E-commerce Focused Digital Advertising Boosts Offline Retail Sales Too
It is a well-known fact that strategic digital marketing techniques such as digital advertising, in addition to other online practices, will enhance brand awareness and also increase online sales when done correctly. A lesser-known but critical fact is that your digital advertising efforts also have a profound impact on your offline retail sales.
This means by getting it right online, brand's can maximize ROI and efficiently drive revenue across the board. Below are some powerful quotes that sum up this premise.
“Internet advertising stimulates off-line sales, too… in most cases, our firm finds that online campaigns increase sales more at advertisers’ retail cash registers than on their websites.” – Harvard Business Review
“Over 80% of online ad effect is on offline sales.” – Marketing Science INFORMS Journal
“58% of retail sales will be influenced by digital by 2023.” – Retail Dive
So why is digital advertising good for business?
There are two main reasons why digital advertising is good for business. The first lies in the advantages that digital ads have over traditional methods and the second is down a major shift in consumer behavior.
The benefits of digital ads far outweigh traditional advertising methods for natural CPG brands
Digital ads have a big impact on the business' bottom line. They provide significant advantages over traditional ads and the main ones are highlighted below.
Digital ads are more targeted – With digital ads you can hone in on your target audience and maximize awareness with people that are more likely to become customers. Traditional ads, on the other hand, use more of a scattergun approach.
More flexible and cost-effective – Once a digital campaign goes live, brands have a lot more flexibility to pause, adjust, or pull ads altogether for any reason, at no additional cost. After traditional ads are published, there’s no turning back and you live with the results.
Easier to analyze performance – When it comes to online ads, you can get a real-time overview of your engagement, conversions, and other useful performance metrics. The same level of detail is not possible with offline methods.
Improved engagement – Digital ads enable your target audience to be a part of the conversation. By prompting people to take a pre-determined action, it also opens up an opportunity for direct feedback on your campaigns. This is far more challenging with traditional ads.
Changing consumer behavior
In addition to the benefits that digital advertising delivers, an important reality that also needs to be taken into account is the fact that the way people shop has fundamentally changed.
There is a modern trend in buyer behavior known as ROPO (research online, purchase offline). Simply put, consumers of today research product information on the Internet to qualify a buying decision, and then make the final purchase commitment inside physical retail stores based on those online findings.
By employing digital ads that actively target people with more of a natural interest in the types of products your brand has to offer, your business can, in effect, ‘intercept’ prospective customers who would otherwise only be looking at other competitor products. This online ‘influence’ has a bigger effect than previously envisaged when the time comes to add products to offline shopping carts.
Investing in digital marketing will drive offline sales
With numerous credible sources identifying digital marketing tactics as a key driver for offline sales, forward-thinking brands are taking note. The impact of online ads on digital sales performance was already clear but now businesses are seeing results in-store as well.
Further to the vast array of benefits that digital ads deliver, changing consumer behavior has also propelled the trend. By strategically allocating budgets to the right online channels, brands can realize an even bigger return on investment than initially perceived and drive long-term offline growth.
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