A store visit conversion in Google Ads is Google's estimate of how many people visited your location after clicking or viewing your ad. It is a modelled number, built from signed-in users who share their location history and checked against a survey panel, and it appears only in accounts with enough ad volume and foot traffic to clear Google's privacy thresholds. For a single café with a modest budget, that usually means it never appears at all.
In short
- Google says store visits "use anonymous, aggregated statistics which are then extrapolated to represent the broader population" (Google Ads Help).
- Six eligibility rules apply, including "enough ad clicks or impressions" and "enough foot traffic" to pass privacy thresholds, and Google says it "cannot guarantee" an account will qualify (Google Ads Help).
- The metric is useful for chains comparing campaigns. It cannot tell a business which creator, flyer or post brought a specific customer, and you cannot pay per visit on it.
- Store visits are available on Search, Display, YouTube, Shopping, Demand Gen and Performance Max campaigns.
How does Google count a store visit?
The help page is specific about the method. Google "connects the customer's visit to the store to engagements with your ad in a privacy-safe way". The raw signal comes from people who are signed in to a Google account and have opted into location history. From that, Google says it creates modelled numbers using current and past data on the number of customers who click or view an ad and later visit the store. To check the model, Google "surveys select users from a panel of over 10 million Google Opinion Rewards volunteers about their store visits".
Three words carry the weight: anonymous, aggregated, extrapolated. The number in your report is a projection of what the whole population of ad viewers probably did, scaled up from the share whose phones could be observed. That is a reasonable way to compare two campaigns at a retailer with 200 stores. It is not a count of the people who walked into one shop.
Who is eligible?
Google lists the conditions on the same page:
- Eligible countries. Store visits are offered in more than 35 countries, Canada among them.
- Non-sensitive locations. Locations "related to religion, sexual interests, children, and certain health issues are considered sensitive and ineligible". A medical clinic, a place of worship or a children's activity centre is out.
- Location assets. Your ads must use location assets or affiliate location assets "so that we know which stores you care about", and Google adds that "the more locations you have, the higher the likelihood your account will have enough data to be eligible".
- Assets switched on. Location assets must be active and opted in at the campaign level, or store visits are not reported and the account "may not receive enough data to be eligible".
- Volume. "Your ads must have enough ad clicks or impressions, and your business must have enough foot traffic, to pass our privacy thresholds."
- A verified Business Profile, and only one offline conversion goal at a time: store visits or store sales, not both.
Meet all six and the account starts reporting automatically. Miss one and the column stays empty, with no notice of which rule you missed.
Why does a café never see the number?
Because the thresholds are undisclosed and sized for volume. Google's reporting FAQ says it is "unable to provide guidance that guarantees an account to be eligible for store visit reporting". It lists the reasons an account may not see store visits: eligibility not met, location assets not enabled for all campaigns, sub-accounts that must qualify on their own even under an eligible manager account, and changes in customer behaviour such as seasonality that can make a previously reported number disappear.
A single-location business running a few hundred dollars a month produces a few thousand impressions and a few dozen clicks. Against a privacy threshold designed to prevent anyone from being identified, that volume is often too small to model. The business is not doing anything wrong; the product was built for a different customer.
What is it good for, and what is it not?
Good for: a multi-location brand with location assets everywhere, comparing campaign types on a modelled lift, and feeding that estimate into bidding.
Not for: knowing who came. Inside Google Ads the estimate can be viewed by campaign, ad group, ad and keyword, with a cost per store visit column, as Google's reporting page sets out. It does not reach outside Google Ads to a creator, a flyer or an organic post. It does not name a customer. It cannot be audited against the register. And because it is an estimate of a population rather than an observation of a person, no one can charge you per visit on it, which is the test that matters when margins are thin. The cost per visit explainer sets out that test.
What to use instead
Count on your side of the door. A code per source, a link per source, a card link, or a visit counted at the counter, each of which is compared in seven ways to measure store visits. Meta is no help either: it retired the store traffic objective when it reduced its campaign objectives to six, as the Meta explainer sets out, and the plain-language guide covers the terms.
On Onlure, local businesses book local creators for a campaign and see the walk-ins each creator sends, counted per creator rather than modelled for the population. The brands page explains how a campaign is set up.
Frequently asked questions
Is store visit data in Google Ads accurate?
It is a modelled estimate, checked against surveys of a panel of more than 10 million Google Opinion Rewards volunteers, and reported as anonymous, aggregated statistics extrapolated to the whole population of ad viewers. It is designed to be directionally reliable for large accounts, not to count individual customers at one location.
How many clicks do you need for store visits in Google Ads?
Google does not publish the number. Its help pages say accounts need enough ad clicks or impressions and enough foot traffic to pass privacy thresholds, and that it cannot guarantee any account will be eligible. More locations and more volume raise the odds.
Does Google Business Profile show store visits?
No. A verified Business Profile is one of the requirements for store visit conversions in Google Ads, but the Profile itself reports actions such as direction requests and calls, not visits.
