O2O or Online-to-offline strategy is going to drive store sales in India, according to Google.
According to a report in Afaqs, Google wants brands to train focus on their Online-to-Offline strategy. If you retail in brick-n-mortar stores and want to know how you’re online efforts are paying off, O2O is key. Igor Liskovets, Google’s director for Online-to-Offline and Calls Solutions, was here in India recently to talk to brands about Google’s Store Visits measurement tool.
Source: Uberall
Live in 20 markets globally, Store Visits which was introduced in India 6 months ago, aids advertisers in setting up an omnichannel KPI- that looks into how each channel- online or physical is contributing to total sales, and then optimise campaigns accordingly.
“Advertisers do now see that more and more retail sales are due to online influence”, says Liskovets. In India, Google is looking at loyalty programme members, and cross vertical data to approximate how many customers come in through online. It also looks at customers’ registration information in an effort to understand customer behaviour.
So how does Store Visits work?
Liskovets says they help advertisers understand- for their existing campaigns, what percentage of people who clicked on/saw their ad, ended up in their stores, within a given period. “It could be 30 days for a car, 7 days for a toothbrush, but the idea that this can now be measured enables advertisers to ask more questions. For example, one customer would’ve come in from a discount campaign, while another via a new product campaign. You can also figure campaign-related weekend/ weekday sales, as well as separate first time visitors to the site versus existing customers”, he adds.
In India, Google is currently identifying macro-patterns i.e. ‘where a set of people-not individuals, go’. “We are looking at multi brand, single brand chains, auto brands, as well as restaurant chains. We need relatively big stores with enough visits for aggregating in a way that gives us insights, yet protects consumer privacy”, reveals Liskovets.
Then if a customer who shown interest online is near a store, can the store be alerted? “No, that’s not where this is tool is going -there’s technology and experimentation in this space, but Google may not go there due to privacy,” Liskovets comments. However, he says that retailers will want to address that eventually. “Say, I’m a loyal customer of a clothing brand, walking in to buy a suit, they’ll know that only after I make the purchase – that’s not so useful. But currently, our focus is only on measurement and insights- some sets of consumers have agreed to give us their location history for the value they get, but they may not want to be identified or re-marketed to when they enter a store.”
Speaking on the ‘whole view’ of the consumer journey that Google has, he says “A consumer will do all kinds of research – search, Youtube, display ad or articles and there are multiple touch points. Beyond online sales, we are now able to point what percentage of consumers reached by a campaign, ended up in stores. When a brand generates 95% from stores and only 5% from ecommerce, what influenced the 95%? Do I need a completely different creative/targeting/strategy’. They’re trying to maximise total sales after all, not just online.”
Liskovets also mentions a tool called bid-by-distance – where you can bid more for users around your locations. “When someone does a search, and is two kms. from your store, we can measure how many ended up there. Brands want to ‘win that moment’. A sportswear brand can target a consumer when she/he’s just picking up a sports activity- if I’m near a store and did a search, the brand’s ad tells them about a related kit”, he illustrates.