Google is launching a suite of analytics tools designed to help companies like Macy’s better understand just who is seeing their ads. The tools can help gauge the effectiveness of ads by comparing and visualizing audiences, and can break them down by metrics like the time of day ads are viewed, devices used, and by an advertiser or brand’s identified audience segments.   

The tech giant says the tools are designed to help businesses better understand and manage mountains of first-party data, and worked with partners like the retailer Macy’s and online forum operator VerticalScope to develop and test the new tools. The tool is for publishers and brands that have set up their own media networks. 

“Macy's Media Network uses a data-driven approach to connect our shoppers with brands through a wide range of digital advertising services," Melanie Zimmermann, VP, media network, Macy’s, said in a statement. “Ad Manager's Audience Explorer tool helps us manage and scale our first party audiences to effectively plan and deliver targeted media for our advertising partners.”

The announcement comes as first-party data becomes increasingly rare and valuable in the ad industry, with brands and advertisers reacting to the scarcity by increasingly locking it down. Meanwhile, methods of obtaining other types of information, like third-party cookies, are now shunned by tech companies, fuelling the scarcity.

Google says the tools can also help compare audience segments or find overlapping segments by understanding similarities and differences. The tools include a Scorecard Table that provides a snapshot of an audience segment, including the number of unique identifiers and a breakdown by ad identity type (for instance Apple’s Identifier For Advertisers or Google’s Publisher Provided Identifier). Another tool, the Audience Explorer, is a collection of graphs and charts that visualize audiences by metrics like browser or platform. A Segment Comparison tool compares audience segments side by side, while Segment Overlap, helps determine whether there is overlap between audience segments.

Google’s work with both brands and publishers on this effort reflects the increasingly blurred lines previously separating companies in the ad business. Retailers like Walmart and Amazon are taking on the trappings of publishers, in some cases launching media and publishing operations outright—while publishers like BuzzFeed and NBCUniversal are experimenting with e-commerce capabilities like checkout functions that turn audiences into shoppers.

The tools will launch in the coming weeks, Google says, and will be part of Google Ad Manager’s Audience Solutions.