Google recommends that publishers no longer report visitor data to Google Analytics. Data collection will stop at the end of October, although historical data will remain available.
This announcement was quietly circulated via an update on the Google Analytics help page.
The update was spotted by Charles Farina of Adswerve, who shared his discovery on LinkedIn:
This notice reads as follows:
“As of 10/31/2022, store visit reports will be discontinued. No new store visit reports will be created as of this date. Historic store visit reports will remain available. Please contact your account manager if you have any questions.” Store visits in Google Analytics are an estimate of the number of people who visited a physical location after visiting a website.
Google tracks traffic by tracking people’s activity with location history on their phones.
Store visit reports are only available to businesses with their Google Analytics property linked to a Google Ads account.
This means that businesses don’t lose data because Google Ads will continue to report store visits after it is terminated in Google Analytics.
If you use Google Analytics to monitor visit data, you will have to switch to Google Ads by the end of the month.
Other than consulting with other data tracking reports, there should be no disruption due to this change.