Google Following Your Offline Credit Card Spending To Tell Advertisers If Their Ads Work (consumerist.com)

One of the new tools Google has announced for its advertisers today promises to tie your offline credit card data together with all your online viewing to tell advertisers exactly what's working as they try to target you and your wallet. Consumerist reports: That return, for decades, was hard to measure in all but the most vaguely correlative of ways. Did people buy your product after seeing your TV ad? After seeing your billboard? On a whim after seeing neither? Who knows! But in the age of highly targeted, algorithmic advertising, the landscape is completely different. The apps on your phone know what you looked at and when, and can tie that in to what you see on other devices you're also logged into their services on (like your work computer). Meanwhile, you're leaving tracks out in the physical world -- not only the location history of your phone, but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card, or app (as millions of us do). Google also introduced some offline measurements to its online tool suite back in 2014, when it started using phone location data to try to match store visit location data to digital ad views. But a store doesn't make any money when you simply walk into it; you need to buy something. So Google's tracking that very granularly now, too. "In the coming months, we'll be rolling out store sales measurement at the device and campaign levels. This will allow you to measure in-store revenue in addition to the store visits delivered by your Search and Shopping ads," Google explains to advertisers. That's very literally a collection of spending data matched to the people who spent it, matched in turn to people who saw ads.

Comments

Is this related to the rewards surveys?

[AvitarX]

They give me $0.30 for answering if I went somewhere and used a credit card.

Re:Is this related to the rewards surveys?

[TheRealMindChild]

Yes it likely is.

Re: Is this related to the rewards surveys?

[AvitarX]

They asked to use my location to improve "the experience " I said yes.

It has improved my experience, but also told them a lot, then they give me surveys, and I tell them more for money. Nothing has been sneaky though, it's all very up and up.

They let you look at the data and delete it too.

The places they ask if I've visited are clearly based on my location, I say no and get $0.10, or yes and get more questions. When they follow up it's either about seeing an ad or if I used a credit card, I those are worth $0.30-$0.60.

They also scan my email and give me flight, hotel, and weather information about my next week.

Re:Is this related to the rewards surveys?

[pr0t0]

I'm not aware of these surveys. Is this the only way Google has of tracking my offline purchases? My first thought was how Google would have access to that information? I just now read that credit card companies sell anonymised data to advertising companies. I'm going to bet that Google is able to attribute my data to me personally with a high degree of accuracy rendering the "anonymous" part useless.

I'm wondering if in the face of such algorithms, that perhaps it should no longer be legal to sell this data, anonymous or otherwise?

Re:Is this related to the rewards surveys?

[swillden]

My first thought was how Google would have access to that information?

My guess is that it's from the retailers themselves. They have an interest in understanding how well their online advertising campaigns are working, and by providing information to Google they can "close the loop", seeing exactly how their online ads did or did not turn into sales.

If this is about closing the loop on item advertising (rather than store brand advertising), it really has to be provided by the retailers, because only they have the item-level detail. The credit card issuer knows how much you spent and when and where, but not what you bought (except what can be inferred from the type of store).

Honestly, I don't know why people find this surprising. It's a very natural extension of how Google works with online retailers. Google has long been able to tell online retailers how effective their ad campaigns were by correlating analytics from the retailer's site with information about advertising clicks. With access to retailer site analytics, Google can determine what percentage of clicks turn into sales.

That allows advertisers to understand exactly how effective their advertising dollars are -- which is the core problem that has plagued the advertising business forever. The old saw in the advertising world is "I know that 50% of my advertising budget is working... I just don't know which 50%". Google's financial success is as much attributable to the solving of that problem as it is to solving the problem of how to find what people are looking for on the Internet. Knowing what ads are working and not working allows retailers to optimize their advertising strategy, to either generate more sales or generate the same amount of sales with less ad expenditure.

So, it seems to me that this is just the logical extension of that same model for brick and mortar retailers who advertise online. Retailers can give Google access to transaction data, and Google can correlate it with ad clicks to determine how effective the ad campaigns are.

Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

I always use cash. Same reason I use a pad of paper and pen / pencil for taking notes. Its easy and always works. Sometimes the best tech is low tech.

Re:Cash

[BitterOak]

I always use cash. Same reason I use a pad of paper and pen / pencil for taking notes. Its easy and always works. Sometimes the best tech is low tech.

Cash is at best a temporary solution for anonymity. Virtually all stores have security cameras and as facial recognition software becomes cheaper and more accurate, you can be sure retailers will start using it to track your purchases. And if there are cameras in the parking lot they can see your license plate too.

Re:Cash

[jenningsthecat]

You have wifi disabled? They mapped all those SSID's for a reason...

Why yes, yes I do! Both data and WiFi are turned off on my phone unless I need to check my email, (via K-9 Mail and on my own domain - screw Gmail), or do a web search or a SoundHound search. As soon as I'm done, I turn them off again. The stores I go into get SFA from my phone. Even when data is on, location is disabled, so their best fix on me is via tower triangulation; and I only use WiFi at home or at friends' houses.

Yes, they can still track me, but they can track other people a lot more easily and with much greater granularity. I try not to be the low-hanging fruit among all of the living, breathing, oblivious 'products' that surround me.

Re:Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the solipsism that comes with believing yourself interesting enough to be watched so closely.

Everyone is interesting enough to be watched so closely if the cost of watching someone is nearly nothing.

Credo

[mattyj]

Google turned evil so gradually I didn't even notice.

Re:Credo

[Gr8Apes]

Try 2004. It's pretty much when I stopped using gmail for anything other than trash, and started flipping between search engines.

Nope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"The apps on your phone know what you looked at and when, and can tie that in to what you see on other devices you're also logged into their services on (like your work computer)."

No, they don't, because I don't load up my phone with all that useless bullshit. The apps that aren't in use get disabled and/or deleted.

"Meanwhile, you're leaving tracks out in the physical world -- not only the location history of your phone"

No, I'm not because I don't turn all that battery-sucking GPS and location crap. I also don't turn on wifi except in a few specific locations. Yes, they can track me via cell towers, but it's rarely going to tie my purchases to anything identifiable because most of the time I use cash. Track that, you fuckers.

"but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card, or app (as millions of us do)."

Millions might, but I'm not one of them. Suck it, Google.

Unless you use a burner number

[real gumby]

I don't want to sound like an Apple shill, but the reason so many merchants and CC companies don't like apple pay is that it hides this info from the network and point of sale.

I'm even suspicious of one-time numbers from the CC company since that company knows who you are.

Re:Don't be evil

[sit1963nz]

"Don't be Caught being Evil"

Re:Privacy? What privacy?

[ShanghaiBill]

if you pay for everything in cash you are probably automatically becoming a suspect

8% of American households have no one with a bank account or credit cards, and do everything in cash.

I would be far more impressed

[taustin]

if Google also implemented a mechanism by which I can tell advertisers that I would have bought their products if their ads hadn't be so stupid, annoying and intrusive that they offended me.

Seriously. They need to be told this. Often.

Sooner or later all publicly traded companies do

[rsilvergun]

they have to. Because it's taken as a truism in business that companies must do everything in their power up to the limits of legality to advance the shareholder's interests. As long as that belief is allowed to exist you'll get stuff like this. And I don't see it going away naturally. Short of the Federal Government stepping in and regulating that's just the way things will be. That's because any company that doesn't 'be evil' will get out competed by another that is. There are a few exceptions (Costco & QT come to mind) but they're not really 'public'. Both companies are majority owned by individuals and both have shareholders circling the current owners like buzzards waiting for them to die of old age and pass the company onto somebody less moral.

Re:As a retailer...

[LesFerg]

What is this "writing" you speak of? Is there an app for that?
Can't remember when I last handled a check tho.

Online advertising doesn't work

[sinij]

Online advertising doesn't work and Google now has hard data to prove it.

Re:Online advertising doesn't work

[apoc.famine]

If that's the case, they're never going to tell anyone. They'd be out of business in a hurry if they did. If anything, they're going to bury this and/or mould it into good news as much as possible. I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to find out that your entire business model doesn't work well.
 
My guess would be that online advertising works a bit, but not anywhere near as well as anyone thinks it does. But it works just well enough for some companies that it seems worth doing to most other companies.

Re:Sooner or later all publicly traded companies d

[wvmarle]

they have to. Because it's taken as a truism in business that companies must do everything in their power up to the limits of legality to advance the shareholder's interests.

That statement is so yesterday. "Limits of legality" don't apply any more. Prime example: Uber, but they're just the most high-profile of the many companies that just don't care about what's legal and what's not.

How do they know a purchase is response to an ad?

[grahammm]

To take an example from the article, just because you saw an ad for a coffee and then buy one the next day at somewhere near your work does not necessarily mean that the ad has influenced you. It could, for example, be that you always (or frequently) buy that coffee from that location on your way to work or during your lunch break. Nor can they tell if an ad has a negative effect. You intend to buy an X and there is a choice of brands/models, you might see an ad and that ad make you not consider the particular brand/model being advertised.