• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, December 12, 2016

Location data and intelligence provider Foursquare on Monday said it’s teaming up with Nielsen to integrate Attribution by Foursquare into Nielsen's digital measurement products. The Attribution tool produces real-time insights into the behavior of non-identified consumers and an understanding of how digital ads drive consumers into stores. In the past, marketers could come to Foursquare to measure increases in foot traffic, or to Nielsen to measure in store spending--now the two functions are connected.

Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck made the announcement via blog post on Medium, saying that the tool will use the company’s ability “to observe how consumer phones move in and out of over 100 million locations globally, both through check-ins and background location awareness.”

The offering is a way to connect ads to increases in foot traffic and spending increases in offline locations through both Attribution by Foursquare and Nielsen sales measurement.

Only 8% of U.S. consumer spending takes place online, while the majority of it takes place offline in storefronts, auto dealerships, restaurants, malls, grocery stores, and more.

With the new partnership, Glueck wote that “marketers will be able to measure customer conversion at every step of the way—from ad impression to store visit to product purchase through Nielsen sales lift measurement with Foursquare’s foot traffic data—and make more informed decisions on ad spend using this analysis.”

At an aggregate level, the offering aims to help marketers understand whether consumers are inspired by an ad to visit a store (against a control group) or whether an ad campaign with certain messaging drove very high-spend, high-converting customers into retail locations.

It is hoped that marketers will be able to better understand their target audience by seeing where they are failing to entice consumers and where they are hitting the mark.

Glueck added: “Foursquare understanding a consumer’s path to purchase is tricky but crucial for marketers and advertisers, especially for brands with substantial brick and mortar sales. For e-commerce, the process is somewhat simpler: digital ads link to online purchases, leveraging the 'cookie' for accountability."