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DATA-DRIVEN SHOPPER MARKETINGResearch, tools and ideas for connecting the digital

footprints of shoppers to their purchase behavior

SPECIAL REPORT

SM2014_Catapult_DataSeries.indd 1 10/13/14 5:07 PM

— THE ART OF CONVERSION™ —

DATA-DRIVEN INSIGHTS UNLOCK POWERFUL CREATIVE

In shopper marketing, the most beautiful results come from the most rigorous effort. At Catapult, data-driven shopper insights inspire creative that truly connects… transforming consumers into shoppers, shoppers into buyers, and buyers into advocates. It’s The Art of Conversion™… and it’s a sight to behold. See for yourself at CatapultMarketing.com.

TM

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Contents

About Catapult

Catapult is the behavior-based marketing services agency that delivers accelerated business growth

through the “Art of Conversion.” This unique data-driven approach identi� es the core, actionable

insights that inspire brilliant creative with the power to convert consumers into shoppers, shoppers

into buyers, and buyers into loyal advocates. Catapult delivers channel-agnostic solutions that are

brand savvy, retailer smart, and digitally enabled. Catapult is an Epsilon brand.

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

Digital Shopper Marketing 5.0 6

Gaining a 360° Shopper View 10

Closing the Loop to Purchase 13


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nyone who covers the shopper marketing business has to attend a lot of seminars where the speaker basically shares a case-

history success story. � ese sessions are almost always incredibly valuable, but I do have a pet peeve as an audience member: Oversimpli� cation.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a speaker outline an integrated marketing program in terms of various metrics: hundreds of key in� uencers speaking out via social media; thousands playing along on the app; millions of digital coupons in play; 100 million potential eyeballs via in-store marketing, and so on. As he recites this litany of detailed statistics, he’s implying that they all add up mathematically to a very positive in-store sales li� .

And he would share that sales li� � gure if only the participating “Try ‘N Save” chain would let him. But rest assured, it was great, and everyone was very happy. � e End.

Now I’m intrigued because this speaker seems to be suggesting that he’s easily connected every dot, seamlessly linked all the upstream activity directly to in-store sales, and actually proved up an o� ine-to-online attribution � gure! � is would be a very big story, I tell my seat-mate, and run up to the podium all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to ask for details.

And inevitably, the big A-Ha moment gives way to a lot of hemming & hawing from the speaker. His recitation of results, it turns out, was a bit embroidered. In fact, he just knit it all together for the speech from fairly conventional data sources, some extrapolations and a few guesstimates.

I should’ve known: A lot of people say they can “track digital bread crumbs,” but relatively few actually have this kind of expertise.

� at’s why I was truly happy to learn that I would be working on this three-part series of articles on data-driven shopper marketing with actual experts — the folks at Catapult and Epsilon. It was clear from our very � rst planning meetings that this project was going to be fact-based, reality-driven and therefore truly useful to our readers because our partners deal in the real world of proprietary data and granular analytics — not hyperbole.

As you work through this set of articles, you’ll encounter a lot of quali� ers and phrases like “still in its infancy” and “eventually.” � at’s because this whole area of online exposure/o� ine purchase is a work in progress. You can “close this loop” today, but it requires collaboration, alignment and data sharing with analytics partners. You can’t just whip up these numbers overnight for a speech.

Eventually, the digital metrics of online-to-o� ine attribution will be common data points. And when this hurdle is � nally conquered, it will be on the backs of pioneering work from companies like Epsilon and Catapult.

Bill SchoberEditorial Director

A

Editorial and Executive Offices8550 W. Bryn Mawr, Chicago, IL 60631-3731 PHONE: (773) 992-450 FAX: (773) 992-4455

Cover illustration ©istockphoto.com/RomanOkopny

Executive Director – Chief Executive Of� cerPeter W. Hoyt, (773) 992-4456

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Art Director Stephanie Beling, (773) 992-4442

OPERATIONSDirector – Finance & Accounting Mike Bernal, (773) 992-4445

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PLATFORMS & PUBLISHINGManaging Director – Special ContentPeter Breen, (773) 992-4431

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Dir. – Market Development & Sales Rich Zelvin, (773) 992-4425


ack in 2007 we began a discipline called, for lack of any better name, Digital Shopper Marketing. It was dedicated to understanding the behaviors, channels and tools that would enable our clients to reach

and motivate shoppers to buy. Our focus was on how shoppers used their smartphones, retailer websites, downloadable coupons, and more to make the shopping experience more relevant, faster and easier.

Fast-forward to today, and these digital tools have absolutely transformed how consumers browse, learn, buy and advocate for brands. More importantly, this growing digital ecosystem presents incredible opportunities for better targeting, relevance, measurement and, ultimately, much better results for marketers. � e market is changing before our eyes, and we wanted to share our stories, insights and lessons learned.

� at’s why we partnered with the Path to Purchase Institute to develop a series of three articles focused on the next evolution of Digital Shopper Marketing, something we call Data-Driven Shopper Marketing. We think this term more accurately re� ects the impact of data in enabling the next generation of transformational digital marketing.

We began this article series with a summary of our DSM 5.0 research study, illustrating the many changes that had taken place since we began tracking the digital tools and platforms shoppers use – especially social’s growing impact on shopper choice and inspiration.

� e second and third articles go deeper into data & targeting, and spend considerable time discussing how marketers can close the loop between online exposures and o� ine purchases. � is holy grail of marketing is within reach now; however, it requires collaboration across a team of many di� erent players. But it can and is being done now. In coming years, it will increasingly become the norm with a clearer, more de� ned methodology.

We’re delighted to make this article series available in this special publication. We hope you will � nd relevant insights, examples and strategies that will prove useful as you plan, deploy and measure Data-Driven Shopper Marketing e� orts.

In truth, it’s just Data-Driven Marketing. � e shopper part is a happy outcome of doing all of this right. Because in a world where we’re all accountable for the bottom line, turning consumers to shoppers, and shoppers into buyers, is what we ALL need to be doing better.

Regards,

Peter Cloutier, CMO

Joe Robinson, President

Paul Kramer, CEO

B

Editorial and Executive Offices8550 W. Bryn Mawr, Chicago, IL 60631-3731 PHONE: (773) 992-450 FAX: (773) 992-4455


alk through the doors of an FM-CPG retailer like Target and you’ll immediately see how dramati-

cally shopper marketing has shifted over the past few years. Sure, you’ll still see traditional endcaps, in-store displays and elaborate pa-per signage designed to stop shopping-cart pushers in their tracks. But you’ll also � nd free Wi-Fi to connect shoppers to Target’s mobile app with its digital circular and easy-edit shopping lists. You’ll observe shoppers

truth is, as retailers and CPG marketers work to integrate the digital and in-store shopping experience, they are both leading and just trying to keep up with consumers who al-ready are doing so on their own with dozens of new technologies and tools.

Digital PathsFive years ago, when Catapult delivered its inaugural Digital Shopper Marketing (DSM 1.0) study to its CPG and retailer clients, many of today’s standard digital technolo-gies either didn’t exist or were only in their most nascent stages. This 2013 entry in the now-annual survey – DSM 5.0 – tracked

at checkouts who are scanning personal-ized offers from the store’s Facebook-linked Cartwheel app and then sharing the news online. They’re Googling prices, posting on Instagram, scanning QR codes, checking in via Foursquare or pulling up coupons from favorite brands.

If seeing isn’t believing, however, consider this startling stat: 44% of shoppers now say that their smartphones never leave their hands while they walk a store’s aisles. The

In collaboration with:

W

By Sharon M. Goldman

Five years after � rst documenting the explosion of online, social and mobile tools in the shopping culture, an annual study � nds that just rolling out the latest “bright & shiny” app won’t cut it anymore.

Part 1:

Grocery Shoppers: 1,372 Mass Shoppers: 1,223 Drug Shoppers: 1,031 Dollar Shoppers: 784 Club Shoppers: 611 C-Store Shoppers: 958 Pet Store Shoppers: 873 Hispanic Augment: 460

In late 2013, Catapult researchers surveyed 1,423 consumers about their shopping and technology usage habits. The respondents were two-thirds female, one-third male, and represented an age range of 22-69. The respondents indicated that they shopped at 18 major U.S. retailers ranging from Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger and Ahold to 7-Eleven and the dollar chains. Respondents also represented the following retail channels:

CATAPULT DSM 5.0 METHODOLOGY

At-Home Only Tools “Anywhere” Tools In-Store Only

Tools

Mobile Social Online

• Printed coupons from Internet

• Printable shopping list

• Text alert from brand or retailer• 2D QR Code• Mobile WAP Sites• Mobile shopping apps• Mobile search• Mobile phone shopping list• Mobile coupons• Location-Based rewards & check-in• Apps on tablet device• Personal Assistant• Augmented Reality• Snapchat NEW

• Twitter• Blogs• Pinterest• Facebook• FB Home NEW

• FB Gifts NEW

• Google+ NEW

• Instagram NEW

• Reddit NEW

• Tumblr NEW

• Vine NEW

• YouTube NEW

• Search• Email from brand or retailer• Customer ratings/reviews• Saving websites• Promotions on retailer website• Paperless coupons sent to

loyalty• Group purchasing• Price comparison tools• Online circulars

• Self-checkout• RedBox• In-store TV/

kiosk• In-store

promotion text to win

• Handheld scanner

• Payment from cell

Digital Shopper Marketing 5.0

6 DATA-DRIVEN SHOPPER MARKETING


more than 40 mobile, social, online and in-store shopping tools.

For DSM 5.0, Catapult researchers sur-veyed more than 1,400 consumers at 18 top retail chains. The survey found, not sur-prisingly, that smartphone and tablet adop-tion has boomed with more than half of all respondents (52%) reporting that they now own these devices. In 2013, according to DSM 5.0, the number of consumers us-ing mobile in-store grew even more sharply, with the largest gains coming from users of mobile shopping apps, text alerts from brand/retailers and mobile search.

“We’ve seen a fascinating evolution since 2009 in how people shop, with the devel-opment of what truly has become a ‘digital path to purchase,’” says Jennifer Romano, director of digital shopper marketing at Catapult. As the number of available digital tools and devices has spiked, Romano adds, their usage has become so interwoven in the lives of shoppers that various functionalities that formerly were tied to usage “at home only” or “in-store only” are now more ac-curately characterized as being used “any-where” along the path to purchase.

But now, she explains, the newest edition of the study suggests that simply rolling out the latest “bright & shiny” app or tool won’t be enough to satisfy savvy shoppers, who are no longer easily wowed by the latest technol-ogy. In fact, the DSM 5.0 study found that 59% of respondents agreed with the state-ment that digital tools “have changed my shopping habits in some way.” While this is still a signi� cant number, it is down dramati-cally from the 69% who felt similarly in 2012 (tracked in DSM 4.0). “We’re now in a sta-bilizing period, where form and function are just table stakes,” Romano says, adding that, at the same time, digital tools are indeed be-coming more universal with increased aware-ness and usage. “But consumers now have higher expectations. They want their digital shopper marketing options to be easy, to be inspiring, and to save them time and money.”

The survey also revealed some interesting correlations between chain patronage and smartphone usage. Generally, consumers who shop at club stores posted the high-est smartphone ownership levels (roughly 60%) while patrons of value chains (dollar channel, Walmart, etc.) indexed the lowest (roughly 50%). But at a handful of chains, smartphone ownership has spiked over the

IN WHAT WAYS HAVE DIGITAL SHOPPING TOOLS CHANGED YOUR SHOPPING HABITS?

When current survey results are compared to those observed in 2012, a leveling off of interest in certain shopping tools is apparent, especially in the areas of comparison shopping and rewards hunting.

They have changed my shopping habits

Comparison shop before making selection

Shop at retailer for rewards for using tech

Shop at retailers where tech is available

I make purchase decisions more quickly

I enjoy shopping more

Buy brands/products that are featured

Tell family, friends about shopping experiences

I spend more time shopping

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

59% -10

-9

-8

-8

-7

-7

-7

-9

-3

32%

22%

20%

19%

18%

16%

14%

10%

(% of respondents agreeing with each statement; change from 2012 survey in red)

Source: Catapult DSM 5.0

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

7-Eleven

Costco

Food Lion

Target

Speedway

Sam’s Club

Safeway

Ahold

Kroger

Walmart

CVS

Walgreens

Meijer

Supervalu

Family Dollar

HEB

Walmart SC

Publix

Dollar General

66% +1+2+8-2-1-1+6+9+5-3-1+5+50

+2-1+1-7-3

66%65%

64%61%61%61%61%

58%57%57%

56%56%

55%54%54%

52%50%

49%


DO YOU PERSONALLY OWN A SMARTPHONE?(% saying yes, by chains they patronize; change from 2012 survey in red)

DATA-DRIVEN SHOPPER MARKETING 7


past two years (see accompanying chart): ■ Smartphone ownership by Food Lion pa-

trons increased by 8 percentage points since 2012. During that same time period, Food Lion began linking its loyalty card program to the popular Ibotta mobile app.

■ Smartphone ownership by Ahold shop-pers was up 9 percentage points. In recent years, Ahold has been porting the tech-nology behind its popular Scan It hand-held shopping devices over to a smart-phone app.

■ Other increases were seen among patrons of Safeway (home of the “Just for U” app), Walgreens (“Balance Rewards” was a big mobile initiative in 2013) and Meijer (long a mobile innovator).

Whether cause and effect, mere correla-tion or just a series of coincidences, this data does suggest that when retailers give their shoppers a good reason to use a digital tool, they will respond.

Empowered Workhorses“Shoppers have gotten used to having everything available to them,” says Holly Manners, analytic consultant at Catapult. “They’ve grown to expect more and more, so they become more demanding of brands and retailers.” And what they’re demanding, she says, is a seamless, omnichannel jour-ney where there is little difference along the path to purchase between online, mobile and bricks-and-mortar possibilities.


These multi-device shopping patterns are rising fast. According to Google, while 65% of respondents start their path to purchase with a quick search on a smartphone, 61% continue that journey on their desktop com-puter or laptop. Traditional computers are still the most widely owned computing de-vices, and they still play a big role especially for managing coupons and deals. According to the DSM 5.0 survey, 25% of shoppers still start their path to purchase on the desktop or laptop and, of those, 19% continue on a smartphone and 5% on a tablet.

In a multi-device, cross-channel world, shoppers think nothing of researching pur-chases in the store before buying online – otherwise known as “showrooming” – or the reverse, gleaning purchase information online and then heading to the store to buy – known as “webrooming.” A December 2013 Harris Poll found that while nearly half of U.S. consumers (46%) said they have showroomed, more than two-thirds (69%) said they have webroomed.

Of the 40-plus digital tools that were mea-sured for usage, helpfulness and in� uence in the DSM 5.0 study, several are considered “workhorses” that work hardest to deliver ROI, including printed Internet coupons, on-line circulars, digital coupons sent to loyalty cards and search engines. “People � nd these the most useful and keep coming back con-sistently,” Romano explains. Marketers, she adds, are likewise becoming more discerning about their investment choices. “Retailers and brands are saying, ‘This is our budget, and these are the tactics.’ Then, they say, ‘Let’s look at how we can make smarter, better choices’ about which digital shopper marketing tools and tactics will tie back the most to ROI.”

On the other hand, while virtually every mobile tool addressed in the survey saw growth, some are still in their early days and are either considered niche options or early bets when it comes to success in shopper marketing. These include Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, location-based rewards and Snapchat. “Marketers need to be mind-ful of who their shopper is,” says Catapult’s Manners. “Millennials, for example, may do a lot of shopping research on YouTube, but older consumers may not yet be ready to use all the latest tools.”

While shoppers are generally more prag-matic these days, there are a few “bright &

53%

36%26%

YouTubeYouTubeYouTubeYouTube

Google+ 26%Google+ 36%26%Google+ 26%Google+

InstagramInstagramInstagramInstagram

VineVineVineVine

TumblrTumblrTumblrTumblr

SnapchatSnapchatSnapchatSnapchat

RedditRedditRedditReddit

36%

32%15%

21%11%

11%23%

21%10%

10%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Have Used for Shopping

HAVE YOU USED ANY OF THESE SHOPPING TECHNOLOGY TOOLS?

Millennials

Gen Pop

Millennials not only heavily over-index for using shopping technology generally, but demonstrate the increasing importance of visual communication (Instagram, Vine, etc.) in social media.


20%

GAMES, TAGS & SPECTACLES55% of shoppers play retailer-sponsored games: Why? They’re considered “fun,” which indexed higher than earning coupons or winning prizes.

13% of shoppers say they use hash tags: 65% use them on Twitter, and 43% on Facebook; a surprising 33% said they use them “in conversation” via email, IM, or even just when talking.

13% wish they could use Google Glass for shopping.

5% say they wish they could use an iWatch for shopping. Source: Catapult DSM 5.0


shiny” tools out there that intrigue them. More than half of DSM 5.0 study respon-dents said, for example, that augmented reality (sometimes referred to as “AR”) shop-ping tools might be helpful, and almost as many believe that paying via the phone (i.e., the “mobile wallet”) could be a positive even though very few have actually encountered any real-world examples of either technol-ogy. The same holds true for Google Glass (13% said they wish they could use it for shopping) as well as wearable devices such as an “iWatch” (5%). Shiny or not, Manners says, it’s important for marketers to always consider whether a digital tool is truly help-ful to shoppers and keeps their attention. “But yes, they do have to think about what they can do to be inspirational, and to offer something different and exciting.”

Next Steps: A Data-Driven Shopper Marketing Evolution“Consumers have become more empow-ered,” says Jie Zhang, associate professor of marketing at the University of Maryland, of the way consumers can now harness mul-tiple technologies and platforms to gather information and communicate with com-panies. But, she cautions, this is where the challenges loom large for marketers. “From the shopper’s perspective, they want a

seamless experience that meets their expec-tations,” she says. “But from the marketer’s standpoint, the devil is in the details. They must make sure that they have a consistent strategy across channels and can harness the massive amounts of data available in each channel.”

Tying the entire shopping journey to-gether is the biggest goal but the toughest test for marketers, adds Jonathan Treiber, CEO of RevTrax, an omnichannel promotions platform that offers marketers the ability to drive and measure digital coupons both of-�ine and online. “Marketers need to realize that consumers are no longer just taking a single path to purchase journey – there are multiple journeys, through different devices and tools.”

In the past, the world of data was clear but rather limited. “Brands had panel data and knew what people were buying, and their demographics, but didn’t have any idea what was motivating them,” says David Bell, professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Retailers may have had their valuable basket-level data, he adds, but may not have been able to analyze it suf�ciently to develop useful shopper insights.

Now, says Bell, both brands and retailers need to get close to a full 360-degree view


of their shoppers. “Consumers can now be reached of�ine and online all the time, and you need to understand both sides to have the full picture.”

To that end, the changing universe of shopper marketing is already evolving to the next level, say experts. This new, data-driven shopper marketing will be focused on using today’s sophisticated digital tools to drive deep insights that help develop a broader and deeper understanding of the consumer, so that brand communications and messag-ing can become better targeted, personal-ized and relevant.

“This new access to so much digital data is a challenge, but also represents a hidden op-portunity,” says Yory Wurmser, retail analyst for eMarketer. “So many competing chan-nels may make advertising less effective in some ways, but it allows brands to gather information about people’s intentions and what they’re really after.”

The progression from digital shopper mar-keting to data-driven shopper marketing, says Catapult’s Romano, is really about pro-viding wins for retailers, brands and consum-ers. Those wins require a value exchange that works for consumers: “In order to gain consumer trust and their data, you have to offer consumers something of value and keep up with what they want.” SM



Part 2:

n today’s Darwinian retail landscape, re-tailers and brands are constantly search-ing for the perfect pair of glasses. Mar-

keters know they need to truly “see” and understand shoppers in order to meet ex-pectations for a seamless journey along the increasingly multichannel/multi-device path to purchase.

They didn’t always need such strong lenses. Back in the days when mass market-ing ruled, shoppers would watch TV com-mercials, check for deals in weekly circulars and then head to local retailers. “Traditional shopper marketing was generally a rigid, straight line because most shopping deci-sions were made in the store,” says Holly Manners, senior analyst at Catapult and an author of the latest edition of the Digital Shopper Marketing (DSM 5.0) study.

But now, with dozens of mobile, social, online and in-store shopping tools available, the lines of the typical shopping journey have blurred considerably: Are they pre-shopping? Shopping? Post-shopping? “With digital and mobile options, it’s not so cut and dried anymore,” Manners says. “Consumers

sor of marketing at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. “What about the conversation I have over coffee? What about whether or not I have a list stored in my cellphone? What about the day of the week or the location I’m in? We’re just starting to see the entire purchase process, both of the individual and the other people in their eco-system, as part of the whole journey rather than one snapshot of the buying experience in the store.”

These recent shifts have turbo-charged the already strong sense of consumer em-powerment that shoppers have developed over the past 10-15 years, says Mark Herten-stein, SVP, enterprise solutions, at marketing

have everything readily available to them everywhere.”

Indeed, as the recent DSM 5.0 study points out, 44% of surveyed shoppers routinely hold on to a smartphone as they walk bricks-and-mortar store aisles, while 37% now use a PC/laptop, smartphone or tablet to shop for pet, alcohol, baby or grocery items.

“Spontaneous decisions based on store stimuli are only one part of today’s shopping experience,” points out David Bell, profes-


I


Retailers and brands have blind spots when it comes to knowing what shoppers want because transactional, panel and online data is heavily siloed. A full view of the omnichannel shopper, experts say, will only come with the addition of “of� ine” data.

Gaining a 360° Shopper View

“ You can know what they buy, add in attitudinal behavior to get to why they buy, and layer in lifestyle data to know what that person’s about.” Mark Hertenstein, SVP, enterprise solutions, Epsilon


services � rm Epsilon. “As a consumer, you can now choose what messages you’ll open, what links you’ll click on and what posts you’ll read,” he says. “As a result, shopper marketing has had to reinvent itself and be-come a discipline based on connecting the digital footprints of shoppers to their pur-chase behaviors.”

A Data-Driven Line of SightConnecting those footprints means gaining access to the right customer data, however, and that has been a complex conundrum in the world of retail for decades. Tradition-ally, retailers have had an upper hand in this regard because they own the transactional, basket-level data generated by their cus-tomers as they pass through their check-outs. CPG marketers could, however, access this data via the services of companies like Nielsen and IRI.

Things began to change when some chains, most notably Kroger and Safeway, developed analytics that personalized the purchase data so they could direct relevant messaging to their best customers. “Retail-ers did such a fantastic job of collecting data to drive their businesses through loyalty and couponing programs,” says John Stich-weh, director, digital & social marketing, at ConAgra Foods, “that the reality now is that they have much more data than CPGs have.” Some chains, he says, are very open and will share that data with their manufacturer partners to help mutually grow the business. Others, however, view it as an asset they intend to hold closely. “Both of those strate-gies are fair,” Stichweh says. “There’s not a right or wrong answer.”

When retailers share with brands, data can be harnessed across the digital world

and into the store, creating the potential, at least, for a seamless shopping journey. “Staples is a good retail example of that,” says Eric Stein, executive vice president of digital strategy at Epsilon. “Staples’ vendors can gain access to their data to target audi-ences that are important to them and then drive sales through a co-branded campaign. We’ve seen a tremendous impact with these test campaigns.”

Stein says that Hewlett-Packard, which is a big Staples vendor, “had never been able to have a one-to-one customer relationship at retail. HP could online, but not of� ine, where the majority of commerce still happens, be-cause they don’t have stores of their own. But they were able to take an audience of people who bought printers, ink and toner, or any related HP product, and identify them through Staples’ CRM/loyalty database and bring that audience online to match to cook-ies, or Facebook, and then advertise to those folks in a co-branded manner to try to drive sales at Staples.”

Working with a retailer one-on-one is ideal, Hertenstein agrees, and sharing truly


creates win-win opportunities. “But one big challenge to data sharing is that some retail-ers set a pretty high price tag on utilizing it,” and others can’t share due to company policy. The good news, Hertenstein says, is that there are ways over these brick walls by using survey and panel data as well as third-party demographic and geographic data – proxies for the data gaps, in other words, that enable marketers to bypass re-tailer data.

One workaround used by some CPG mar-keters, Stichweh says, was the adoption of digital technologies that enables them to create direct links with consumers and de-velop ongoing dialogues. “There have been some really smart cases of brands getting closer to customers, including Pampers and Coke,” he says. “The availability of data is enabling more brands to do that, as long as the tactic scales.”

But too much unstructured data across digital platforms has the potential to turn into more of a burden than a blessing, says Haley Rubin, former digital shopper market-ing manager at alcoholic beverages com-pany Diageo – especially for companies that lack the skills to organize, interpret and ana-lyze it properly: “The overwhelming amount of data now is daunting. The biggest chal-lenge we face internally is the amount and complexity of the data we are constantly exposed to and figuring out which is the right data to sort through.”

Gaining that Clear ViewThe key to data-driven success, say market-ing experts, is gaining a 360-degree view of the customer, which Staples and HP, in the example above, are beginning to do. That means combining of� ine, online and third-

“ Spontaneous decisions based on store stimuli are only one part of today’s shopping experience.”David Bell, professor of marketing at The Wharton

School, University of Pennsylvania

“ The reality now is that retailers have much more data than CPGs have.”

John Stichweh, director, ConAgra Foods


party data – quantitative, qualitative and online behavior – to see things holistically, says Manners, and involve shoppers in the brand story in ways that extend far beyond the point of purchase.

Peter Cloutier, Catapult’s CMO, likes to share a personal example: “I pass by a local c-store on the way home each night – one of the big ones that you know. Once or twice a month my wife asks me to pick up a quart of milk, and that’s my go-to spot. But this store only knows what I buy – for my wife – and if they bumped that fact up against the range of things that a third party like Epsilon knows about me, the chain would have a much bet-ter idea about how to get me to come in for other things.”

The challenge, of course, is in the man-agement of these different types of data, says Hertenstein. “Third-party data like an Epsilon database still needs to be tied back to transactional data, while online behavior data, such as that produced via the Epsilon Response Network (ERN), has different uses and limitations. But eventually, you can get to a point where you can say, ‘OK, I know what you buy, and now I add in attitudinal behavior to get to the why you buy.’ Then you layer in another layer of lifestyle and attitudinal data to know what that person’s about.”

Layer in the type of data that ERN, for example, can produce, and you will learn how certain shoppers engage with certain channels. “All of a sudden,” Hertenstein says, “you will be building your messaging strategy; targeting the right category us-ers and sub-targeting as to different seg-ment groups; and delivering messaging to a channel they are most interested in at a time when they are receptive to receiving it.”

Coming Full Circle According to Catapult’s DSM 5.0 study, con-sumers are maturing in their level of expe-rience with digital and their expectations when it comes to their entire shopping ex-perience. It may take some time, but experts say that to avoid being left behind, market-ers must � gure out a way to:■ take advantage of the breadth and depth

of data that exists online, of� ine and through third parties;

■ target in a way that does not drive away consumers with concerns about privacy;

■ drive data out of silos and into a larger holistic view; and

■ help marketers glean insights that close loops and tie back to in-store efforts. According to ConAgra’s Stichweh, the in-

dustry is slowly moving in that direction: “My perception is that we’re past proof of concept and entering the adoption phase. Folks recognize that integrating of� ine and online can build businesses, but the chal-lenge is getting from here to there. You’re talking about a lot of companies with legacy systems that have been around a long time

and sit with very structured data. The new ad tech, VC-backed tools coming in didn’t begin with the legacy of those older sys-tems, so many companies are starting from scratch.”

As challenging as it is for both brands and retailers, experts agree that the industry is on a path toward bringing the customer journey full circle. “I think we are seeing a blending of what was two distinct types of marketing – brand advertising and shopper marketing,” says Graham Mudd, Facebook’s director of advertising measurement, North America. Facebook partnered last year with data companies such as Epsilon, Acxiom and Datalogix to let brands target ads to users based on what they have bought in stores, and then, in some cases, once they have been served the ads, tie things back to in-store sales insights. “What we’re seeing is that the scale of brand marketing and the precision and data-driven understanding of effectiveness from shopper marketing are beginning to integrate in powerful ways for the marketer,” he says.

In general, says Epsilon’s Stein, marketers are both more challenged and have more evolving opportunities to close the loop for data-driven shopper understanding. “It’s not getting any easier out there, with so many challenges regarding cross-device target-ing and following the multi-device shopper footprint,” he says. “That being said, there are more and more early stage capabilities and vendor partnerships that companies can start to leverage that are beginning to ex-pand that line of sight toward a 360-degree customer view.” SM


“ The biggest challenge we face internally is the amount and complexity of the data we are constantly exposed to.”

Haley Rubin, former digital shopper marketing manager, Diageo

“ The scale of brand marketing and the precision and data-driven understanding of shopper marketing are beginning to integrate in powerful ways.”Graham Mudd, director, advertising measurement,

North America, Facebook



Part 3:

uring a spring 2014 Best Buy analyst call, CEO Hubert Joly made one point crystal clear: Data-driven shopper

marketing will be the key to Best Buy’s future. Joly announced that a new big data project

called “Athena” will unify the chain’s online and offline data (past purchases, browser histories, locations, demographics, etc.), en-abling it to develop more targeted, relevant and personalized customer communications for “key touchpoints” along the shopper’s journey. “With Athena in place,” Joly said, “over time we will be able to … implement programs for key buying occasions like gifting, life events and registry, [and] create greater engagement with customers for our loyalty program and our credit card offerings.”

With that statement, Best Buy joined a long list of retailers and brand marketers search-ing for what’s been called “the holy grail” of data-driven shopper marketing success: The ability to close the � nal loop between online and of� ine (i.e., in store) behaviors, especially if the effort can directly tie digital activity to bricks-and-mortar sales and ROI.

In a world where 88% of shoppers re-search products online before heading out to the store to buy (aka “webrooming”), and nearly half continue to hang on to their smart-

tal media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University and director of their CIO Institute. “There are certainly a lot of interesting things you can do that you could never do before. But whether you can tie it back to motivation and behavioral patterns and the idea of multitouch attribution is very, very challenging.”

Personal RelevancyBut the grail quest is de� nitely underway. Like Best Buy, bricks-and-mortar retailers are under pressure to compete with the e-commerce gi-ant Amazon.com – an enterprise built upon its ability to capitalize on customer data within a completely electronic shopping environment. “This kind of intimate knowledge allows you to personalize the entire brand experience,” says Brian Cohen, EVP at Catapult eCom-merce (formerly Etailing Solutions). “Today’s shopper has little patience for waste in their

phones while they walk those store aisles, any ability to “tie back” or “attribute” what they see on their screens to what they do at the register is potentially game-changing.

Stress potentially. “Data-driven shopper marketing is so new that it really hasn’t been de� ned yet,” says Catapult CEO Paul Kram-er. “It’s like where digital shopper marketing (DSM) was � ve years ago.”

There are also skeptics. “Data-informed marketing” that can reach shoppers on a com-plex path to purchase and � nd out not just what they’re buying but why, and how they reached that decision, will be a monumental challenge, says Ari Lightman, professor of digi-


D


The key to data-driven success may hinge on tying digital insights to in-store purchases – aka “online to of� ine attribution.” Although still in its infancy, sales attribution may eventually enable CPGs to close this � nal loop and bring data-driven shopper marketing full circle.

Closing the Loop to Purchase

“ With Athena in place, we will be able to create greater engagement with customers for our loyalty program and our credit card offerings.”

Hubert Joly, CEO, Best Buy


lives, so if a communication is not highly rel-evant, you’ll lose their interest fast. This is why retailers like Amazon and CVS have dedicated so much time to personal relevancy.”

The quest is being mounted on many fronts. Bricks-and-mortar retailers as varied as Kroger (a pioneer through its work with dunnhumby), Target and Walgreens (a rela-tive latecomer) are using loyalty program data to measure insights and target individualized offers to households based on their purchase histories. Privacy and security concerns gen-erally keep the details of these programs shrouded in secrecy. This has been especially true since 2012 when Target received some unwanted publicity for delivering coupons to shoppers that its “predictive analytics” program guessed might be pregnant.

And then there’s the issue of retailer will-ingness to share their data with brand mar-keters. On the positive side are the growing number of examples of retailers who are partnering with brands on win-win data-driven shopper marketing promotions:• CVS/pharmacy, for example, analyzed

its ExtraCare loyalty data and found that members who buy allergy medi-cine also tend to buy facial tissues at the same time. This led to a collaboration with Sano� (the makers of Allegra) and Kimberly-Clark (who make Kleenex) on a two-month program that included an endcap display and a promotional pres-ence on the CVS website.

• ConAgra Foods is buying retailer purchase data and crunching it along with other data sets to gain insights into an individual shopper’s buying habits – how often she buys Hunt’s tomato sauce, for instance, and how regularly she buys it along with related items such as pasta, or seemingly disconnected items such as diapers.

• And there have been reports of success

with mobile-based promotions, such as Fri-to-Lay’s recent Bold Flavor Experiment, that combined unique bag codes and texting, data that was then tied to sales results.

But according to Shopper Marketing maga-zine’s 2014 Trends Report, only one out of � ve CPG executives said they had access to all of the retailer data they needed. That’s one reason why so many of them have also told the magazine that they’ve tried to “go it alone” in measuring their online-to-of� ine sales-attribution efforts by:

• conducting test-versus-control store studies; • timing digital overlays against a promo-

tional calendar;• deploying online tactics individually to

tease out sales lift; and • comparing sales lifts to key metrics like

click-throughs, sign-ups and brand surveys.

“There’s an art to piecing all of these dif-ferent types of data together,” says Light-man, and in his opinion, no one company is as of yet able to fully capitalize on it.

Picking Up the PiecesMark Hertenstein, vice president of enter-prise solutions at data giant Epsilon, agrees


– to a point. “The reality is that nobody who is doing this work, whether it is with us, or Catalina or Datalogix, is doing it alone be-cause nobody has all the pieces yet.” CPG marketers shouldn’t – and no longer have to – “go it alone,” he adds. Epsilon currently works with a variety of customers on target-ing shoppers by matching online cookies and serving them online ads based on their of� ine behavior, preferences, household at-tributes and propensities, he explains.

The technology is evolving and the tools are there now to close the attribution loop. “With some of our retailer partners – Staples being one – we can close the loop right there,” he says. “CPG can be a little bit harder if you have a retailer who won’t share data in the middle, but then we just bring in a Kantar or a Spire to do the match back and the analytic. It’s not always seamless at this point, but the more elements you can add from the retailer, brand and third-party-partner toolboxes, the stronger the program is going to be.”

Although program details are usually held close to the vest, there are a growing number of partnerships between top digital shopper marketing practitioners and data vendors that deal with “data blindness” and effectively tie in-store sales back to online activities:• Kimberly-Clark, for instance, recently an-

nounced that it is building its own deal database and CRM program through RevTrax, a New York-based digital optimi-zation promotion and analytics company that specializes in trackable coupons. K-C has begun to track how often and where customers redeem digital offers, as well as how they share them with friends through social channels. It is also analyzing which consumers are the biggest social in� u-encers and at which retailers their friends shop at the most. As a result, the compa-ny is compiling data that it can share with

“ Data-driven shopper marketing is so new … it’s where digital shopper marketing was � ve years ago.”

Paul Kramer, CEO, Catapult

“ Whether you can tie [data] back to motivation and behavioral patterns and the idea of multitouch attribution is very, very challenging.”

Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing, Carnegie Mellon


retailers – not just the other way around. RevTrax, which works with more than

100 national brands including Chobani, Heinz and Bayer, enables shopper mar-keters to execute measurable, retailer-specific single-use coupons. “There’s a need for CPGs to engage with each cus-tomer online and to track the resulting redemption and purchase of� ine,” says Jonathan Treiber, CEO of RevTrax, who notes that even retailers with vibrant loy-alty programs could bene� t from layering in this kind of tracking. “We have visibility into the digital journey consumers went through to get to their offer.”

• Facebook’s new “Custom Audiences” measurement, which is the result of the social networking leader’s partnerships with leading of� ine data providers, includ-ing Epsilon, can help brands determine which segments saw digital ads and how the views affected sales. Facebook might gather data on users who buy cleaning products containing bleach, for example, based on their past purchase behavior. A similar product could target potential customers with Facebook ads – and the brand might determine that a percent-age of those who saw the ad bought $5 worth of its bleach-� lled cleaning prod-ucts in a month, far more than the Face-book advertising investment.

The ROI, in this case, becomes clear. “This allows the CPG to gain insights that the retailer has traditionally had,” says Graham Mudd, Facebook’s director of ad-vertising measurement, North America. “Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to targeting, you can pick five relevant targets and measure the sales lift for each of those buckets – whether that lift came from more trips to the store or greater

spend per trip. And we can provide sales lift breakdowns by gender, geography, age, whether they are previous buyers of the brands vs. new buyers of the brand.”

• Google recently tested a way to bridge the gap between online activity and in-store purchases. Its pilot program, dubbed “In-Store Attribution Transaction Reporting in AdWords,” launched in April with six advertisers, including the Michaels arts & crafts store chain. The program connects anonymous tracking cookies on user computers to in-store sales information.

• Shopper-research fi rm InfoScout, fund-ed by dunnhumby Ventures (part of the same company responsible for Kroger and Tesco’s data analytics successes), re-cently announced a $16 million round of funding, which will help it expand its pool of mobile shopping apps meant to boost data access for CPG clients.

• And when it comes to the latest “bleed-ing edge” technological angle, in May, Apple shared its latest vision for iBeacon, its Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) location trackers. Theoretically, at least, iBeacon should enable brands to instantly target

and track consumers one-to-one while they navigate inside a store and pass through the registers.

Hertenstein says that other innovative ap-proaches are being discussed that will help facilitate the partnerships required to over-come data blindness. “If some of the parties simply aren’t willing to turn their data over to each other, one solution is to place all of that data together inside a neutral, third-party safe haven – a ‘black box,’ in other words – while we accomplish the targeting goal.”

The Power of CollaborationA related approach is the Abacus Cooperative, a database of transactional data from more than 2,000 marketing companies, including a variety of specialty retailers, B2B companies, not-for-profits, publishers and cataloguers that have contributed on a blinded basis and maintained for shared targeting and market-ing purposes. “If a marketer wants to � nd ac-tive kitchen accessories buyers,” Hertenstein says, “they can go into the cooperative and get the blinded transactions of all the rele-vant items bought at the various competitors, build up the best possible buying audience in America, and then market to them. There’s a lot of learning and a lot of power in bringing a data set like this together.”

Catapult eCommerce’s Cohen agrees: “Imagine if a marketer was able to leverage its loyalty data in concert with a retailer’s purchase data? The result would be a true 360-degree view, and the ability to deliv-er a highly customized experience for the shopper vs. the mass communication ap-proach we take today. Both the brand and the retailer would be � rmly established as trusted, knowledgeable resources for their best shoppers … the true impact of � nding the holy grail.” SM


“ Today’s shopper has little patience for waste in their lives, so if a communication is not highly relevant, you’ll lose their interest fast.”

Brian Cohen, EVP, Catapult eCommerce

“ There’s a need for CPGs to engage with each customer online and to track the resulting redemption and purchase of� ine.”

Jonathan Treiber, CEO, Revtrax


Ranked #1 Shopper Agency by the Hub Magazine, Catapult is the behavior-

based marketing services agency that delivers accelerated business growth

through the Art of ConversionTM. This unique data-driven approach

identi� es the core, actionable insights that inspire brilliant creative with

the power to convert consumers into shoppers, shoppers into buyers, and

buyers into loyal advocates. Catapult delivers channel-agnostic solutions

that are brand savvy, retailer smart, and digitally enabled.

Headquartered in Westport, CT, Catapult leverages the expertise of

more than 300 employees across 12 of� ces in major retailer geographies

including Minneapolis, Bentonville, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Nashville,

Los Angeles, Pleasanton, Phoenix, Tampa and Seattle. Catapult is a member

of the Epsilon Agency Services network, providing direct access to rich

data and world-leading technologies that help enable more powerful client

solutions.

For more information, visit our digital portals:

www.catapultmarketing.com

facebook.com/CatapultMktg

linkedin.com/company/catapult-marketing

twitter.com/CatapultMktg


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