The In-Store Touchpoint in the New Path To Purchase

In Locating Decisions: A Marketer’s Guide to Re-Navigating the Consumer Path to Purchase, we shared that the new consumer path to purchase encompasses multiple start points, dotted across multiple channels and platforms. Its complexity and lack of causal progression presents new challenges for brands, but also gives brands new ways to influence, and ultimately sell to, consumers wherever they happen to be.

What surprised us most, in spite of all of the time and money being invested in new channels, was the reality that today’s consumers actually begin their discovery journey at the traditional end point: the store. Regardless of digital capabilities, customers are more inclined to walk into a store and check out a product in-person before making a purchase decision, regardless of where the purchase happens. This presents an incredibly compelling opportunity for retailers to rethink in-store strategies using location insights.

Organizing marketing efforts around the new path to purchase with in-store as the primary discovery touchpoint should be top priority for brands looking to increase sales. From a location standpoint, mobile has always provided vast amounts of data based around a consumer in the moment, but marketers looking to optimize the store should look beyond mobile. Using a broad scope of location data–including behavioral insights around purchase intent, consumption data, and shopping patterns–not only helps you to understand where your audiences are, but also where they’ve been and what content they engage with.

For example, Jaguar worked with Blis to use historical location data to reach its target audience at the most ideal times and locations to promote a new car. With this historical location insight, Blis created audience pools to target consumers seen at Jag dealerships, at competitive dealerships and near Jag OOH ads in affluent residential areas when they were home on a residential WiFi connection. The campaign drove a 55% higher CTR than the industry average and a 7.8% post CTR showcasing the power of using historical insights to power campaigns.

How to get potential shoppers in the store in the first place can be tricky. For one quarter of respondents, the promise of a reduction in price is the primary motivator for a trip to the store. Retailers taking advantage of doorbuster sales, money-off coupons or other forms of discounts will likely see the best ROI. And, yes, the investment is worth it because of how likely shoppers are to spend more once they’re in store. Almost one out of every four of respondents admitted they spend up to 20% more than they intended to when in-store.

We can’t stress it enough: where consumers begin their discovery journeys significantly impacts how they spend their dollars! To drive consumers in-store, it’s vital to leverage location data to understand where they have been and where they’re going. After all, how can you understand the customer journey if you don’t spend time actually following the customer’s journey?

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