Nielsen and Foursquare Partner to Tie Digital Ads to In-Store Visits

Measurement firm Nielsen and location data company Foursquare are teaming up to help marketers better understand when online advertising drives people into physical stores. Nielsen already offers tools designed to help marketers understand when consumers buy products in-store after seeing online ads, but the companies say the addition of Foursquare’s location-based data will offer marketers a better understanding of consumer behavior between those two events. For example, a marketer might now use Nielsen’s products to track when users see ads and visit a store but do not make a purchase, or use it to help understand which ad types prove more effective at driving people into restaurants. Clients of Nielsen’s digital measurement solutions won’t automatically have access to Foursquare data, but will be required to buy into a version of Nielsen’s product with it included, Foursquare said. The addition of Foursquare data will enable Nielsen’s marketing tools to offer “a more complete view” of consumer activity, he added. Those users have opted in to share their location data with the company on an anonymous basis, Foursquare said. Digital marketers have all these data advantages, but if you run Subway stores or grocery stores it’s hard to know as a marketer which ads are working,” said Foursquare CEO, Jeff Glueck, adding, “In our case we understand because we are on the phone when the phone is actually stopping at the Starbucks or the J. Crew store.” Mr. Glueck said one advantage of Foursquare’s foot traffic data is that it’s available to marketers on a daily basis, whereas sales data can take weeks or even months to collect and parse. Store visit data may therefore enable marketers to be more nimble with making adjustments to their marketing activity. Separate from Nielsen, Foursquare already offers its own real-world measurement product it calls Attribution by Foursquare, and an ad targeting product it calls Pinpoint.