call using the phone number listed on your site. While this is also valuable, it involves an additional step of navigating through your website, which could result in some drop-off. However, for those who prefer exploring your offerings or reading more about your services, having an easily accessible phone number on your website ensures you are catering to all types of user preferences.

Optimising Your Call Ads for Maximum Impact

To get the most out of your Call Ads and complement your store visits, consider the following optimisation strategies:

1. Use Strong Call-to-Actions (CTAs)

Encourage customers to call with compelling CTAs like “Call Now for Special Offers,” “Speak to a Specialist Today,” or “Reserve Your Appointment by Phone.” Strong CTAs increase the likelihood of users clicking the call button.

2. Optimise Your Ad Copy

Make sure your ad copy clearly communicates the benefits of calling your business. Highlight exclusive in-store promotions, limited-time offers, or unique services that customers can inquire about over the phone.

3. Leverage Call Extensions and Call Assets

Enhance the effectiveness of Call Ads by utilising call extensions and assets, which add your phone number to other ad formats. This creates multiple opportunities for customers to initiate a call, whether they are interacting with a Call Ad or a standard Search Ad.

4. Monitor and Analyse Call Performance

Use Google Ads’ reporting features to track and analyse the performance of your Call Ads. Key metrics to monitor include call duration, call conversion rate, and call outcome (e.g., inquiry, sale, or appointment booking). Understanding these metrics allows you to refine your strategy and maximise your return on investment.

5. Align Your Team to Handle Inbound Calls Effectively

Ensure your team is well-trained to handle calls from Google Ads effectively. Having knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful representatives who can answer questions, provide information, and guide customers to visit your store can significantly increase the effectiveness of Call Ads.

Incorporating store visits and phone calls conversion tracking into your digital marketing strategy can provide you with a comprehensive understanding of how your online ads drive offline actions. By effectively measuring the full value of your online efforts, you can optimise for omnichannel performance, ensuring that your business maximises its total ROAS across all channels. Whether you are running a retail shop, a restaurant, an auto dealership, or a grocery store, leveraging these insights can help you craft more effective advertising strategies that drive both online engagement and foot traffic to your physical locations.

Move on to the next stage of your digital marketing journey. Contact us to learn how we can assist you in supporting your stores with foot traffic and phone calls.

By Manesh Ram, Digital Marketing Specialist. Please follow @maneshram & Meta