Startup Source Metrics Uses Facebook Ads To Get You To Shop In Real Stores Again

Scott Lake, the co-founder of Ottawa-based ecommerce company Shopify.com is tackling a hard problem with his latest startup, Source Metrics.

He wants to help retailers use Facebook ads to get people to shop in physical stores. Currently, much Internet advertising is focused on ecommerce sales because it's often easier to get people to click through to a website then to get them to get in their cars and drive to the store.

Source Metrics has released a new product called the Facebook In-store Ad Tracker that lets retailers send an offer to a Facebook user's smartphone. The person must takes the offer to the store to get the deal. The store's marketers can then track the popularity of its Facebook ads, without any changes made to the store's cash register software (known as the point-of-sale system or POS).

The company tried an initial pilot with Morguard, owners of various shopping malls in Canada. "Morguard ran a contest. It wanted to know, how do we drive people into the mall to hopefully buy something?," Craig Fitzpatrick, Source Metrics vice president of products told Business Insider.

Source Metrics sent Ad Tracker coupons to all the people that had "liked" the mall's Facebook page. Some 30% of them took the bait, went to the mall and bought something.

Source Metrics is currently aiming its Facebook Ad Tracker at retailers with more than 300 stores who have more than 300,000 fans, Fitzpatrick tell us.

Next up, it will release similar tech for Pinterest and Instagram. It's focused on Facebook now because retailers are actively and heavily advertising on Facebook, Fitzpatrick says.