Before Black Friday technically begins, Google wants to share peak times for store visits to help shoppers navigate the high-traffic day and offer businesses store visit insight so they can see where those shoppers shopped.
The tech giant looked at last holiday season foot traffic patterns using data from users with location history turned on, and found that contrary to the notion that most people are camping out overnight for early morning deals, shoppers in fact tend to flood most stores between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
And Black Friday isn’t even the season’s highest traffic day.
“Consumer electronics and cellphone stores see peak traffic on Black Friday, but for other stores, the peak days occur closer to Christmas,” Google researchers noted. Shopping malls, department stores and discount stores all get the most traffic on the last Saturday before Christmas.
In addition to the shopping data, Google said starting Tuesday it will share its location data findings with paying advertisers to track their holiday season success.
Advertisers will be able to see which search queries drove the most brick-and-mortar store visits and view those findings by day, week or month.
“By reviewing data at this level, advertisers can understand which keywords or ad groups drive the most store visits,” according to Google. “For example, a toy store may learn that certain dolls or action figures bring in the most visitors. With this insight, that toy store might invest in search terms that drive both online and offline sales, and display those products at the front of their store.”
The Black Friday breakdown is the first time Google has publically shared its mapping data.