Facebook’s New Advertising Tools Track Your Retail Store Visits and Purchases

Facebook is rolling out a new set of advertising tools that would help companies know if digital campaigns had any real impact on their in-store business.

The social media company is planning on launching several new features for its “local awareness” advertising system. The first tool, which Facebook released on Tuesday, is a store locator that could help shoppers find the closest physical store to them.

The store locator also shows the address, hours, phone number, website and directions to the location — all without leaving the ad itself.

“A fundamental challenge for brick-and-mortar businesses today is measuring the impact of their advertising campaigns on store visits and sales,” Facebook said in a press release.

Another feature is “store visits,” which lets businesses see how much of their foot traffic is actually driven by a social media ad campaign, Forbes wrote. “Store visits” would also compile and analyze data, and help advertisers in optimizing their social media campaigns, according to Facebook.

Facebook is also working on an “offline conversions API,” which promises to give business owners deeper insights into the actual impact of Facebook ad campaigns — including real-time transactions and demographic insights.

The new tools are promised to be more cost-effective and efficient than traditional advertising channels, Facebook said. While the store locator is currently available to business owners, “store visits” will be released globally in the next few months.

Facebook’s offline conversions API is still being tested, and there’s currently no word on when it will be released.