Download Online Marketing Driving Offline Sales Whitepaper

actionable big data. maximum roi.
HOW TO DRIVE OFFLINE
RETAIL SALES USING
ONLINE MARKETING
Building a bridge to overcome
the online to offline gap
Why read this paper?
We are inundated with online marketing messages from the
moment you check your daily emails from your smartphone,
through checking stocks online on your desktop PC during to the
day, to catching up on your favorite TV show marathon on one
of the network websites on your tablet. While these messages
obviously influence your online shopping behavior, do they
impact offline retail shopping too?
While online shopping adoption continues to explode with no
sign of slowing down, many purchases are still made offline.
How do you integrate your online marketing so you can motivate
offline sales?
Digital marketing obviously has a decided impact on offline
purchasing behavior. A 2103 Mobile Path-to-Purchase study
released by xAd and Telemetrics found that 45% of consumers
searching for local products and services tap their mobile devices
first, while 49% use PC/online. The study also revealed that mobile
users have very high purchase intent with 60% of smartphone
and 53% of tablet users completing their purchases.
2
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
Forrester corroborates that there is a cause and effect linkage in
online affecting offline sales. A Forrester cross-channel shopping
survey estimated that “43% of all retail sales are influenced by
the web.” And a Screenwerk article last year extrapolated U.S.
Commerce Department estimates to arrive at the conclusion
that the “Internet impacts roughly $1.83 trillion in offline buying.”
In fact, the trend of users to first research online before they
purchase is so prevalent, an acronym has been coined to
define the practice: ROPO (research online, purchase offline).
Researcher, Experian, found in a 2013 ROPO study that 88%
of consumers engage in online research before they buy offline.
And a new study by Twitter and Datalogix revealed data that
underscored the relationship that exists between online ads
and offline sales; users engaging with a Promoted Tweet were
12% more likely than users who did not see the tweet to make
a purchase.
Even though there is ample evidence of a correlation between
the two as evidenced by the proliferation of hyper-local group
buying sites like Groupon to increase offline sales, many
advertisers do not integrate their online and offline efforts.
That is why it is imperative that marketers start influencing the
purchase decision-making process at the online research stage.
3
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
Digital Tactics to Boost
Offline Sales
Even if your products or services are offered offline only, online
marketing is still worth it. The customers that do not buy online
are still influenced by online marketing and advertising.
There are a number of tactics you can use to help increase
online research to convert offline sales, these include:
■■
Creating A Unified Message – Successful marketing is all about
consistency to get your online and offline marketing working
together. These strategies will give you a stronger brand and more
leads and sales from your marketing.
■■
Identify Brand Promoters – tCRM is a vital component of your
digital marketing mix. Identifying your loyal customers, who can
act as your brand evangelists, spread positive word of mouth
recommendations and increase sales, should be a priority. The
easiest way to do this is through surveys, where you ask the question
“How likely is it that you would recommend a company to a friend or
colleague?” Those who rate you highly are your promoters.
■■
Online Reviews – With 90% of respondents claiming that online
reviews influenced their buying decisions (2013 Dimensional
Research study), the reason for using them is quite evident. Add
to that the fact that Google will rank higher local listings that have
more reviews, and you have a solid case for leveraging them. It is
perfectly okay to identify your loyal customers/brand advocates and
encourage them to write reviews.
■■
Customer Support Community – You can also establish a
moderated on-domain customer support community. By answering
FAQs, you create a significant level of SEO-friendly user-generated
content that is directly related to your brand.
4
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
■■
Social Monitoring & Engagement – According to Forrester reports,
consumers spend approximately 25 percent of their web browsing
on social media sites, consuming more than 500 billion social brand
impressions per year. As such, it is a must to monitor and engage on
external social media network sites to track and respond to relevant
conversations.
■■
SMS & Email Campaigns – When you consider that according to
ExactTarget, 93 percent of U.S. online consumers receive at least
one permission-based email per day. Not to mention the proliferation
of text-based messaging. So it is obvious that these two marketing
channels represent huge opportunities for cross selling and up selling.
■■
Brand Search Advertising – While most marketers engage in payper-click (PPC), many are reluctant to bid on brand terms, especially
if they rank first in organic search. A Google study showed that 89%
of clicks on PPC ads were incremental. It is vital that you capture
brand awareness from traditional media, synthesizing the power of
both traditional and digital media. (Source: research.google.com).
■■
Local & Mobile Search Advertising – Local search is rapidly
becoming a critical marketing channel. According to Google, of
those using a search engine on their smartphone, 77% end up
contacting a business and 44% end up purchasing. To capitalize
on this, you need to have a mobile presence.
Getting data insights gleaned from your online activities are
essential to your success. The data-driven intelligence needs
to be communicated to your sales, community, and marketing
people offline that interact with customers and prospects who
can use and test them. These insights should be predictive and
forward thinking and above all must be customer-centric, not
what will promote your favorite product attributes.
5
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
Integrating Online Marketing to
Impact Offline Sales
Advertisers spend a sizeable portion of their budgets on promoting
their products/services both online and offline. What is often
missing in these initiatives is a coordinated plan to integrate their
online presence to help drive offline activities and sales.
At Adaptive Audience, we have a platform that integrates all
customer data (online and offline) and technology platforms
into one. It is called the Adaptive Audience Platform™ and it
synthesizes profile segmentation, user research, MVT testing
and surveys (incorporating off-site behaviors and loyalty) to
deliver customized message across all digital channels so the
messaging can be optimized for offline sales as well.
To ensure that our online marketing is in sync with any offline
activities, we undertake an offline to online data onboarding
using customer CRM records, anonymous cookie match, cookie
targeting and tracking and online-to-offline sales reporting. We
drive ROI by optimizing programs that leverage multichannel
attribution to match all online engagements to offline sales.
Integration is vital because you are likely missing out on several
opportunities or potential customers if you’re online and offline are
not working in tandem. For example, if a prospect sees a product
for sale on your website but does not see a similar product for a
similar price point in your stores, they could become frustrated or
confused and shop elsewhere.
To ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck out of all
your marketing, follow these steps to integrate your online and
offline marketing activities:
6
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
1.Match the look and feel of your website and online marketing
to your offline branding.
2.Use consistent branding in terms of messaging.
3.Put your web address on everything regardless of whether it is
online or offline.
4.Use the keywords in your offline ads in your online SEO activities.
5.Any campaigns, online or offline should have a link to a landing
page; offers will generate far more leads and sales if they link to
an effective landing page.
Proving that Online Marketing
Can Drive Offline Sales &
Optimize ROI
A leading big box retailer that spent the lions’ share of their ad
budget on print FSIs realized the limitations of relying strictly on
traditional media. As such, they sought to broaden their horizons
by tasking Adaptive Audience to activate and measure a digital
media program.
To connect digital engagements to offline sales, we launched
a comprehensive digital program that was designed to help
the retailer:
7
■■
Reach their core customers with greater accuracy
■■
Attract prospects more efficiently
■■
Gain insights that maximize in-store sales consistently over time
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
To activate audiences for greater accuracy, we recommended:
■■
Onboarding the retailer’s CRM records into a digital management
platform to activate display media campaigns
■■
Leveraging their CRM records to build custom lookalike models
for display media prospecting
To optimize media for greater efficiencies, we recommended:
■■
Setting up a programmatic media plan that targets audience
profiles in viewable premium ad inventory placements
■■
Building dynamic ad units to display specific messaging and
offers based on each audience profile
To maximize insights for better results, we recommended:
■■
Activating a channel attribution program to optimize the full
digital channel media mix for in-store sales
■■
Integrating analytics for all audiences, channels, creative and
competitors into one simple reporting dashboard
By employing these techniques with the big box retailer,
Adaptive Audience was able to:
■■
Increase the in-store conversion rate by 41%
■■
Lower in-store CPA (cost per acquisition) by 42%
■■
Increase in-store return on ad spend by 74%
With ongoing monitoring of the retailer’s online-to-offline
conversion funnel, Adaptive Audience is able to reveal more
strategic opportunities to improve results.
8
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
The Measure of Success
Okay, so you are taking the initiative to use your digital marketing
to impact offline sales. Now the question is, how do you measure
the success of your efforts?
Measurability is the hallmark of success and the Holy Grail of
digital marketing. It also comes into play when marketers want to
measure the success of their online initiatives on offline sales.
To measure the successful investment of your digital marketing
and its impact on offline sales you should use the services of
trusted third-party research vendors such as Nielsen, comScore,
and Datalogix.
While the percentage of marketing budgets being spent online
is increasing exponentially, the majority of purchases are still
made offline. This dichotomy makes it difficult to accurately
measure which channels and campaigns have the highest ROI.
But there are solutions such as LiveRamp that can match offline
purchase data to online browsers so your data platform can
attribute offline sales to online activity and measure true ROI.
It’s key that you tie online ad impressions to offline conversion
data to measure the true ROI of your online ad campaigns.
And you need to measure digital media’s impact on in-store
sales. Adaptive Audience working in conjunction with marketing
performance management firm, Adometry, can provide
advanced marketing attribution that addresses:
■■
How online marketing drives in-store purchases and revenue
■■
Which channels and targeting strategies work best and what
optimal spend levels
■■
What creative and messaging work most efficiently and
motivate action
9
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
Using Adometry’s Offline Conversion Connector and Adometry
Attribute reports, Adaptive Audience was able to demonstrate to
its big box retail client the direct correlation between its online
initiatives and offline sales. The reports showed that:
■■
Out of a capture of 5.5 million in sales conversions, 14% of
conversions (equal to $24.3 million in revenue) could be tied
back to a digital touchpoint
■■
15% of the total offline sales had multiple conversions
It’s a real challenge extracting anonymous online behaviors
into measurable results that generate more product sales at
local stores. Here are five steps to help you make offline sales
measurable and that will allow you to optimize your online
campaigns so they convert at brick and mortar point-of-sale.
1. Measure offline sales – Use Nielsen comScore, Datalogix or
Korrelate to measure offline sales with a traditional offline sales
study. Or use your CRM database via a data management platform
to measure offline sales directly.
2. Focus on in-market shoppers and not necessarily brand loyalists
– Focus your media on consumers who are in-market for your
products. In the CPG market, it translates to people who shop
frequently and share in the shopping duties for the household. Use
short-form in-banner surveys. Use the survey data to optimize your
campaign to the strongest target segments.
3. Drive increased consideration and/or purchase intent – Expand
beyond your loyal customer base; i.e. people who might be-market
for a competitive product. Use short-term surveys to measure the lift
in purchase intent asking such questions as, “Which products
do you plan to purchase on your next shopping trip?”
10
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com
4. Ignore clicks, coupons, leads and everything else you track on
your ad server – Run A/B tests to optimize one part of a media
campaign to coupons or leads and the other portion to drive
offline purchase intent.
The bottom line is survey sampling can help drive offline sales
value when you take the responses of the surveys and accurately
optimize your campaigns. If you measure and optimize to the right
real-time metrics in your digital campaigns, you can drive 2-3 times
more offline sales. To achieve this: measure your offline sales
impact, determine what optimization metric aligns best to your
offline sales, and focus on the metrics that matter to drive
real results and ROI for your brand.
You Can’t Have One
Without the Other
Online marketing has a definite impact on offline transactions.
Online and offline marketing are not two completely separate
entities. They complement one another. And digital can be a
very effective driving force that propels your offline sales,
especially if you use your offline data to coordinate activities
between the two and have accurate attribution and measurement
in place. While some marketers think online and offline commerce
exist in two different worlds, the truth is they do not. Even if they
use different methodology in attracting customers and making
sales, in the end they are designed to achieve the same goal.
By understanding the role online has in impacting offline sales,
you can optimize your ad spend and increase ROI.
11
© 2013 AdaptiveAudience Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to
change. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For more information go to
www.adaptiveaudience.com