While many activities have migrated online, Facebook is still eager to know how its users shop in physical stores.

That information helps companies figure out if their ads are effective, and whether to follow up with other ads. Did you buy a bike in that shop but no helmet? Maybe next day in your News Feed you’ll see an ad for one.

With more than 1.3 billion users, it’s no surprise many businesses feel they have no choice but to advertise on Facebook. But companies want to know their ads work, and most purchases still happen in physical stores, not online.

Facebook sees an opportunity there. Connecting the dots between the ads users see and the purchases they make in stores is a key goal of its advertising efforts, and its working hard to improve the connections, executives said Wednesday at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

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