online to offline Archives

Online to offline attribution with Visa

Posted on June 20, 2017 by shopkick

Consumers seamlessly traverse channels throughout the shopping journey, demanding highly personalized, mobile-enabled, and frictionless shopping experiences. In delivering these omnichannel experiences, retailers can struggle to attribute the impact of digital marketing on physical shopping experiences.

In 2016, Deloitte reported that digital’s influence on in-store sales surpassed 50%, influencing 56% of all in-store retail sales. Yet understanding this influence on a shopper-level is still a challenge for most retailers. In fact, 67% of retail executives said their greatest obstacle in offering an omnichannel experience is tracking customer analytics across channels.

Despite roughly 90% of retail transactions still happening in stores, stores lack the real-time data and attribution that retailers are accustomed to online. Beyond just verifying store visits, retailers want to know what customers did inside their stores. Key metrics include product engagement, dwell time in-store, purchase conversion, and whether or not the sale was incremental.

Shopkick’s partnership with Visa Decision Sciences connects the dots across the entire in-store data funnel to enable true online to offline attribution analysis. Visa measures incremental sales impact through a “twinning” methodology whereby a control group of unenrolled accounts is created from the Visa cardholder base to match spend behavior of the enrolled Shopkick population.

Analysis from January 2017 shows significant and sustained incremental sales across Shopkick’s merchant partners — sales that would not have happened without Shopkick. On average, 57% of overall sales driven by Shopkick were incremental. Of that 57%, 73% of incremental sales was driven by new customer acquisition, and 23% was driven by increased spend of existing customers.

This ability to measure not just store visits, but also sales and incrementality will unlock the potential of omnichannel marketing, and drive growth for brick & mortar retail.

Introducing Shopkick Grocery

Posted on June 19, 2017 by shopkick

Today’s grocery shopping experience exists across two universes: the digital and the physical. Shoppers are increasingly turning to apps, e-commerce, and digital personal shopping for convenience. Amazon’s recent acquisition of Whole Foods for nearly $14b is a clear indicator that the battle for innovation in grocery is on. How can grocers continue to attract business in this ever-evolving space?

Why Shopkick Grocery?

As a shopping rewards app, Shopkick’s mission is to drive product engagement and in-store action—effectively re-energizing consumers around the modern shopping experience. For the last seven years, Shopkick has primarily served the electronics and consumer apparel industries, but 2017 marks a new venture into the grocery store vertical.

Grocery is a large, attractive market with $770B in total supermarket sales in the US, and we believe it’s one in which we can contribute. Adding a mobile digital layer to brick-and-mortar grocery stores is the next step in necessary innovation. With online options gaining traction, turnkey mobile solutions like Shopkick can help incentivize shoppers of all ages to continue visiting stores.

These incentives matter more than ever, especially in light of the perceived convenience of shopping online. After all, high-frequency essentials shopping can be time-consuming and cumbersome. According to a user survey, 70% of Shopkick users visit multiple grocery stores every week. This gels with 2016 FMI findings that show an average of 1.6 shopping trips per week. For many, planning the grocery trip starts long before they step foot in the actual store—from reviewing the pantry and fridge (85%) to scanning for deals and coupons (60%) to planning meals (40%) and checking with other household members (50%).

According to Nielsen research, the most common forms of in-store digital engagement are online or mobile coupons and mobile shopping lists. However, most brands would prefer to drive users to shelves without the use of costly coupons, which can crunch profit margins and dilute their brand. Shopkick empowers these brands by offering new and innovative ways of incentivizing sales—without requiring coupons or other traditional methods.

We’re pleased to share that so far, it’s working. We’ve spent the last year in beta testing, and we’re encouraged by what we see: Shopkick Grocery users spend nearly twice what the average American spends on groceries ($59 versus $32 a visit). They also go shopping more often (an average of 2.2 versus 1.6 times weekly). Product engagement is also boosted—with users engaging 33% more with what they see on the shelf than those who don’t use Shopkick.

The reason is simple: the game of earning rewards is fun. In the context of grocery shopping, one moment of joy goes a long way, and Shopkick provides these moments at home, in the aisle, at the register, and beyond. Retailers like Whole Foods have gotten the memo, too, with efforts focused on making grocery shopping more pleasant and aesthetically pleasing overall. It’s all part of the transformation from something that feels like a chore to something one actively chooses to do—and ensuring the longevity of a tried-and-true American pastime: shopping at the grocery store.

To learn more about Shopkick Grocery, visit https://www.shopkick.com/grocery-partners or contact us.

The next generation of retail experiences

Posted on June 7, 2017 by shopkick

Is your brand prepared for the CPG shopping experience of the future? Is your retail store equipped? New, innovative technologies are powering the next generation of in-store experiences and beyond. These three tips will help you create an efficient, effective endless aisle strategy.

1. Reach Consumers Pre-Store During Micro-Moments

Busy schedules and long to-do lists have fragmented the average shopper’s attention span. Dedicated ‘shopping trips’ are becoming a thing of the past. Shopping now happens during small windows throughout the day, such as 20 minutes while waiting to pick up a child from school or arrive at an appointment.

Today’s consumers place a premium on experiences, and these micro-moments offer an ideal opportunity to engage customers with educational videos or life hacks like timesaving recipes, money-saving offers, and product alternatives before they enter the store. Retailers, grocers and brand marketers need to build on the behavioral elements that drive purchase now and extend experiences across screens, beyond the store, and around the clock.

2. Focus on time spent, not clicks

App downloads are slowing thanks to a maturing ecosystem, dropping 20% among the top 15 US app publishers. However, a year-end analysis by App Annie found that time spent in apps is up by 25% over last year, so clearly this medium isn’t going anywhere. Apps remain an important touchpoint with consumers, indicating that engagement and frequency of use are the most accurate success metrics.

Consumer attention is the currency in marketing and advertising today. Retailers and brand marketers need to understand that it’s time spent that matters most, not click-throughs or downloads. As a result, it makes sense to focus more on immersing existing customers into the brand experience than enticing new customers.

3. Develop Mutually-Beneficial Campaigns for Customer and Brand

The strongest argument for interactive engagement in-store is that ‘endless aisle’ solutions benefit brands, retailers, and consumers alike. Cutting-edge marketing technology finally enables CPG marketers to achieve closed-loop attribution for their efforts, while retailers see additional foot traffic, more guidance and exploration in-store, and movement from the perimeter to the center aisles. Consumers have a more entertaining shopping experience, save money, and accumulate rewards simply for doing the shopping they’d already planned to do.

Your brand or store doesn’t have to build a record-breaking mobile app to succeed. Consider the role interactive technology plays in your current customer interactions and how delivering an out-of-the-box, endless aisle solution can deliver better results for your marketing efforts.