Nielsen Probes How Online Ads Impact In-store Purchasing

In New York, Nielsen has partnered with location-based app and data marketing specialist Foursquare, to help marketers better understand how online ads drive consumers into brick-and-mortar stores.

Foursquare's location intelligence technology helps brands to locate, message and measure their own consumers. More than 50 million people use its City Guide and Swarm apps each month, and its ad tools enable marketers to target audiences, while measuring footfall at specific locations. As announced first in the Wall Street Journal, Nielsen will add Foursquare's location-based data to its existing service which identifies when consumers buy products in-store after seeing online ads. Andrew Feigenson, Nielsen's MD of Digital, says the company's marketing tools can now offer a more complete view.

Foursquare will collect data from a panel of one million US consumers who use its location-based products. CEO Jeff Glueck says the firm's foot traffic data will be available on a daily basis, compared with sales data which can take weeks to collect. 'The vast majority of consumer spending happens off-line', says Glueck. '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. 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'.

Web site: www.nielsen.com and www.foursquare.com .