One of the issues that normally nags ecommere managers is the ability to prove the ROI of online investments.
In the very frequent case where a B2C or B2B ecommerce sells its products not exclusively online and not solely through a direct channel it becomes difficult to be able to correctly attribute the sales generated by an online campaign. In fact, in most cases a user who will be attracted by an online advertisement may, after browsing the site, decide to conclude the purchase offline or in other channels.
Monitoring, therefore, how much of offline sales can be traced back to investments made online is critical in order to properly allocate one’s future investments and give proper weight within an omichannel strategy to one’s website
How showrooming and Webrooming are popular modes used by consumers today, we discussed in this article, which we invite you to explore further.
Let us establish two macro distinctions that will allow us to understand how, thanks to tools that can monitor multiple channels, this attribution of the proper role of Internet advertising is actually possible.
Direct sale
Indirect sale
Direct Sale
In the case of direct sales-through owned or franchised outlets-the ability to track sales of online users who while browsing the site purchase in-store must necessarily satisfy three steps:
Recognize the user while visiting our website
Recognize the user within the point of sale
Linking the two pieces of information using technology to reconcile data from different sources
In the first case, it will be essential that theanonymous user is converted into a lead enrolled in a newsletter, loyalty program, or any other system that allows us to re-engage them later.
Once an in-store purchase has been made, it will be possible to track it and trace the purchase back to the individual user, thus being able to understand whether it belonged to a segment of users from a specific campaign and how much of a role it therefore played in the conversion funnel.
The challenge here is undoubtedly the integration of online and point-of-sale systems, which must have the ability to talk to each other.
Indirect Sale
Probably the most common distribution case history is sales through non-proprietary distribution channels, just think of consumer goods in large-scale retail or the immensity of the catalog handled by Amazon.
In this case tracking, seemingly impossible, only requires more marketing creativity and the support of appropriate technology.
The role of marketing is critical in understanding how and in what way to convince the user to also track the purchase made in online and physical distribution chains.
This tracking can only take place through an explicit consumer action, and it will therefore be necessary to devise an incontive that prompts users to register online the purchase made elsewhere.
Some examples of incentives that induce the user to register the purchase may be:
participation in sweepstakes
extension of warranty clauses
Ability to download extra guides and materials (style guides, expert advice etc.)
In these cases, it may also be important to understand in which specific chain or store the purchase was made so that a segmentation of these users can be carried out and thus be able to devise targeted strategies to reengage or personalize the experience of these customers.
The ultimate goal of these activities is, in addition to proper attribution of one’s investments, to be able to profile one’s users correctly, understanding which customer journeys are the most frequent and then being able to determine how to re-engage them in the most correct way for future purchases by personalizing their experience.
If you would like to learn more about this topic with one of our experts, please contact us!
