How do you prove a streaming or geofencing ad drove a store visit?

Walk in attribution matches the devices that saw your ad against devices later observed inside a conversion zone at your location, and it shows correlation rather than proof. Anyone selling it as proof is overselling it.

How walk in attribution works

You draw a conversion zone around your building, tight enough to exclude the road and neighboring businesses. The platform holds the list of device IDs that received an impression. When one of those devices is later observed inside the conversion zone within an attribution window, usually 7 to 30 days, it is counted as a visit. Reports typically also include a control comparison against unexposed devices in the same market.

What it cannot tell you

• Causation. Some of those people were coming anyway. The ad may have been served precisely because they fit the profile of someone who shops with you.
• Complete coverage. Only devices sending location signals through participating apps are observable. A meaningful share of visitors are invisible, so the count is a sample, not a census.
• Who they are. You get a count, not a customer. It does not connect to a name, a deal, or revenue on its own.

How to get closer to proof

Run a geographic holdout. Deliberately exclude a comparable set of zip codes from the campaign, then compare visit rate and revenue between exposed and unexposed areas. It costs you reach and it is the only method in this category that isolates the ad's effect. Pair it with a brand lift study if the budget supports one, and with branded search and direct traffic trends, which cost nothing to watch.

Then tie it back to the business. Point of sale data, call tracking, and CRM records are what turn a visit count into a revenue conversation. A walk in number with no revenue beside it is a metric, not a result.

Related: Measuring streaming and display results, data and analytics services, WhatConverts attribution review, analytics at LevelUp.