Between 2021 and 2026 the signals that let ad platforms claim credit for a store visit were switched off one at a time: by Apple's permission prompt, by Meta's own product decisions, and by Google's retreat from the technology meant to replace the cookie. None of it was aimed at the corner café. The café is simply where the loss shows up, because it never had a count of its own.
In short
- Since iOS 14, apps that track people across other companies' apps and sites must ask permission through Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework; about 35% say yes (Adjust, Q2 2025), 29% in Canada.
- Meta folded 11 objectives into six and retired store traffic; existing campaigns ran "until mid-2024, tentatively" (Meta Business Help).
- In 2025 Google decided to keep third-party cookies in Chrome (April 22) and then retired most Privacy Sandbox technologies, including the Attribution Reporting API, for "low levels of adoption" (October 17).
- What remains for a single location is a modelled estimate it usually does not qualify for. The count has to be built at the door.
2021: the permission prompt
Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework arrived with iOS 14. In Apple's words, "your app needs to use the App Tracking Transparency framework if it collects data about people and shares it with other companies to track them across apps and websites", and the framework "presents a tracking-authorization UI and reports the current authorization status". Tracking became something a person had to agree to, one app at a time.
Most did not. Adjust's benchmark, published July 15, 2025, puts the industry-wide opt-in rate among users shown the prompt at 35% in the second quarter of 2025, barely moved from 34.5% a year earlier and 34% in 2023. Canada sat at 29%, Australia at 27%; Brazil led at 50%. AppsFlyer's measure across nearly 550 apps is 39% as a weighted average and 26% per app. Whichever figure you prefer, roughly two in three iPhone users refuse the identifier an ad network needs to connect an ad view in one app to a visit observed later. Location sharing is a separate permission, and Google's store visits draw on signed-in users who opted into Location History, a pool whose size Google does not publish. What the figure shows is how much of the cross-app linking that location-based ad measurement relied on is left.
2022 to 2024: Meta simplifies
Meta consolidated its 11 campaign objectives into six outcome-based ones, as Adweek reported: app promotion, awareness, engagement, leads, sales and traffic. The store traffic objective, which Meta describes in the past tense as designed "to help create ads that can help increase store visitors and boost in-store sales", was not carried over. Existing campaigns ran until mid-2024. What replaced it was store location features inside the awareness and sales objectives, on a help page that notes "Store Pages are only available to managed Facebook clients". The Meta explainer covers what is left.
2025: Google keeps the cookie and retires the replacement
Google spent years preparing to remove third-party cookies from Chrome and building Privacy Sandbox replacements, including an Attribution Reporting API that would have let advertisers measure conversions without identifying people. On April 22, 2025, Anthony Chavez, VP of Privacy Sandbox, wrote that Google had "made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies".
On October 17, 2025, Google went further and retired the Attribution Reporting API, Topics, Protected Audience, Private Aggregation, Related Website Sets and other Sandbox technologies, "after evaluating ecosystem feedback about their expected value and in light of their low levels of adoption". The cookie stayed, and the privacy-preserving measurement layer that was supposed to replace it was shelved.
For store visits the practical effect is nil either way: a cookie follows a browser, not a person into a shop. The episode matters because it ended the industry's hope that a standard, privacy-safe attribution layer was coming from the browser. It is not.
2026: what is left
Google Ads still reports store visit conversions, modelled from signed-in users with location history, checked against a panel of over 10 million Opinion Rewards volunteers, and available only to accounts with "enough ad clicks or impressions" and "enough foot traffic" to pass privacy thresholds that Google will not guarantee any account can meet. Location-intelligence firms such as Placer.ai estimate visits for the whole US market from "a panel of tens of millions of devices", and reported retail visits up 0.3% and dining visits down 2.4% in August 2026. Both are population estimates. Neither tells a café which post brought Tuesday's customers.
What does it mean for a local business?
The signal is not coming back from the platforms, and the margins no longer allow waiting for it: 44% of Canadian restaurants were at a loss or breaking even in Q4 2025. The count has to be built on the business's side of the door: a code or link per source, a card link the customer agrees to, or a visit counted at the counter. The seven methods compared sets them out, and the cost per visit explainer shows how to price them.
On Onlure, local businesses book local creators for a campaign and see the walk-ins each creator sends. The brands page explains how a campaign is set up.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't Meta ads show my store visits?
Meta retired the store traffic objective when it reduced 11 objectives to six, and its remaining store features depend on store pages that are only available to managed clients. Self-serve advertisers get reach, clicks and on-platform actions, not visits.
Did Google get rid of third-party cookies?
No. On April 22, 2025, Google said it would keep its current approach to cookie choice in Chrome and would not add a standalone prompt. On October 17, 2025, it retired most Privacy Sandbox technologies, including the Attribution Reporting API, citing low adoption.
What is App Tracking Transparency?
Apple's framework, introduced with iOS 14, that requires apps to ask permission before tracking a person across other companies' apps and websites. About 35% of users shown the prompt agree, by Adjust's Q2 2025 benchmark, and 29% in Canada.
