Google linking online and offline worlds in new ad challenge

Google is testing a way to tie online ads to brick-and-mortar store purchases, a move whetting marketing appetites while fueling privacy worries.

A product called "Google Attribution" was unveiled at a marketing conference this month in San Francisco by the internet giant. Google has long been able to determine when users click on an ads and make a purchase, but linking online and offline habits takes its analytics a step further.

Google senior vice president Sridhar Ramaswamy, who announced that Attribution is in test mode with a limited number of partners and will be rolled out to more advertisers in coming weeks, touted the tool as being able to answer the long-challenging question of whether marketing campaigns are working.

"Google Attribution makes it possible for every marketer to measure the impact of their marketing across devices and across channels," Ramaswamy said.

"Data-driven attribution uses machine learning to determine how much credit to assign to each step in the consumer journey -- from the first time they engage with your brand for early research down to the final click before purchase."

Real-world customer email addresses or loyalty plan information can be woven with Google data from services such as AdWords, Google Analytics and DoubleClick Search to provide "a complete view" of marketing performance, according to the company.

Using artificial intelligence, or machine learning, to better analyze and understand consumer behavior to target ads and promote sales was a major theme of the conference.

Ad 'holy grail'

For several years now, AdWords has enabled advertisers to measure visits to real-world stores stemming from online campaigns, Ramaswamy noted.

"Still, measuring store visits is just one part of the equation," Ramaswamy said.

"You also need insights into how your online ads drive sales for your business."

Real-world transactions matched back to Google ads are handed in "a secure and privacy-safe way," with store sales information reported in aggregated and anonymized forms to protect individual privacy, according to the company.

Tying online activity to offline shopping decisions has been a "holy grail" for advertisers for quite some time, and comes with worrisome privacy implications, according to ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley.

Attribution threatens to intrude on a core tenant of privacy, that people can have dealings with one party not spill over into affairs with other parties they interact with, Stanley contended.