Being a retail brand these days is certainly never dull. If the last few holiday seasons have taught us anything, the upcoming months will continue to challenge marketers as they second-guess how consumers are going to shop over this critical time period in retail.
Given the macroeconomic factors in play, for many, this holiday season could be make or break. Service offerings that were novel just 18 months ago, such as curbside pickup and frictionless returns, are now table stakes. And for consumers, with online and offline boundaries blurring, it’s created what I’m calling Instant Shopification—the expectation from a new type of hybrid shopper that if they can see it, they should be able to buy it right now, regardless of where or when they encounter your brand.
Through it all, there are two things I have come to know for sure. Over the course of the past few years, both retailers and consumers have demonstrated remarkable resilience, and have embraced digital transformation in profound ways that have changed the business of how we sell and buy things forever. That in mind, when it comes to reaching hybrid shoppers this holiday season and beyond, consider these three things.
Be where people are
Mobile has provided all of us the ability to shop before we shop. Who isn’t guilty of a little “webrooming” to check things out before going into a store? This hybrid shopper journey starts well before actual purchase intent as customers keep a mental shopping cart of all the things they discovered in their social feeds.
Why is this important? NRF reported that almost half of consumers last year started their holiday shopping way before Thanksgiving (and Black Friday). With this year’s predicted discount and promotion-heavy selling season, it’s going to be more important than ever to reach your customers early, over a period of months, and not just during the mega-sales.
The best part? A recent Ipsos study demonstrated that online discovery also drives in-store traffic and purchases, with 70% of shoppers having purchased a product in-store after discovering it on Meta technologies (compared to 42% on YouTube and 19% on TikTok). Better yet? Meta’s Conversion Lift Study run between 2019 Q1 – 2022 Q1 revealed 44% of measured ads optimized for online conversion drove statistically significant in-store sales, with 40% of incremental return on ad spend accounted for by in-store sales.
Connect and measure everything
The key to connecting the dots across your marketing channels is to see your hybrid shopper as one cohesive piece of data intelligence.
If you’re just looking at online conversions, the customers that saw your ad and converted in-store are not being included, and you’re missing the full picture of what your holiday marketing campaigns may be driving. With offline conversions, you can see total sales driven by Meta ads across your website and in your store—and optimize future marketing strategies accordingly.
It gets to the core of what hybrid retail will become by allowing you to connect conversions across web, app and store to learn total omnichannel ROAS for your campaigns, campaign elements that have a higher impact on store sales and/or omni sales, as well as insights on hybrid customers who are converting by channel.
Get creative
Meta is leading the creator renaissance as they help retail brands connect with their customers by combining word of mouth with scale through real people.
These collaborations make sense given consumers frequently turn to creators for recommendations on what to buy. In fact, Meta’s 2021 Seasonal Holidays Study by YouGov found that 30% of holiday shoppers surveyed are more likely to trust a brand that partners with a trustworthy creator, and 63% of 18-to-34-year-olds surveyed trust what an influencer says about a brand more than what the brand says about itself in advertising.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a 2021-2022 Meta analysis of marketers who work with creators to develop branded content ads (BCA) helped to increase overall campaign performance, including a 19% reduction in CPAs and 53% higher clickthrough rates.
And creator-friendly full-screen video formats like Reels are exploding, making up 20% of time spent on Instagram. Since launching, Meta has been inspired by the creativity from creators and businesses who use it as a global stage to entertain their communities.
Now, with the ability to make your Reels shoppable with product tags, and ability to reach a larger audience with Reels Ads, adding this to your mix of creative mobile experiences will help fuel your engagement and influence of holiday shoppers (think 32% increased efficiency and 9% incremental reach according to internal Meta testing).
***
To learn more about how to drive demand this holiday season, check out our 2022 Holiday Marketing Guide.
