Shhh, Just Put that New Car in My Mailbox Using predictive analytics to understand onlineshopper intent and engage meaningfully

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1 point of view Shhh, Just Put that New Car in My Mailbox Using predictive analytics to understand onlineshopper intent and engage meaningfully Acxiom Corporation 601 E. Third, Little Rock, AR Acxiom Corporation. All rights reserved.

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3 Shhh, Just Put that New Car in My Mailbox Has the internet turned us into phantom shoppers? In some ways, no, it is actually just the opposite. In their latest research on privacy, McCann has updated their now famous sharing categories. About 80% of us are Savvy Shoppers, Eager Extroverts, Sunny Sharers or Cautious Communicators degrees of willingness to share personal information while shopping. The other 20% fall in the Walled Worriers category (but are willing to receive news or offers with assurances that data collection is minimal.) In some ways, yes. According to Forrester, an estimated $1.2 trillion of retail sales in 2012 were webinfluenced. And, for most complex product purchases typically items owned for a long time over 50% of the path-to-purchase research occurs online, while the actual purchase takes place offline. That is at least half the shopping occurring from the privacy of an internet connection, not on the store floor, not out on the new car lot, not from the realtor s car window. Thus, the race for brands to understand and successfully engage consumers especially for large purchases has irrevocably changed. Individuals are a click away from the latest information on practically everything from televisions to cars to vacation homes and yes while online, they leave a trail of digital footprints on brands, products, features, reviews and price offers but not necessarily bankable signs of intent. The challenge: marketers are struggling to crack the online-shopper intent code and convert the digital exhaust into more precise and actionable offline interactions. Just at the very moment when they could influence a purchase decision the most, marketers are stalling out, unable to decipher individual intent and engage to create a more meaningful relationship bad news for brands and consumers. 1 1

4 Increasingly, individuals want brands to understand their point of view. They expect connected interactions seamless and personalized experiences across the all channels. With a thorough and permissioned understanding of online-shopper intent, brands could create marketing strategies that deepen and extend connections between customers online paths and in-store engagement, enhancing their ability to become trusted advisors and agents, doing for the individual, not to the individual. Consumer you are here While predicting an individual s propensities is within grasp, passive search engine marketing, traditional media buys and refining big data alone can t make a big enough dent in understanding an individual s intent. A marketer must know where a consumer is in their journey and provide value throughout the entire cycle. Specifically, how should they create messaging that directly connects to the consumer s needs, shopping preferences and brand affinity at the optimal points in time?... start by defining metrics based on the level of activity within two broad domains: intensity and focus The foundation for a more relevant strategy is the use of analytics to recognize patterns, lift out real buying signals and focus on what is to likely to come. The analysis using pattern recognition from online footprints to measure and predict individual propensity should start by defining metrics based on the level of activity within two broad domains: intensity and focus. Using the insights from these domains, companies can understand what exchanges should look like during the offline buying experience. Shopping Intensity Web browsing activity where time-to-purchase a function of number of sessions, seconds/minutes and page views provides a deep data snapshot of how to connect with your customers in real-time. As an individual clicks through to a purchase decision point, the level of online shopping and comparison activities increase noticeably, and this provides a strong indicator of purchasing timing. Shopping Focus Built on a measurement of activities across a number of brands and web domains: The brands reviewed and the domains visited decrease over the shopping journey as the person begins to narrow in on the final brand selections. That individual is now collecting less information, hitting fewer domains, and both sites and brand numbers decrease. However, the time spent per domain increases. By employing the data insights gathered from the online activity, organizations can predict purchase decisions such as choice of vehicle brand. 2

5 Additional steps: in addition to identifying potential shoppers, understanding shopping intent and qualifying buyers, brands need to: Stop focusing on what was, and focus on what is likely to be, using predictive methods to engage more effectively and deepen trust Integrate online and offline campaigns and measure joint results Apply predictive analytics, audience propensities and the results of offline journeys with brick-andmortar transactions to form a continuous measurement and improvement loop. Why build a bridge there? Better connections based on deep analysis can ultimately lead to better results in a number of additional areas. Marketers can drive more precise audience selection at the outset and hyper-focus media buying with partners. Armed with the appropriate analysis-based insights, they can analyze geo-demographics, behaviors, and attitudes toward brands and influence them. They can correlate what individuals do, or don t do and blend this knowledge with their multichannel marketing efforts. Or promote add-on products, for example with auto purchases offer auto insurance, winter tires, seasonal promotions and more. Better analytics begets better connections. By cracking the online-shopper intent code, savvy marketers successfully bridge online and offline consumer activities enabling personalized communications each time a consumer is ready to engage. If you are one of those marketers still living in two siloed channel worlds, it may be hard to believe, but crosschannel messaging can be congruent, consistent, and directly connected to the individual and their needs from the time they begin shopping to the point at which they walk through your doors, ready to buy. Build up and refine your analytics capability to understand online-shopper intent and engage meaningfully. 3

6 CASE STUDY: Global Automaker Nets $7 Million in Incremental Profit Automotive models with online targeting drive 22X return on ad spend Acxiom client A leading global automaker with a major U.S. presence. Challenge To drive U.S. sales, the automaker sought to identify and reach current customers who were in-market for specific vehicle models with targeted advertising messages online. While the company had used digital advertising in the past, the performance didn t meet expectations. Additionally, it was challenging to tie offline sales to online marketing activities. Acxiom solution The automaker engaged Acxiom for the strategy and execution of a nationwide online targeting campaign with three publisher partners. Acxiom applied its advanced automotive industry propensity models to the company s marketing database to identify current customers who were prospects for new sales. This rich offline data was then fed into Acxiom s Collaborative Targeting solution to serve online ads to customers and track online activity back to offline sales. Acxiom approach Acxiom applied three proprietary auto industry propensity models to predict consumer behavior: in-market timing, propensity for certain vehicle segments and brand affinity. Using Collaborative Targeting, ads were targeted to eight prospect segments across four auto models and deployed via publisher partners Yahoo!, MSN and AOL. To measure results and generate insights for future campaigns, Acxiom matched exposure and click data from publishers to offline sales data. Acxiom led the campaign s segmentation and strategy, coordinating the client s marketing team, advertising agency and publisher partners. Results In just more than one month, the campaign delivered more than 91 million total impressions and outperformed the automaker s previous digital advertising. Each publisher produced positive incremental sales. The company saw up to a 100 percent incremental lift in the buy rate and more than 22 times its return on advertising spend. 4

7 Get your motor running Need help refining or interpreting your analytics capability to understand online-shopper intent and engage meaningfully? Start your analytical engines with a simple self-analysis: 1. Review your campaign response rate trend line for the last 6-12 months. Is it stagnant or in decline? If growing, is the growth rate acceptable? 2. Are you looking to move to more multi-channel campaign integration? When? Or, have you moved to multi-channel campaign integration only to find it hasn t produced the expected ROI? 3. Are you planning a significant or strategic new product launch? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, please visit and learn more. About Acxiom Acxiom is an enterprise data, analytics and software as a service company that uniquely fuses trust, experience and scale to fuel data-driven results. For more than 40 years, Acxiom has been an innovator in harnessing the most important sources and uses of data to strengthen connections between people, businesses and their partners. Utilizing a channel and media neutral approach, we leverage cuttingedge, data-oriented products and services to maximize customer value. Every week, Acxiom powers more than a trillion transactions that enable better living for people and better results for our more than 7,000 global clients. 5

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