SAN FRANCISCO: Google is testing a way to tie online ads to brick-and-mortar store purchases, a move whetting marketing appetites while fueling privacy worries.
A product called “Google Attribution” was unveiled at a marketing conference this month in San Francisco by the Internet giant. Google has long been able to determine when users click on an ads and make a purchase, but linking online and offline habits takes its analytics a step further.
Google senior vice president Sridhar Ramaswamy, who announced that Attribution is in test mode with a limited number of partners and will be rolled out to more advertisers in coming weeks, touted the tool as being able to answer the long-challenging question of whether marketing campaigns are working.
“Google Attribution makes it possible for every marketer to measure the impact of their marketing across devices and across channels,” Ramaswamy said.
“Data-driven attribution uses machine learning to determine how much credit to assign to each step in the consumer journey — from the first time they engage with your brand for early research down to the final click before purchase.”
Real-world customer e-mail addresses or loyalty plan information can be woven with Google data from services such as AdWords, Google Analytics and DoubleClick Search to provide “a complete view” of marketing performance, according to the company.
Using artificial intelligence, or machine learning, to better analyze and understand consumer behavior to target ads and promote sales was a major theme of the conference.
For several years now, AdWords has enabled advertisers to measure visits to real-world stores stemming from online campaigns, Ramaswamy noted.
“Still, measuring store visits is just one part of the equation,” Ramaswamy said.
“You also need insights into how your online ads drive sales for your business.”
Real-world transactions matched back to Google ads are handed in “a secure and privacy-safe way,” with store sales information reported in aggregated and anonymized forms to protect individual privacy, according to the company.
Tying online activity to offline shopping decisions has been a “holy grail” for advertisers for quite some time, and comes with worrisome privacy implications, according to ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley.
Attribution threatens to intrude on a core tenant of privacy, that people can have dealings with one party not spill over into affairs with other parties they interact with, Stanley contended.
“This is an evolution, not a revolution; another step toward increased monitoring of individuals,” Stanley said.
“Each step raises the question ‘Where does this all stop?’“
Stanley expected Google to be on its best behavior when it came to handling the growing trove of information about users, but that even the best of intentions could crack under the “enormous hydraulic pressure of the profit motive.”
“We have the full fury and genius of the capitalist system being driven toward monitoring people in ever increasing detail and companies are competing to do so,” Stanley said
“It will not stop without some sort of rules in which we as a society express our values through legal protections.”
Google and Facebook dominate the online ad world, and what one does to prove its worth to advertisers is likely to be copied by the other, according to Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.
Attribution promised to give Google a way to assure advertisers they are getting their money’s worth at the firm’s online venues.
“The big problem is that showing conversion from ad consumption to purchase has been horrible,” Enderle said of online marketing.
“This has been a problem for a long time. Google is trying to make a metric so they get credit for it when you do purchase after viewing an ad.”
Data showing which ads are translating into real sales should mean that the relevance of ads people see online will improve as marketers abandon mis-aimed or ineffectively tailored messages, the analyst reasoned.
“You are going to be hit with ads for things that you might actually want to buy, so you are going to spend a lot more money,” Enderle predicted.
Worries about privacy sparked by linking offline and online activities are a decade or so late, because the time to protest was when collection began of the troves of data about people, the analyst argued.
“There really is no downside to this application,” Enderle said while discussing Google’s marketing metrics move.
“This is the good side of collecting data; it is what else is being done with the data that should be unnerving and that we really don’t know.”
Google linking online and offline worlds in new ad challenge
Google linking online and offline worlds in new ad challenge
From injury to influence: Khaled Olyan — the new voice of Arab football
- The Saudi social media star — TikTok’s Arab Creator of the Year — recounts how a setback ended his playing ambitions and pushed him to redirect his passion
- Known for memes and commentary that blend football, travel, culture and everyday life, Olyan is FIFA-accredited as a sport informant and covered AFCON 2025 in Morocco
LONDON: A broken dream launched Khaled Olyan’s unexpected rise as a Saudi social media star. Passion and perseverance took him from shattered ambitions to the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 in Morocco, where he surfed the hype while representing Arab culture.
“The journey began with a child who dreamed of becoming a football player to fulfill his own dreams and those of his family and community. After an injury ended that path, I didn’t break, I redirected my passion toward football media,” he said.
In an interview with Arab News, shortly after being crowned TikTok’s Arab Content Creator of the Year, Olyan — who has 13.2 million followers on that platform and 5 million on Instagram — credited his rise to “pure passion and honest content,” and said he had learned over time that “consistency matters more than fast virality.”
He added: “The turning point came when I realized that content can genuinely impact people, not just generate numbers or views. (Then I) stepped outside the traditional sports-content framework and linked football to culture, people, and place. It wasn’t a guaranteed path, but it shaped my identity today as a creator with a clear message and purpose.”
Olyan made history as the first regional creator to be accredited by FIFA as a ‘sport informant,’ a milestone that, he said, has given “local content global credibility and reach.”
Most recently, he was in Morocco to document AFCON, where he highlighted both the host country’s hospitality and the electric atmosphere in the grounds.
“It felt like a responsibility before it was an achievement,” he said. “I felt that my role went beyond coverage to building cultural bridges between people.”
Known for his memes and commentaries blending football, travel, culture and everyday life with feel-good humor, fans hail his “unmatched enthusiasm” and refer to him as “the voice of Saudi football fans.”
“Content today is no longer just entertainment,” he said. “It has become documentation of moments and an influence on collective awareness, especially in sports and culture across the Arab world. That (means there is) a much greater responsibility on everything I create.”
Saudi Arabia’s content-creator ecosystem has evolved dramatically in recent years, driven by a wider national transformation that has reshaped almost all aspects of public life, including sports and entertainment.
“The transformation has been rapid and significant, opening unprecedented opportunities for creators,” Olyan said. As the country moves “quickly toward global leadership in sports,” he added, it has also raised ambitions and created new routes for people to turn dreams into reality.
Across the region, the creator economy is booming, powered by a young audience, government investment and platforms such as TikTok. In 2025, the GCC alone was home to 263,000 social media influencers — a 75-percent increase in just two years according to data from Qoruz, an influencer-marketing intelligence platform.
Globally, fashion and entertainment dominate the influencer industry, but the GCC market has followed a slightly different trajectory. Lifestyle and travel also lead the charts, reflecting both regional affluence and a cultural emphasis on luxury, aesthetics, and experience-led content.
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While sport is not a major category, the research underscores what makes the GCC ecosystem distinctive: high digital penetration, brand-conscious audiences, and multilingual, multi-ethnic creators, with campaign planning often shaped by strategic decisions about language and identity.
Olyan said he sees many regional influencers following the same path as him — though not necessarily through sport. “I believe we are contributing to clearer roadmaps for anyone aiming for success through creative, values-driven content rooted in strong human principles,” he added. “Opportunities are abundant, but the real challenge lies in consistency and maintaining quality amid pressure and high expectations.”
For Olyan, Arab culture is not an add-on to, but the backbone of, his storytelling. He frames the region’s passion for football alongside questions of Arab identity, delivering it in an entertaining format that can travel beyond the usual language barriers.
“What makes sport special is that it’s a universal language. Many non-Arab audiences already follow my content daily, supported by AI tools. Arabic is my language and a core part of my identity, and I won’t change it. Instead, I’ll rely on smart translation tools and solutions to reach wider audiences.”
Olyan also noted that the region has long been framed through the narratives of people from elsewhere, often in ways that highlight only its darker corners.
“The Arab world is full of inspiring stories and a rich culture that deserves to be told through the eyes of its people, not only from the outside,” he said, adding that he hopes viewers value his videos for “changing their perspective and helped them see the truth more clearly.”
Olyan was crowned TikTok Arab Content Creator of the Year 2026 at a ceremony held in partnership with the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai.
He said the recognition was a result of more than just a run of viral moments, explaining that it came about “through structured, institutional work, team development, and linking content to long-term goals. Sustainability comes from creating moments and building value, not relying on trends or short-lived hype.”
Underscoring the double-edged nature of social media, Olyan argued that attention alone is not the point. “Real impact happens when content is used to educate and inspire people, not just capture their attention.”
He also expressed skepticism about banning under-16s from social media. Regulation matters, he said, but “awareness, smart supervision, and teaching safe usage matter more than complete bans.”
Creators, he added, are not immune to the platforms’ darker side. Psychological pressure, mental exhaustion, and long periods away from family due to frequent travel are part of the job. “I manage it through time organization, temporary breaks, and returning with renewed passion,” he explained.
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Olyan is also the founder of the O15 Football Academy, a project rooted in his childhood dream and one he sees as part of a broader sporting movement gaining traction in the Kingdom. For him, the academy is not just about competition, but about giving children a supportive environment where sport becomes a formative social practice.
“As a child, I wished such an academy existed for me and my friends,” he said. “Many talents were playing in local neighborhoods without professional guidance or support, causing real potential to be lost due to the absence of proper training environments, follow-up, and opportunities. The environment was often challenging and unmotivating.”
His academy aims to identify talent early, develop it “scientifically,” and prepare players to compete at club and national levels, but Olyan added that even those who do not pursue the sport professionally can also benefit “educationally, culturally, and socially.”
Football, he said, is “a form of soft power that, by God’s will, can positively impact many aspects of life.”
Whether creating content or helping others pursue their sporting dreams, Olyan said his guiding principle comes from a line by the late Saudi politician and poet Ghazi Al-Qusaibi — a reminder that what you hope for in small measure can arrive, unexpectedly, in abundance: “You wish for a drop of good news, but God wishes to help you with rain.”
