Engaging Luxury Audiences: A Guide to Connecting with High-End Consumers

To connect meaningfully with luxury audiences, a well-informed, data-driven approach is crucial. With the right strategy, companies can balance audience affinity and advertising intensity, ensuring campaigns capture attention and drive loyalty.

Luxury audiences are motivated by a range of factors, from a desire for exclusivity to an emphasis on high-quality products. To resonate effectively, brands should customize their campaigns to meet the unique preferences of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and aspirational buyers, as each group often values different qualities. 

Utilizing Localized Insights to Reach Luxury Consumers

Looking at data from a local perspective allows brands to personalize media strategies, linking high-affinity areas, consumer mobility patterns, and shopping behaviors to target luxury buyers more effectively. Knowing where consumers are and what they prefer enables brands to tailor campaigns to high-value locations better, thereby boosting awareness, interest, and engagement at a national—or even international—level through more relevant, personalized messaging.

Key Benefits of Targeting High-Affinity Areas

  1. Increased Awareness: Campaigns in high-interest areas see a 25% uplift in attention compared to industry benchmarks.
  2. Enhanced Interest: Strategic placements can achieve a 70% preference increase among target audiences.
  3. Higher Conversion Rates: A well-executed plan results in a 30% rise in foot traffic to luxury retail locations.

 

 

Capturing Luxury Audiences Through Strategic Timing and Placement

The success of luxury advertising lies in reaching audiences at the right time and place. Using advanced media tools like Locala’s Panel Optimizer, brands can pinpoint when and where to engage their audience most effectively. The optimizer evaluates the relevance of each ad panel, ensuring maximum exposure during peak audience presence.

Luxury marketing requires a refined approach, focusing on immersive brand experiences. Digital-out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is particularly effective, providing brands with an exclusive channel to reach affluent audiences in high-end venues such as luxury hotels, country clubs, and upscale restaurants. This strategy allows brands to capture the attention of high-net-worth individuals in environments where they’re most receptive.

Advantages of DOOH for Luxury Brands

  • Premium Contexts: Brands can showcase themselves at upscale locations, from art galleries to airport lounges.
  • Exclusive Venues: Ads are displayed on over 23,000 screens worldwide in settings that complement the luxury lifestyle.
  • 360° Engagement: By utilizing dynamic ad formats, brands can offer an immersive experience, enhancing user interaction without requiring additional clicks.

 

How IWC Schaffhausen Boosted Brand Consideration and Boutique Visits

Effectively measuring campaign success is essential to reaching luxury shoppers. By analyzing metrics at each stage, from awareness and consideration to engagement and conversion, brands can refine their strategies and maximize their ROI. This approach is underscored by successful case studies, such as IWC’s campaigns, which saw significant boosts in boutique visitation and engagement by targeting high-income consumers within proximity to their locations.

In a recent campaign, IWC Schaffhausen, a luxury watchmaker, achieved impressive results by implementing a strategic, multi-tiered approach to elevate brand consideration and drive boutique visits. The brand focused on adults aged 35-54 with household incomes above $150K and used geo-targeting within a 25-minute radius of its boutique locations. IWC extended its strategy to maximize impact through an OOH extension, retargeting audiences previously exposed to OOH ads.

This approach led to remarkable outcomes: a 70% reduction in cost per visit (CPV) compared to the luxury benchmark, a 27.86% increase in boutique visitations, and an efficient click-through rate (CTR) of 0.20%. The case highlights how a well-orchestrated, data-driven approach can significantly elevate luxury retail brand visibility and customer engagement.

Brands must combine insightful audience segmentation with innovative targeting strategies to engage luxury audiences successfully. By leveraging Locala’s tools, exclusive placements, and interactive media formats, luxury marketers can reach affluent consumers effectively and meaningfully. 

Contact us to learn how Locala’s tailored solutions can help your brand engage luxury audiences.

 

10 Myths About Localized Intelligence – Debunked!

If you’ve ever targeted customers based on their location, identity, and interests, you’re already tapping into what we call Localized Intelligence. By blending location-based insights with behavioral, demographic, and contextual data, brands can craft campaigns that are more relevant and impactful. Consequently, Localized Intelligence enables brands to form deeper connections with their audiences in a world where personalization is key to standing out.

However, new tools and strategies often come with misconceptions. Is it too complicated? Is it only useful for small, local campaigns? Let’s debunk these common myths and show how this approach can enhance any marketing strategy—whether you’re driving foot traffic or building global brand awareness.

#1: Localized Intelligence is too complicated

  • Modern platforms like Locala simplify Localized Intelligence by providing user-friendly tools and interfaces, which makes it accessible and manageable for marketers of all skill levels.

#2: Localized Intelligence is hard to activate

#3: Localized Intelligence is for local campaigns only

  • While powerful for local targeting, Localized Intelligence also works effectively for national and global campaigns, allowing brands to scale their efforts as needed.

#4: Localized Intelligence derives solely from location data

  • Localized Intelligence integrates various data sources, including demographic, behavioral, and contextual information, which provides a holistic view of consumer contexts.

#5: Localized Intelligence is only for retail

  • In fact, Localized Intelligence benefits a variety of sectors including CPG, restaurants, and beauty, proving its versatility beyond retail.

#6: Localized Intelligence is the same as geofencing

  • Geofencing is one tool within the broader toolkit of Localized Intelligence, which also includes tactics like behavioral retargeting and proximity marketing.

#7: Localized Intelligence is all about mobile advertising

  • Mobile is one component, while Localized Intelligence includes digital out-of-home, desktop, connected TV, and other touchpoints for a multi-channel approach.

#8: Localized Intelligence is obsolete with the rise of e-commerce

  • Nevertheless, Localized Intelligence remains essential in the digital world, bridging online and offline experiences, enhancing omnichannel strategies, and boosting both foot traffic and online visits.

#9: Localized Intelligence’s results are difficult to measure

  • Advanced analytics and attribution models enable precise measurement of Localized Intelligence efforts. Therefore, linking these efforts directly to increases in foot traffic, conversions, and sales.

#10: Localized Intelligence compromises user privacy

  • Ethical Localized Intelligence practices include transparent data collection, user consent, and compliance with privacy laws, which ensures that consumer privacy remains protected.

 

Discover how Locala’s innovative solutions can transform your marketing approach with the power of Localized Intelligence. Our advanced tools are designed to enhance your campaign strategies in order to deliver precision-targeted results that maximize impact.

Contact us for a demo to see how Localized Intelligence can transform your campaign strategy.

3 Simple Steps to Amplify
Your Brand’s Impact This Holiday Season

The 2024 holiday season is just around the corner, and it’s shaping up to be a big one. Shopping is expected to start earlier than ever and retail sales are projected to reach a whopping $1.372 trillion. With so much at stake, brands should be prepared with a killer media strategy to take full advantage of the opportunity to connect with consumers. 

With only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the competition for attention will be fierce, and brands need to be ready to implement strategies that capture consumer attention and differentiate themselves. The three simple steps outlined in this post will help ensure your campaigns not only stand out but also drive success, no matter the challenges this season brings.

To begin planning, marketers must ask themselves: 

  • Who is my campaign targeting? 
  • Where can I find them? 
  • How can I engage consumers? 
  • What results can I expect?

By implementing an omnichannel approach that’s personalized to the local consumer, brands can effectively reach their target holiday shopper audiences while boosting visibility and engagement. Find out how Locala’s advertising platform with granular insights and cutting-edge AI is key to ensuring your campaigns deliver actionable results.

Step #1 Understand Your Target Audience with Locala’s Audience Explorer

The first step in planning your campaign is to clearly identify and understand who and where your target audience is. With Locala’s Audience Explorer, brands can utilize consumer data on demographics, interests, and behaviors, and specifically identify their key audience segments —whether they’re tech enthusiasts, holiday shoppers, or families with kids. By understanding the nuances of your audience, you can craft messages that resonate and ensure your campaign hits the mark. 

Step #2 Activating the Right Channels for Maximum Impact

After identifying your target audience, the next crucial step is to activate the most effective channels for reaching them. By combining Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) and Mobile, brands can significantly enhance their visibility and engagement during the holiday season. 

Locala’s planning tool enables you to identify the areas with the highest affinity and strategically place DOOH screens in those locations. Location-based mobile outreach lets you retarget individuals who have already seen your DOOH ads. This extends your campaign’s reach while reinforcing your brand message across platforms. The result is a cohesive and memorable consumer experience. This omnichannel approach ensures that your brand stays top-of-mind as consumers make their holiday shopping decisions.

Step #3 Creating Engaging and Memorable Experiences

We measure a successful campaign not just by the number of impressions it generates, but by how well it creates an engaging and resonant experience with consumers.

Amplify your brand’s impact this holiday season by using large-format DOOH ads to capture broad attention. Complement this with mobile creative strategies to deepen engagement. Enhance the experience further by incorporating immersive “in-ad” video experiences and increase in-store traffic with features like the store navigator

How a Beauty Brand Achieved Success with Locala

In preparation for the holiday season, a beauty brand launched a campaign aimed at expanding reach, boosting visibility, and driving in-store engagement across more than 500 stores. To achieve this, they partnered with Locala and implemented a powerful strategy where Large-format DOOH displays in high-traffic areas captured attention, while mobile ads re-targeted viewers to encourage in-store visits. 

The campaign targeted women aged 30+ nationwide, using data insights to pinpoint high-potential areas with strong brand affinity. It delivered ads within 500 meters of DOOH screens near key retailers to maximize in-store conversions.

The campaign delivered outstanding results, including a 70% viewability rate, a 5% uplift in in-store visits, and a 65% reduction in cost per visit compared to industry benchmarks. Additionally, mobile ads saw a 90% improvement in click-through rates versus the industry average, highlighting the campaign’s success in driving both visibility and engagement.

Why Locala?

With AI-driven insights, advanced reporting, and a global reach allowing localized activation, Locala enables brands to deliver impactful, omnichannel creative campaigns that resonate with consumers during the critical holiday season. Locala empowers brands to excel in their holiday marketing efforts through smart planning so that they can achieve effective engagement.

Contact us to learn more about how Locala can drive meaningful results and maximize your return on investment this holiday season. 

 

5 Advertising Best Practices
for Beauty Brands

As the beauty market continues to transform and diversify, understanding the varied needs and preferences of today’s complex consumers is more crucial than ever. From eco-conscious Gen Z shoppers to globe-trotting male beauty enthusiasts, the modern beauty buyer is a spectrum of unique personas, each with distinct tastes and expectations.

 

Brands must decipher these nuanced consumer profiles, and precise targeting strategies will be key to tailoring their offerings effectively. By adopting a personalized approach, beauty brands can deliver efficient campaigns that maximize every advertising dollar spent.

 

The Beauty Buyer’s Local Makeup:

When it comes to the beauty buyer’s local makeup, every location is different, so why use a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing? Local trends, even when they appear basic, like an area’s price sensitivity or visit frequency, can greatly shape the outcomes of brand campaigns. 

 

To maximize ROI, beauty brands should shape their media mix, target audiences, creative strategies, and other initiatives based on their local audiences’ preferences. A hyper-targeted approach ensures that advertising efforts align with unique local market needs, thereby boosting effectiveness and efficiency.

 

In this blog post, we explore five best practices essential for driving growth through advertising in the beauty industry. These insights, combined with a localized and personalized strategy, can help your brand forge stronger relationships and drive lasting loyalty.

Map of the United States showing client profiles and purchase drivers, with regions colored to indicate whether clients are occasional or frequent and whether purchases are driven by proximity or price.

Best Practice #1: Optimize Attention – Becoming GenZ’s Preferred Choice 

Brands must prioritize capturing and retaining the attention of Gen Z, the next generation of beauty enthusiasts with evolving preferences and high expectations.

 

Recent trends indicate a significant shift in beauty spending among teens, reaching its highest levels since spring 2018 with an annual spend of $339 per person, an 8% year-over-year growth. And despite the digital age, almost all teens still prefer shopping for beauty products in-store. 

 

Given that Gen Z’s path to purchase is anything but straightforward, capturing their attention requires a truly multi-channel approach. So, how do you understand where and how these buyers shop as well as what motivates them? At Locala, we recommend the following two-step approach:

 

Step 1: Identifying and targeting Gen Z consumers at scale: 

Understand where they spend their time and tailor your campaigns to these platforms. Analyze their online behaviors, geo-patterns, mobile app usage, geo-contextual influences, age data, and purchase habits. This multifaceted approach enables personalized, relevant campaigns that align with Gen Z’s unique needs and interests.

 

Step 2: Creating impactful digital ads: 

To effectively engage Gen Z, it’s crucial that your digital ads are not only viewable but truly resonate with them on a deeper level. This involves crafting content that captures their attention beyond mere exposure, utilizing attention metrics to measure actual engagement. By ensuring your ads actively engage Gen Z, you can drive meaningful interactions that lead to higher conversion rates.

Infographic detailing steps to identify and target Gen Z consumers and ensure impactful digital ads, highlighting a 23.7 million Gen Z user base and a 22% increase in attention results.

Best Practice #2: Intent-Based Delivery

Moving beyond broad geo-targeting, intent-based delivery focuses on where potential beauty shoppers are most likely to make purchases. At Locala, we enhance this approach by overlaying advanced affinity insights, integrating data on consumer preferences and past behaviors. This allows us to target your advertising spend towards locations and platforms where beauty shoppers have shown a clear interest in specific products. 

 

By directing ads to consumers who already have a high affinity to your brand, we not only improve the efficiency of your campaigns but also boost the relevance of your ads, increasing the likelihood of conversion. This targeted strategy ensures that every ad dollar is invested wisely, fostering higher ROI and more meaningful customer engagements.

Heatmap showing audience affinity for beauty products in the United States, with a focus on ensuring excellent presence where purchase intent is highest.

Best Practice #3: Last-mile Tactics: Mobile & DOOH Convergence

Combining mobile advertising with Digital Out of Home (DOOH) can powerfully guide beauty buyers through their purchasing journey, leading them directly to your doors. By leveraging mobile as the ‘last mile companion,’ you can extend the reach of your DOOH campaigns. This integration allows you to engage shoppers wherever they are, reinforcing brand messages and simplifying the customer journey with tools like mobile store navigators.

Personalized retargeting reinforces brand messages, while mobile store navigators enhance the customer experience. This approach effectively turns every mobile interaction into an opportunity to guide the consumer closer to a purchase, bridging the gap between online engagement and physical store visits.

Campaign strategy timeline showing the teasing, intent, and last-mile phases with associated strategies for DOOH and mobile ads, highlighting reach, intent lift, and CPV metrics.

Best Practice #4: Driving Travel Retail Sales

Targeting travelers in airports offers a unique opportunity for beauty brands to capitalize on a captive audience. Airports are high-traffic environments where travelers often have time to explore new products and make impulse purchases. 

 

By utilizing geo-targeted mobile ads and Digital Out of Home (DOOH), brands can significantly enhance their visibility among this demographic. This strategic placement ensures that your advertising captures the attention of potential customers precisely when they are most receptive to discovering new beauty products.

 

Implementing this strategy effectively taps into the peak times for impulse buying, such as long wait times at departure gates or baggage claims. The key is to make these ads as relevant and compelling as possible, presenting offers that are tailored to the needs and interests of travelers, such as travel-sized beauty products that can be easily carried on flights.

 

By converting foot traffic into immediate sales opportunities, this approach not only boosts direct sales but also builds brand recognition in a global setting. Capturing a traveler’s interest can lead to ongoing engagement and loyalty, with customers potentially seeking out the brand even after their trip.

Image of a DOOH panel with a QR code for a perfume coupon and a mobile phone displaying a landing page with a downloadable coupon for a beauty product.

Best Practice #5: Boosting Customer Lifetime Value

At Locala, we understand that purchasing a product is just the beginning of the consumer journey. Using data-driven insights, we help brands retarget past buyers with personalized offers for enhanced loyalty and cross-sales. This strategy maximizes the lifetime value of each customer, transforming single sales into ongoing engagements.
Our approach involves continuously analyzing customer behavior and purchase history to craft offers that are not only timely but highly relevant to each individual. This targeted communication keeps your brand top-of-mind and encourages repeat purchases by making customers feel valued and understood.

By fostering a deeper connection with customers, we turn occasional buyers into loyal brand advocates. This not only increases the frequency of purchases but also enhances the overall profitability of each customer relationship over time.

Visual representation of the path from behavioral and purchase data to visitation data, illustrating how online activity and product types influence store visits and brand interactions.

Expertise that Drives Results: Locala’s Proven Track Record

With over a decade of experience in driving store traffic with omnichannel, location-based audience targeting for retail and beauty brands, Locala has mastered delivering successful campaigns grounded in data and innovation. Our expertise is proven through extensive real-world applications and satisfied clients.

 

From Planning to Attribution, Locala’s Got You Covered. 

 

  • Plan: Uncover location-based insights about your brand and strategically plan your media campaigns to align with your objectives.

  • Activate: Build media strategies tailored to your business goals, activating omni channel campaigns that cover every stage of the customer journey.

  • Learn: Maximize campaign performance and return on ad spend (ROAS) through omnichannel attribution and real-time optimizations.

 

Let’s explore real-life success stories! How has a leading beauty brand like L’Occitane utilized location-based advertising to enhance in-store traffic and drive growth?”

How L’Occitane Leveraged Location-Based Advertising for Outstanding Results

L’Occitane en Provence, a leading global provider of natural beauty products, partnered with Locala to drive in-store traffic across their U.S. retail locations.

Locala targeted potential customers within a 15-minute drive or walk from L’Occitane stores using a tailored strategy with dynamic geo-location targeting and custom audience building. The campaign utilized innovative creatives featuring a store locator with real-time directions, simplifying the customer journey to the nearest store.

The results were impressive: the campaign generated nearly 8 million impressions and led to 43,952 store visits, showcasing the power of strategic location-based advertising. This approach not only enhanced L’Occitane’s visibility but also significantly boosted foot traffic, proving the effectiveness of Locala’s precise targeting and creative solutions in driving real-world outcomes.

 

Ready to see how Locala’s omnichannel advertising platform can transform your campaign results through deep consumer insights? Get in touch with us today!

5 Advertising Tips for Increased Growth for Auto Brands

Let’s talk about a shifting trend in the auto industry: the average visits to auto dealerships have never been lower. In fact, did you know that the average US auto buyer is only visiting 1.9 car dealerships when shopping for a new vehicle? At Locala, we know it’s a challenging landscape out there, and to navigate this competitive market auto brands need precise and scalable media strategies to not only attract fresh consumers but also nurture lasting customer loyalty. To help, we’ve compiled five best practices for auto brands to achieve long term growth in 2024 and beyond. Ready to dive in?

1. Optimizing Attention & Reach

In a world where ads are everywhere, capturing and retaining consumer attention is more challenging than ever. That’s why establishing a strong brand presence through local, upper-funnel strategies is crucial for any auto brand looking to stand out from the crowd. Our latest strategic partnership with DoubleVerify allows us to combine advanced Attention metrics with Locala’s unique offerings like affinity insights and precise audience segments so advertisers can significantly enhance their campaign performance and media quality. 

By optimizing for user attention, we not only increase brand visibility but also set the stage for future conversion tactics. This helps brands make meaningful connections with potential car buyers and stand out in a crowded marketplace.

2. Dealership-Based DOOH Planning

Traditional approaches to Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) planning often cast a wide net with broad targeting, but at Locala, we believe precision is paramount. By overlaying our advanced affinity audiences into the DOOH planning process, we help auto brands pinpoint panel locations where car buyers are most likely to convert with a given brand. By using advanced audiences in the DOOH  planning process, we are able to help brands move beyond broad targeting to reach the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

3. Last-Mile Tactics

The path to purchase for auto buyers is filled with many touch points across various channels. With so many steps to the funnel, it’s crucial that brands are seamlessly guiding them through their purchase journey. By combining mobile and DOOH advertising, Locala creates a ‘last mile companion’ that extends DOOH reach and engages buyers wherever they are. 

Additionally, personalized retargeting helps to reinforce brand messages, ensuring that potential buyers stay engaged even after they’ve left the dealership. Taking things a step further, our Store Navigator format simplifies and enhances the overall customer experience by providing creative that directs users to the nearest auto dealership. This helps auto brands deliver a seamless and personalized journey from initial awareness to dealership visit.

4. Dynamic Inventory-Based Ads

As auto brands gear up for national campaigns, it’s critical to remember the significance of engaging local consumers. This entails having a deep understanding of the local markets and audience preferences of a consumer in a given area. 

Locala’s Dynamic Creative ensures that messaging is tailored with the available stock at individual dealerships. And by promoting second-hand and discounted models customized to each dealership’s current inventory, we can enhance the impact of advertising campaigns and drive more qualified leads. In essence, delivering personalized ads that caters not only to the local dealerships but also the buyer, results in a higher return on investment.

5. Boosting Customer Lifetime Value

In the automotive industry, the relationship with a customer doesn’t end after the initial purchase. Continuing to nurture the consumer relationship is essential for maximizing the lifetime value of each customer and driving long-term success. Using data-driven insights, we help brands retarget past buyers with personalized offers for service and maintenance upgrades. By transforming single sales into ongoing service engagements, we foster customer loyalty and build lasting relationships that turn customers into brand advocates.

How Brands like Hyundai and Audi use Location-Based Advertising

Now, let’s talk about real-life use cases! How have other leading auto brands used location-based advertising to drive growth?  

  • Hyundai developed a multi-location advertising strategy based on 17 activations spread over the year to support 202 dealerships across the country. Using affinity audiences, personalized retargeting, and ads that resonated at the local level, Locala was able to drive 49K visits to Hyundai dealerships resulting in a 23% uplift in footfall.  This campaign received the GOLD award in the “Mobile-to-store” category in March 2023 awarded by Les Cas d’Or in partnership with Alliance Digitale.
  • Audi leveraged an omnichannel strategy to increase foot traffic to a selection of 144 dealerships spread over 3 regions.  Locala used affinity insights to increase awareness among the right consumers, and then retargeted them across mobile and audio to drive them down the funnel. This resulted in over 10K visits to the dealership and a x6 uplift in footfall. 

To learn more about how other automotive brands are leveraging location intelligence and consumer insights to power their media strategies, contact us now! 

Revolutionizing QSR Campaigns with Cross-Visitation Insights

Adapting Targeting Strategies to Local Behaviors

For QSR marketers, traditional targeting methods are insufficient at the local level, where consumer preferences and competitive dynamics vary. Locala’s pivotal expertise in cross-visitation insights is a cornerstone of our Retail Analytics suite and holds significant importance in this context

By analyzing where your customers dine beyond your brand’s locations, Locala can provide a unique view of your competitive landscape. Successful QSR campaigns require adapting to local market behaviors, each with distinct challenges and opportunities. This precision in activation, tailored to local preferences and cultural nuances, is crucial in today’s market where generic strategies fall short.

This article explores how fast food brands can leverage cross-visitation insights to refine their marketing strategies, staying relevant and competitive in varied local markets.

Deep Dive into Cross-Visitation Insights

Cross-visitation insights refer to the analysis of visitation overlap across brands, calculated on a local basis and monitored over time. This involves understanding how many customers of one QSR brand visit other brands, providing a clear picture of the competitive landscape. 

The methodology behind tracking and analyzing this data involves leveraging mobility (mobile location data) and places data (such as restaurant locations and other metadata), allowing brands to track foodies’ visits among local competitors effectively. This methodology complies with privacy standards, as Locala ensures that all data collection and analysis adhere to stringent privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, assuring both brands and their customers of ethical data usage.

Unpacking the Strategic Value for Fast Food Brands

The true value of cross-visitation insights lies in their application at the local level. These insights allow fast-food brands to adapt their targeting strategies to local shopping trends and competitive environments. For instance, if Burger King finds that 40% of its visitors also frequent McDonald’s and that 25% of them also eat out at the nearby salad bar in one area, they should include visitors from both locations in their local targeting strategy. This approach enables brands to maintain a presence among the most relevant consumer segments and attract potential customers with similar purchase intentions.

Diving at the local level means that a brand can not only see the general trends of customer behavior but also understand these patterns in specific areas. For instance, the cross-visitation trends in a bustling city center might differ vastly from those in a suburban area, even within the same city. By harnessing these insights, brands can tailor and activate their strategies to each unique area.

To help brands get started, we’ve compiled a few best practices for local market adaptation:

  • Retargeting Based on Visits to Local Main Competitors
  • Geo-Fencing Local Main Competitor Locations
  • Loyalty Incentive Campaigns Targeting the Least Loyal Customers
  • Dynamic Ad Content Based on Time of Day and Distance to Locations
  • Local Customers Lookalike with Other Cross-Visited Brands 

Seamless Integration with Omnichannel DSP

The integration of cross-visitation insights with our omnichannel DSP simplifies the process of executing targeted marketing strategies across various channels. Whether it’s desktop, mobile, audio, DOOH, or CTV, this seamless integration ensures that QSR brands can engage with their customers wherever they are, with messaging that’s relevant to their local experiences and preferences.

Case Study: Miller’s Ale House

A prime example of these strategies in action is the campaign Locala recently implemented for Miller’s Ale House. By leveraging dynamic commerce areas and cross-visitation insights, Locala was able to reach current, lapsed, and new consumers of Miller’s Ale House, driving a significant increase in foot traffic and return on ad spend. The campaign involved a mix of desktop and mobile display ads, specifically tailored to drive restaurant visits. The step-by-step strategy included identifying target areas, segmenting the audience based on visitation patterns, and then deploying localized ads that resonated with these specific customer groups. The results? A 9.67% footfall uplift, 13k+ in incremental visits and an overall 9x ROAS for Miller’s Ale House.

The Power of Hyperlocal

The future of marketing in the QSR industry is hyperlocal, data-driven, and customer-centric. By harnessing the power of cross-visitation insights, QSR brands can stay ahead of the curve, adapting swiftly to local market changes and consumer behaviors. Locala’s advanced analytics and technology are not just tools; they are essential partners in this journey, helping brands navigate the complex landscape of local markets with agility and precision. As we move forward, the brands that succeed will be those that not only gather these insights but also act on them with precision and creativity.

Engage with us on LinkedIn | Learn more about Locala’s solutions

 

Demystifying Digital Advertising: A Guide to Key Terms and Concepts in a Data-Driven World

The digital advertising space is constantly evolving as new technologies and practices arise, and the vocabulary changes just as rapidly. In a world driven by data and insights, understanding the nuances behind terms and concepts can make all the difference. Like many others in the industry, Locala adapts to these changing terms and even coins new ones to reflect our innovative approach in the digital advertising space.

To simplify things, we’ve created a brief glossary that highlights some of the key terms currently used in the advertising industry:

Territorial data: Socio-demographic information attached to a zone, provided by statistical bureaus.

Exclusive Shoppers: Those who have only visited your locations within the past month.

Switchers: Those who have visited both your locations and your competitors’ locations within the past month.

Most Valuable Prospects: Those who have never visited your location but, have a high affinity to the area where your location is and frequently visit those within the same category/go to your competitors. They have a High likelihood of becoming long-term, profitable customers.

Draw-In rate: Is calculated by dividing the number of visits by the sum of visits + passersby. For instance, if there were 10 visits and 90 passersby, the draw-in rate would be 10%.

Uplift: Footfall Uplift is the increase in footfall observed between the exposed and control groups, expressed as a percentage. The bigger the uplift is, the more we positively changed consumers’ behaviors.

Incremental Visits: Refers to the number of additional visits to a store that can be attributed to a specific marketing campaign. (Incremental visits are a subset of the visits).

Dynamic Commerce Areas: DCA gives marketers a better understanding of consumer behaviors and footfall trends within specific areas. By analyzing the data associated with a DCA, marketers can gain insights into customer behavior, identify areas of opportunity, and make more informed decisions.

DOOH: A new take on classic outdoor advertisements which enhances billboards, posters, and signage with new technology, enabling interesting new features such as interactions between the ad and its viewers, remote control of campaigns, real-time bidding for ad time on physical billboards, targeting of audiences.

CTV: Stands for Connected TV. – Is a subset of OTT. CTV is a TV that is connected to the internet via an internal device (i.e. Smart TV) or an external device (for example, Apple TV, Roku, or gaming consoles). Video content is delivered to a TV screen, through the internet.

OTT: ‘Over the top’ media which encompasses all Linear TV or Video on Demand (VOD) (e.g. AVOD or Broadcaster VOD) streaming content providers (such as Netflix, Hulu, etc.) These content providers distribute directly to viewers over the internet. OTT includes all devices and environments including Mobile, Desktop; App, Web and is not exclusive to CTV.

Device ID: A device ID is a unique, anonymized string of numbers and letters that identifies every individual smartphone or tablet in the world. It is stored on a mobile device and can be retrieved by any app that is downloaded and installed.

Territorial data: Socio-demographic information attached to a zone, provided by statistical bureaus.

POI Database: Locala’s POIs Database is aggregated by different suppliers and regularly fed by Locala ad-hoc requests It includes millions of Points of Interests references and locations all over the world.

Beyond the Map: Transforming Location Intelligence Into Actionable Media Strategies

Location data is vital for digital advertising

In today’s data-driven era, the application of location and mobility data has significantly shaped the landscape of digital advertising. From strategic planning to campaign activation, companies are turning to this data to better understand their consumers and collect valuable competitive insights. Yet as companies like Placer.ai, Foursquare, and Near offer broad, data-centric solutions, one key question emerges: Are these platforms truly effective in helping marketers make the right decisions for their advertising campaigns? 

A recent eMarketer study indicates that 36% of marketers used location data to personalize their consumers’ experience. These figures illustrate the growing appreciation of location data within the marketing sphere. However, the majority of these solutions focus on data visualization alone, rather than providing tools to make advertising decisions. 

Data-Driven Insights for Advertising Campaigns

Unlike general location intelligence providers, Locala is a specialized player in the realm of digital advertising. Our approach to processing location data and developing consumer insights is advertising-centric, focusing on the areas that matter most for businesses aiming to increase their footfall through digital ads. With Locala, the ultimate goal isn’t just visualizing location data, but building a technology that seamlessly links location insights to digital activation. This combination is our key differentiator as it allows us to translate raw data into actionable advertising strategies for our clients. 

The ever-increasing complexity of the digital landscape requires not only access to data but also the right tools and expertise to utilize it effectively. There is so much data available currently, and it’s difficult to know what pieces are most valuable and how you can use them to influence your decisions. With the rise of Language Learning Models (LLM), the ability to train these models with domain-specific knowledge will dictate success. As advertising experts, we’re equipped to guide these models to deliver insights that are truly meaningful to your business. So you not only get the meaningful data, but we help you define how to use it to more effectively reach your goals.

Locala goes a step further than competitors

We understand the allure of data visualization for decision-makers.  The ability to see data trends and patterns can indeed be powerful. In fact, that’s why we’re in the industry. However, at Locala, we go a step further. We are not only concerned with making data digestible and relevant but also with ensuring it drives tangible results for your business. By aligning our technology and expertise with your specific advertising goals, we provide a solution that harnesses the full potential of location data for advertising. 

The real challenge lies in leveraging this data to its fullest potential. It’s time to move beyond simple data visualization and towards tailored actionable media campaigns. As we look to the future, the need for expert-driven, vertical-focused solutions becomes increasingly apparent. At Locala, we’re already there.

 

Integrating DOOH programmatic into omnichannel strategy: Locala’s three tips

Benvenuto Alfieri, Italy Country Director at Locala tells us how to best integrate DOOH into multichannel media strategies.

How to integrate DOOH programmatic into an omnichannel strategy? This is a recurring question for Marketers.  

Benvenuto Alfieri, Italy Country Director at the ad tech Locala offers a series of suggestions. “It’s been years now that RTB – Real Time Bidding has revolutionized the way advertising campaigns are designed and distributed,” says Alfieri. ” The old media strategy consisting of broadcasting commercials only on  billboards, TV, and display, with a single message and no contextualization or adaptation to the media channel, is almost over; the ‘almost’ means that the transition to  omnichannel is still ongoing and it is at the core of advertising strategies this year. 

It has become increasingly critical to reach audiences in the right place, at the right time, with the right message, on the most appropriate screen at that precise moment. In short, it’s about telling a story across various consumer touchpoints, making smart use of data, and adapting creative assets, and at the heart of this strategy is programmatic DOOH. Programmatic DOOH combines the power of Digital Out Of Home with the targeting, contextualization, and real time capabilities offered by programmatic buying. There are three main reasons to integrate programmatic DOOH into your omnichannel strategy.” 

1. Take advantage of the power of DOOH and go even further

Digital Out Of Home is a beloved advertising media because of its presence in consumers’ daily lives. With screens in the street, on public transportation, and in shopping malls, as well as in sports arenas, coloring our cities. Statista’s forecasts for the coming years show that its growth will continue unabated. Using programmatic buying means going far beyond its powerful reach. The principle of programmatic DOOH is to purchase DOOH using auction logic, through SSPs (Displayce, Hivestack which are integrated into Fusio by Locala) and DSPs (Fusio by Locala is Locala’s proprietary omnichannel DSP). This buying method allows advertisers to buy impressions in real time, based on targeting criteria. 

2. Revolutionary targeting and contextualization

Today, buying mass media with precise targeting is possible. The goal of programmatic buying is to deliver the right ad at the right time, in the right context, and in the right place for the target audience. For example, advertising a sunscreen in areas where there is a high presence of users interested in travel, or one that invites people to visit a particular store at certain times of day and in areas with a high concentration of the target audience. The programmatic DOOH also offers a solution present in mobile digital campaigns, such as DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization). It is possible to adapt advertising to certain conditions, such as the weather, the results of a sporting event, and many other live variables.

Case Study: drive-to-pharmacies campaign for Eucerin 

Dentsu and Locala’s data-driven omnichannel planning combined the use of two strategically relevant advertising media channels to reach the target audience, mobile and DOOH. The platform’s machine algorithm with real time optimization

produced an increase in the campaign visit rate. Each channel had a specific strategic function: mobile allowed to reach the target audience in those areas of the territory where DOOH is less present; DOOH, on the other hand, thanks to Locala’s platform, ensured a greater presence of communication in metropolitan areas, with a particular focus on Northern Italy. A footfall uplift of +69% and a x2.5 visit rate (vs. benchmark visit rate of similar single-channel campaigns) are the results recorded by Eucerin, a dermo-cosmetic brand of the Beiersdorf Group.

3. Programmatic advertising simplifies the measurement of DOOH effectiveness in combination with mobile

If measuring OOH effectiveness was complicated for advertisers, it is now possible in real-time thanks to programmatic buying. In addition to the way campaigns are designed and delivered, programmatic buying has also revolutionized the way in which performance and results can be measured. In addition to traditional KPIs, it is possible to measure the impact of programmatic DOOH on the entire funnel. The advantage of this media channel is its versatility in serving both branding and drive-to-store objectives. We can therefore measure the impact in terms of Brand Lift (Locala collaborates exclusively with Happydemics for Italy).  

Lastly, thanks to the collaboration with Circana, Locala is able to provide detailed reporting on programmatic DOOH and mobile campaign impact. By integrating programmatic DOOH into your omnichannel strategy, you can be sure to reach your audience effectively and efficiently by being able to measure the impact and contribution of this advertising media on the overall strategy.

Stop Wasting Money on Organic Visitors

Google decided long ago that brands would have to spend money to defend their most precious assets from their competitors: their brand names. Instead of focusing on new, incremental customers, brands today are still spending a good portion of a staggering $144.8 Billion on search advertising, with many of those clicks coming from their most loyal customers.

What if you could save money on organic visitors to your stores?

Paying for Organic Traffic to Your Stores

Most brick-and-mortar brands don’t realize it, but they have a problem similar to this. Many drive-to-store campaigns result in the brand paying for organic traffic even when the intent is for the business to attract new, rather than existing customers, to their stores. Would a business like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts want to pay the same amount to reach a loyal customer who visits five days a week vs. a new potential customer they are trying to entice to try their product? 

In Q1 2022, we found up to 63% of Starbucks customers in New York City also buy coffee from the Dunkin Donuts right down the road. This leaves a great amount of opportunity for both brands to reach out to those customers who are “cross-loyal” and focus marketing efforts on regaining their brand loyalty – and 37% of Starbucks loyalists that can be removed from typical competitor conquesting campaigns.

A competitive, local marketing strategy requires a greater understanding of shopping behavior and audience segmentation. Finding new, incremental customers — and conquering your competitors — requires a completely different strategy than keeping in touch with your loyal, organic customers. When building your next campaign to attract new customers to your store, make sure you’re thinking about the four A’s: Analytics, Audience, Attribution, and Activation.

Analytics

It has been proven that the typical radius approach to identifying customers to your particular store lacks the true insight stores need to identify prospective new customers.

We can see where your customers live, work, and shop on any given day. And we can also identify and report on your local competition and the “battleground” areas you share with them. Incorporating data points like how long a person is willing to travel for a coffee, new clothes, or even a car vary incredibly — and analyzing this data in real time at your individual store level allows for a more comprehensive and cost-effective marketing strategy.

Audience

Understanding your most loyal customers can be fairly simple, but you should be able to exclude them entirely when trying to identify new customers. Stop wasting money on your organic visitors! Understand your competition’s customers instead. Finding the right audience to target is one key to a cost-effective, high-performing marketing strategy. In addition to the typical data inputs like gender, age and income, finding new customers and enticing them to visit your stores requires a platform that can identify your potential audience when and where they are most likely to convert. Using a platform that combines basic demographics along with real-world behaviors, online and offline purchases, and psychographics will drive the highest results.

For example, if Starbucks could identify loyal Dunkin Donuts customers who stop each morning at 10am at a store just one block from the closest Starbucks store, being able to reach them on their mobile device at 9am when they are heading out the door would significantly increase conversion rates. They could then reallocate their advertising budget to remove existing customers and use those dollars to conquer their main competitor. Knowing when and where to reach your potential audience is even more important than just drilling down into a basic lookalike model — and imperative when you’re trying to conquer your local competition.

Attribution

Identifying incremental visitors for a given campaign will also allow you to effectively allocate budgets and determine ROI on your ad spend. Knowing in real time the number of incremental visits your campaign is driving allows you to pivot your strategy on the go as well as to fully understand the cost per incremental visit of your campaigns over time. Using a platform that can easily identify and attribute loyal vs. new, incremental visitors gives brands the opportunity to message loyal and new customers in a way that is unique to them and will result in an increased conversion rate.

Activation

Finding the right audience through sophisticated targeting, being able to attribute your campaign performance to new vs. existing customers, and then analyzing your customer makeup at a granular level allows brands to activate customers in real-time and reach a new, incremental audience with the highest chance of conversion — resulting in an overall lower cost, more effective marketing strategy. A strategy that includes all four of these key components will allow you to create a scalable, efficient and reliable growth engine for your business.

Originally Published in Advertising Wee

Leveraging Technology and Real Time to Generate In-Store Traffic

With the hybridization of consumption modes accelerated by Covid, stores must rethink their strategy to generate traffic. This is what Locala helps them do, as founder and CEO, Christophe Collet, explains.

What is Locala’s mission and what are its solutions?

For more than 10 years, Locala has been a leader in the drive-to-store market. We believe that the store is not only a place to sell, but also a place to connect with people and our mission is to drive as much traffic as possible to restaurants, stores and car dealerships.

We are a drive-to-store platform, whose sole purpose is to maximize real-time traffic to the point of sale and therefore revenue for our clients. To do this, our advanced algorithms optimize four dimensions in real time. Our technology defines the dynamic catchment area of each store, identifies the audiences most likely to come into the store and determines the best media to engage them – because every consumer behavior is different – and finally, we define the most appropriate advertising format. Our technology is able to create marketing campaigns with a single measure of effectiveness, the in-store visit.

How do you help companies adapt to the new post-Covid model?

The customer journey and consumption is no longer only digital or in-store, but has evolved to both at the same time. We help our clients understand and leverage this hybridization, identifying the right targets, in the optimal areas with the best message on the best medium. Our technology produces insights that help brands understand their catchment area, market share, competitive landscape, etc. If they are launching a new service, such as click and collect, we are able to help them through this transition by letting the right people know about the service. We also enable our clients to track geo-behavioral trends in real time at the store level and thus increase their knowledge of the customer and the competition. 

In this post-Covid world, we have seen a growing shift in shopper habits. With our geolocation data, we’re seeing customers go back to the office, expanding their shopping opportunities beyond their home catchment area, but also through schools, offices and more. And we’re able to reach them with the right message wherever they are.

How has Locala evolved with the market in its 10 years of existence?

Locala has been used by more than 600 major brands worldwide for 10 years because we have been able to anticipate both technological and regulatory changes. For example, we have always focused on consumer data protection, and we only apply our technology to people who have consented to receive targeted, location-based advertising. We have evolved to adapt to new consumer habits, using the latest technology. This allows our clients to take advantage of the hybridization of the customer journey, in real time, which is a real technological breakthrough because it allows them to test new products or services, launch them quickly and know right away what the impact on their ROI is.

Originally posted on BMF Business

Stay Calm. There Is A New Path Forward

A lot of people are tired.  They’ve grown weary of the lack of business certainty that the ongoing unpredictability of Covid-19 has wrought. For retail decision-makers, the past 18 months have been full of twists, turns, and massive challenges. But what could you expect from an unprecedented global health crisis impacting every single aspect of our lives? The ongoing Covid battle has put many folks on their back foot again.

The retail industry, in particular, has been losing sleep of late due to Covid’s negative impact on foot traffic and the disturbances in the supply chain, which have diminished inventory and caused prices to spike dramatically, throwing Q4 holiday season marketing budgets and schedules into chaos. With this pandemic, it seems that every time we feel close to getting over the hump and back to pre-Covid normalcy, we are hit with a new challenge with a merciless virus that refuses to go away without a fight. The anxiety and fear are normal. But through the fog of uncertainty, there are many reasons to maintain calm and stay the course.

Retail is alive and poised to thrive beyond its current level. The good news is it has never been more ready to innovate and embrace digital as the key element to fuel its success. Bricks-n-mortar is and will remain a key pillar to brand marketing strategies. Take a look at the aggressive efforts of brands like M&Ms and Lego. Both of them have made sizable investments in reinventing their physical stores into experiential destinations. M&Ms opened a 24,000 sq. ft. store in Minnesota’s Mall of America while Lego in 2021 alone launched over 100 new stores. Even digital natives like Warby Parker have acknowledged the critical importance of physical retail in their growth plans.

E-commerce is the new shiny toy because it fits our immediate gratification society in which we fantasize about finding the perfect product available and delivered quickly and at a cheaper price. The reality is that an online purchase comes with more and more disappointment from a consumer perspective and with greater risk from a brand’s standpoint. Where we thought online commerce was limitless, it is actually as limited– if not more – as its physical cousin.

Bricks-n-mortar and online shopping are both important elements of an evolved brand strategy. The combined entity needs to fight for customer satisfaction, a stellar reputation, positive reviews and churn rate improvement using as many tools as possible. Every brand will have to figure out how to combine both and what is the role for each of these two worlds.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that Digital Data should be applied to the consumer journey in a manner that prioritizes privacy-compliant consumer insights. The benefits should accrue to brands before, during and after campaigns with advanced targeting, ad spending efficiency, and channel optimization. The ultimate goals remain Desirability, Profitability and Longevity. Selling a desirable product to someone who won’t get it for months and losing money on delivery costs in the process is not sustainable. For E-Commerce or in Bricks-n-mortar, the success is related to Location and Reach.

The alleged diminishment in customer engagement at physical locations dovetails with the increasing challenges in targeting these people on mobile to drive traffic due to Apple’s ongoing deprecation of audience identifiers on iOS. But what’s truly dying is digital advertising’s overreliance on third-party identifier-based audience targeting driven primarily by Google’s Chrome cookie as well as Apple’s IDFA. As consumer privacy protection has become paramount, our business can no longer sit back on cruise control driven by programmatic era IDs. We must actually take a firmer grip on the wheel and steer our offerings down a more thoughtful, sophisticated path that puts the role of data and technology in the proper context.

The recent release of IOS 15 is the latest iteration of Apple’s privacy-first approach but that doesn’t mean retailers can no longer target and engage with customers in a personalized manner. What it does mean is that we need to return to traditional statistical modeling updated for the age of audience targeting. Fewer consumer signals on a smaller scale will require new sophistication to extrapolate targeting capabilities using asymmetrical data sets. By emphasizing device and geography signals, new statistical media mix modeling can be executed effectively.  I’m confident that this will yield just as much efficacy as the cookie and the IDFA.

At the end of the day, less addressability does not necessarily have to mean less return on advertising spend. I predict that incremental reach based on advances in linking digital messaging to actions taken at physical locations will become the centerpiece of how retailers measure success in the retail advertiser attribution model of the future.

Originally published on Advertising Week.

Report – Retail Media Advertising 2021

The Retail Media Advertising 2021 report by eMarketer provides an overview of the emerging retail media network and some considerations that retailers have shared with regards to its inception. We are proud to have Stan Coignard, our Locala Americas CEO, and Shareena Fontaine, our US Marketing Manager, as contributing industry sources to this piece.

As brands explore the new retailer media network trends, we’re happy to share how Locala’s ten years of machine learning optimization assists the world’s top advertisers with exclusive cross-retailer strategies, competitor conquesting campaigns, and independent measurement. These capabilities enable our clients to expand their visibility and pivot to meet industry-wide changes in consumer demand in real-time.

[cm_button text=”Download the full report here” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fcontent-na1.emarketer.com%2Fretail-media-advertising-2021|||” alignment=”text-center”]

 

‘Tis the Season to SHOP

This holiday season, “revenge shopping” will very much be top of mind for many shoppers who have been ravenous to return to pre-pandemic shopping habits. With heavy consumer demand and vaccination numbers continuing to increase, a dynamic  opportunity for brick and mortar stores has arisen all over the world.

Looking back just one short year ago, retailers have quickly adapted to a new shopping landscape and customers have adjusted to a new normal. According to eMarketer, retail sales between November and December are expected to reach $1.147 trillion. The US, pummeled hard with store closings last spring and summer, has recovered with the number of new openings equalizing any closures.

With more demand comes more competition to reach your target audience among the myriad of competitors all vying for their attention. Now more than ever, brands will need to do more to break through and connect with their audiences in a meaningful way.  

Reacting fast and staying ahead of the curve is vital this season. We put together six strategies to maximize your holiday campaigns and finish the year on top, whether your consumers are shopping in store or online. 

  1. Create Targeted Messaging Based on Consumer Behavior
  2. Customize Your Omnichannel Strategy for Each Consumer
  3. Real Time is King
  4. Target Audiences with Different Activation Experiences, and Drive ROI
  5. Get Up Close and Hyper-localized
  6. Be Fast and Convenient 

To learn more, download our free Holiday Playbook here.

Juneteenth and The Importance of the BIPOC Community

This year, Juneteenth, the nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the US, will be celebrated on a larger scale than ever before. Just days before the holiday, the Senate passed a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday and now awaits approval from the House. Many major companies already recognize Juneteenth as a day of observance including Nike, Target, and the NFL. But, this holiday isn’t just about giving employees the day off, it’s about acknowledging the African American community in a larger way outside of Black History Month.

Historically, The BIPOC community has not been prioritized as a target audience. Even though their spending power is currently at $1.3 trillion, their tastes, culture, and traditions have not always been a point of interest for brands. Now, in this new day and age, this community that makes up nearly 15% of the population can no longer be neglected.

Companies are being held accountable for keeping the BIPOC audience top of mind not only at the register, but on the shelves as well. The 15% Pledge, a nonprofit organization founded by Aurora James, challenges retailers to dedicate at least 15% of its shelf space to black owned businesses. Among the 22 brands that have pledged include Sephora, GAP, and West Elm. Within the workforce, Diversity Inclusion and Equity roles have catapulted as well. According to Indeed, Diversity Inclusion & Equality roles rose 123% between May and September 2020.

As people all over the country celebrate Juneteenth this year, it’s paramount for all retailers to create and follow through with long term strategies and commitments to incorporate the BIPOC audience in a meaningful and conspicuous way. To authentically achieve this, companies must understand they cannot solely ingratiate themselves with this audience through discounted offers and deals. It’s through representation, community, and acknowledgement of the black influence and existence in America that brands will exhibit a real desire to create long lasting change and inclusivity.

Over the next few days, Locala will create a series of posts on how our drive-to-store platform can help you target a specific audience on a localized level. When launching multicultural campaigns, it is important to speak to the exact audience you are targeting. Fusio identifies zones with a large volume of potential shoppers, so you can focus your efforts on high-potential areas.

Master the tricks of drive-to-store advertising with The Drive-to-Store Handbook

2020 was a particularly difficult year for brick-and-mortar. On top of ongoing concerns like the shift to ecommerce or how to engage with customers looking for more innovative in-store experiences, retailers now had to contend with a global pandemic that was shifting the marketplace like never before.

Social distancing and successive lockdowns took their toll on business owners. Faced with the closing of all non-essential businesses, retailers had to adapt their strategy to face these challenges head-on and pivoted to create new omnichannel experiences to keep on engaging with their customers. People were very receptive to this new approach, as was proven by their eagerness to get out of their homes and back to normal, and to stores, as restrictions were lifted.

If you are a business, big or small, with a physical location, you must figure out how to run advertising that can successfully deliver against your goals and drive customers into your stores, dealerships and restaurants.

That is why at Locala, we’ve developed a best practices handbook highlighting the most effective drive-to-store tactics for brands across verticals, with success stories from our very own clients.

In this guide, you will find the three critical elements of creating, managing and optimizing drive-to-store campaigns. The insights in the report include:

  • How to get your campaign set-up right. The goal of a drive-to-store campaign is different from a standard ad campaign, which means considering things like travel time, radius targeting, and precise competitor targeting.
  • The biggest mistake people make when running drive-to-store campaigns. Measuring performance only at the end of your campaign is too little too late. That’s why foot traffic and optimizing the campaign mid-flight is critical to its overall success.
  • Success stories from major brands like L’Occitane, Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Dr.Oetker and Burberry, that show the real impact of a well-executed drive-to-store campaign.

Get your copy of our Drive-to-Store Handbook: US editionEurope edition.

Learn how your brand can increase visits to your store or online shop. Get in touch at contact@s4m.io.

66% of Gen Z will shop in-store for their food and beverages

The COVID pandemic definitely altered the grocery industry, bringing on the accelerated growth of online grocery ordering and delivery systems, but people still prefer to shop in-store for their groceries and food. Year-over-year growth of online grocery shopping will slow to 4.9% in 2021, down from a 41.9% growth rate in 2020. 

According to data from eMarketer and Braze, consumers said they still plan to go in-store for food and beverages:

  • 66% of Gen Z (age 18-23)
  • 73% of Millennials (age 24-39)
  • 78% of Gen Xers (age 40-55)
  • 82% of Baby Boomers (age 56-74)

Research from Google/Ipsos found that 70% of shoppers say the ability to shop in a store is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from, further highlighting the need for in-person grocery shopping.

At Locala, we help brands drive more consumers into their store, restaurant, or dealership. We recently partnered with a well-known national grocery store chain to help them increase their in-store visits and discovered insightful behaviors about their consumers that allowed the brand to better inform their advertising. 

The key insights and strategies we found were:

Shoppers are spending less than twenty-minutes in the store, likely running in and out for planned items. 70% of shoppers spent upwards of 15 minutes in-store, with the overall average dwell time of 10 minutes. 

To increase dwell time grocery brands can consider leveraging the following interactive and engaging custom ad formats:

  • A ‘slider’ creative to feature weekly promotional offers to pique users’ interest so they spend additional time navigating through the store, likely picking up extra or unplanned items. 
  • An ‘animated interstitial’ showcasing a creative recipe that entices people to shop for the ingredients and engage with the brand.

The brand’s audience is traveling on average less than 6 miles, and some consumers were traveling as much as 10 miles.

Visitors are traveling from short distances, so we can infer that the brand’s stores are in proximity to home and work locations.

To keep your brand top of mind:

  • Locala suggests targeting consumers who have been seen at close-by competitor stores as a great way to attain new customers. 
  • Leverage creatives that call out exclusive limited-time in-store offers such as one-day-only offers to further drive foot traffic.

Get the infographic here.

Make the Most of This Year’s Black Friday with Drive-to-Store Advertising

With the holidays right around the corner, advertisers are considering the best channels to drive in-store while promoting their Black Friday deals. But with the serious impact that the pandemic has had on store openings, inventory, and hours, getting people to visit has become a challenge. 

But people are still planning to do their holiday shopping, both in-person and online. According to eMarketer, US brick-and-mortar retail for this holiday will still reach $822.79 billion. This year, we will also see US retail eCommerce sales will jump 35.8% to $190.47 billion. The highest traffic shopping days will be Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

While 60% of US internet shoppers stated they would be shopping online this season, 45% said they would be doing their shopping in department stores, 30% in clothing and accessories stores, 23% in small business shops, and 21% would shop primarily in electronic stores. 

We know that online shopping is going to see a massive increase this year, accelerated by the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean brands with physical locations should completely ignore the in-store shopping experience. This year, brands need to be smarter about the way they target their customers so they can effectively convert them to an in-store visit. Drive-to-store advertising can be extremely powerful when done strategically and properly. 

Here are three things brands should consider to increase consumer visits on Black Friday. 

1. SMART LOCATION TARGETING 

There are several ways that a brand can leverage smart location targeting to drive the right consumers into their stores, restaurants, or dealerships. The key is working with a vendor that is able to effectively do it. 

  • Target consumers by their drive time or walk time to your store. 
    • By targeting based on the user’s travel time, you can maximize your media spend by setting an appropriate travel time to each of your stores. This is especially relevant when you are considering an urban versus suburban location when the difference between driving distance and walking distance is crucial. 
  • Target higher affinity areas 
    • By targeting neighborhoods with higher affinity or likeness to your already consumers, you can reach zones with a large volume of potential shoppers. The trick is being able to find a partner that can discover and detect the affinity of the surrounding areas of your store locations. 
  • Leverage geo-conquesting to target your competition’s shoppers
    • Use competitive conquesting capabilities to reach shoppers seen at stores with similar branding and products. Doing this allows you to capture your competitor’s customers because you can target the areas around their locations as well as their high-affinity zones in proximity to your stores. 

 

2. DYNAMIC & INNOVATIVE CREATIVES 

At Locala, we know that an advertising campaign can be much more than just an ad with the right creative format. That’s why this year it will be especially crucial to use the right format when delivering your messages to consumers. You want to make it as easy as possible for the user, whether that be providing them with real-time directions to your store, or reminding them of Black Friday deals. Here are a few Locala creatives that will allow for easy conversion from impression to visit. 

  • Store Locator 
    • With the Store Locator creative, brands can Integrate the address of their nearest store, which will help maximize the chances of visits, guiding your potential customer with real-time directions to your closest location. 
  • Multistore DCO
    • The Multistore DCO format allows your brand to promote a selection of stores, sorted by physical proximity to shoppers’ location. This format is great for busy consumers who want to choose the store best suiting their shopping journey.
  • Countdown 
    • Using the Countdown means that you can create a sense of urgency among shoppers, highlighting the time away from Black Friday, making it ideal for the holiday season
  • Real-Time Add-On
    • Leverage the Real-time format to remind your audience it’s time to shop on the day of the event. This format is ideal for moment marketing campaigns and timed promotions such as Black Friday deals. 

 

3. AN OMNICHANNEL APPROACH 

It’s true that cohesive omnichannel campaigns perform better than advertising on one channel alone. Studies have shown that executing an omnichannel strategy for an advertising campaign has almost 3x higher engagement rates than from one single channel. This Black Friday, make sure that you’re speaking to your consumers through different channels so you can extend your reach and reinforce your message. This year make sure you are working with a drive-to-store partner that can execute your campaign across several relevant channels. With the effectiveness of CTV and DOOH in captivating people with your brand’s message, desktop has one of the largest reaches for an ad campaign. And while these channels are great at capturing user attention, don’t forget that mobile is still the primary device for consumer time spent. By coupling these other channels with a mobile-focused approach, your brand can reinforce your Black Friday story in the most powerful way, converting users to store visitors. 

Learn more about key strategies and tactics for boosting consumer in-store visits with Locala’s The Drive-to-Store Handbook. Download here.

Learn how to execute effective drive-to-store advertising with The Drive-to-Store Handbook

Brick-and-mortar has been under a lot of pressure in recent years, and while talk of a retail apocalypse might have been overblown, retailers have faced a lot of challenges, including the boom of eCommerce, the rise of real estate rents for many shops and businesses, as well as the demand from consumers for better, more engaging in-store experiences. 

Then came 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic; shops, in-door dining, and nonessential businesses were forced to close and people were avoiding crowded places. But business owners adapted and pivoted to deal with the hurdles placed in front of them, creating omnichannel experiences for shoppers where needed. 

So yes, this year has hit everyone across the globe hard, but it is clear that busy main streets and shops are still essential for communities to thrive. This has been made evident through the eagerness people have shown to get out of their houses and into malls and stores. While the world begins to return to a sense of ‘normalcy’, we are seeing people more willing to go out to the store for their shopping experiences. 

If you are a business, big or small, with a physical location, you need to figure out how to get consumers into your store, restaurant, or dealership.  

That is why at Locala, the Drive-to-Store Platform, we’ve been working hard to develop a best practices handbook highlighting the most effective drive-to-store tactics for brands across verticals, with proven successes from our very own clients. 

In this guide, you will find the three critical elements of creating, managing and optimizing drive-to-store campaigns. The insights in the report include:

  • The goal of a drive-to-store campaign is different from a standard ad campaign, so getting the set-up right is crucial. That means considering things like travel time, radius targeting, and precise competitor targeting.
  • The biggest mistake people make when running drive-to-store campaigns is only measuring performance at the end. But by that point, if people aren’t flocking to your store, it’s too late. That’s why foot traffic and optimizing the campaign mid-flight is critical to its overall success.
  • Success stories from major brands like Palmer’s, L’Occitane, St Hubert, and Volkswagen that demonstrate the real impact of a well-executed drive-to-store campaign. 

Click here to download The Drive-to-Store Handbook. 

Learn how your brand can increase consumer visits to your store or online shop. Get in touch at contact@s4m.io 

Advertising strategies to keep your business top of mind during lockdown

2020 hasn’t been an easy year for high-street retailers, and with more lockdown-type restrictions looming ahead of the winter months, a classic drive-to-store strategy might not be the right choice for every business.

Remaining top of mind and showing your audience how you’re still supporting them can mean a speedy recovery when you go back to business as usual. Whatever your situation is, here’s how we can help you:

You are able to open normally

If your business is considered essential and you’ll be open, we strongly recommend running drive-to-store campaigns to let your customers know you’re still trading and your updated opening hours to boost your in-store traffic. 

Targeting only your local audience during this time will work the best for your business, as your clients might not be willing or able to travel too far. To help you identify key areas, you can use our Dynamic Catchment Area tool to select the true travel distance (driving or walking) to your store and also areas that have a high affinity with your past visitors, so you can make sure your advertising is reaching potential customers only. 

You are open for takeaway, or click and collect

If you’re continuing your business but a little differently, remind your local customers that you’re still open and how to order from your store. Run a drive-to-store campaign with a twist. First, target around your catchment area – where you deliver or a short walk around your store for pick-up. Then you can direct your customers to your online store so they can place their order or you can jump this step if orders can be placed in person and direct them to their nearest store. 

Thanks to our technology, you’ll be able to measure website visits and physical store visits

Only your online store is open for deliveries 

If you can only trade online, traditional drive-to-site campaigns should be your go-to. If you can only deliver to a certain area, it’s important that you geotarget your campaign so that you reach only those who can receive your product. Once you’ve got your catchment area sorted, you can reuse existing visuals to easily have a traffic campaign up and running. 

Often advertisers rely on social media and search engines to push this type of campaign, but mobile display campaigns in-app can be highly effective to drive traffic and increase brand recall. And once your store is able to open fully again, you can retarget these high potential audiences and measure your in-store traffic. 

You had to stop all business

Sadly, many businesses have had to temporarily close their doors during lockdown. Though it might be difficult to justify ad spend during this time, running branding campaigns to remain top of mind has a strong pay off when you can resume trading

Mobile and desktop display is a great medium for branding, and even a small investment can generate sufficient reach to keep your brand in the picture and connect with your consumer base. If you cannot do it with advertising or on top of your advertising, social media can be a great way to keep in touch with your existing audience. 

If you want to know more about how we can help you navigate local and national restrictions and prepare for the future, get in touch.

Four Tips to Boost Visits and Sales This Holiday Season

It goes without saying that this year’s holiday shopping season and overall seasonal celebrations will be unlike any other we’ve experienced. There is a myriad of things that are going to impact how people shop, when and where people shop, and the availability of items they’re shopping for. 

We know that there will be certain difficulties associated with this year, but there is still a lot of opportunity for brands. According to eMarketer, nearly 48% of US shoppers are still planning to spend the same amount on their holiday shopping as they did in 2019. 

Yes, this year will be challenging for brands and they will need to rethink some of the ways and the channels in which they are hoping to reach and connect with their consumers.

We’ve put together a few smart tips to consider when planning your holiday ad campaigns this year, whether it be to increase in-store visits or traffic to your online e-shop. 

 

Tactic 1: Use an omnichannel approach to generate store visits

We know that time spent with mobile has surged during the past 7 months, and mobile remains the key channel to reach consumers. Brands should focus on this consumption shift and leverage mobile as the primary device in their drive-to-store efforts, but combining multiple channels can help boost foot traffic.

It has been found that brands have seen a 3x higher visit rate when combining mobile with (D) OOH. This year it will be crucial for brands to reinforce their messaging with their consumers and a cross-screen approach; adding OOH or desktop to your media mix will be key to driving the in-store visits that can really impact your bottom line. 

 

Tactic 2: Leverage location data to maximize store visits on major shopping days 

Reaching consumers at the most opportune time is going to be a great way to urge them into your store this season. With dynamically optimized creatives, you can drive consumers on the spot by integrating the address of the nearest store and, to maximize the chances of visits, guide your potential customer with a store locator.

With hyper-local location targeting, you can identify shoppers who are near your store so they choose your brand for their purchases. Locala’s Dynamic Catchment Area tool also allows you to target consumers within a short walk or drive time to your location, so you can help limit their public transportation time. 

Using these strategies on the major shopping days like Black Friday and Super Saturday will help you to effectively reach your target consumers at the right time to drive those in-store visits. 

 

Tactic 3: Drive traffic to your online store where physical locations are closed

As we know, this year, consumers will be shopping differently. According to eMarketer 71% of US adults plan to do more than half of their holiday shopping digitally. Promoting your online store will be an essential part of driving your holiday sales, especially in areas where your physical stores might be closed or at limited capacity. 

By developing creatives that drive to your eshop you can help supplement the in-store visits that might have been impacted by consumers looking to shop online for gifts. You can also work with our team to create custom ads that offer convenient shopping experiences like buying online, picking up in-store to provide the consumer with seamless opportunities to purchase from your brand. 

 

Tactic 4: Maximize brand recall with impactful creatives

At Locala, we know that the format of the ad can be just as important as the actual message, which is why we have a library of proprietary and innovative formats. Powerful and tailored creative ad units can have a truly impactful effect on users and can convert them to make a purchase.

An effective way of doing this is to use a format that can create an exciting effect and sense of urgency, such as a countdown to a specific day, sale, or product launch. With the Countdown format, you can spark a consumer’s interest, which can have a big impact this holiday season. 

On the day of the event, you can leverage the Real-time format to remind your consumers that it’s time to shop, an ideal way to create moment marketing campaigns for timed promotions. 

We know this holiday season is going to be different, but at Locala we are committed to supporting brands do their best to get back to business amid this time. If you would like to hear more about how we can help boost in-store foot traffic for your business, please get in touch at contact@s4m.io

Deliver engaging ads that highlight your campaign platform

In this series, we’ve aimed to share three key strategies that political advertisers should consider for their digital campaigns if they want to win big during an election year. In this final installment, we are focusing on the importance of having an effective delivery method of a campaign message to connect with voters.

In order to be truly effective, candidates need to deliver powerful messaging. By delivering a custom and engaging ad to voters in key districts, a candidate can really reinforce their campaign messaging, all of this through the person’s mobile phone — the device they are most likely to be using. 

You may be thinking, yes we know we want to advertise on mobile to drive home our messaging. But consider working with a technology partner that has the capabilities to develop truly impactful custom, dynamic messaging through different creative formats. 

Dynamically optimized creatives 

Dynamic creative optimization refers to a form of advertising technology that allows an advertiser to personalize ads based on the user viewing their ad at that time, as well as to optimize on which creative is performing best, all in real-time. 

This can be extremely beneficial when it comes to political advertising because it means that you can deliver tailored messages at scale. For instance, if you are running for a Governor seat, you can look at which campaign aspects resonate more in which areas of the state. If you know a potential voter is in a location where schools are a big issue, you can target them with an ad that highlights your stance on education, while you can deliver a different ad on another aspect of your platform to someone in a separate part of the state.

Creative formats that re-engage users after the fact 

Another thing to consider when developing your advertising strategy is how you can re-engage a potential voter whether they have previously clicked on an ad or you want to remind your constituents to go out and vote. 

A smart and impactful way to incorporate this into your campaign is to work with a partner that has experience in developing creative formats that are effective in urging user interaction. For example, there are formats that allow a user to save an event in their mobile wallet. On a determined day or time, the advertiser can send the user a push notification that reminds them of the upcoming event. This can be used to further remind your audience to vote for your candidate. In addition, an advertiser can smartly develop retargeting ads that are specific to a user who clicked on an ad earlier in your campaign. The candidate can remind them they’ve shown interest and that they should go out and vote for them. 

Formats that play off of mobile device functionalities

Working with a partner that has a library of innovative and proprietary creative formats also allows you to deliver really unique messages. This allows an advertiser to retain voters’ attention and boost engagement by leveraging smartphones’ native sensors. 

Delivering a potential voter an ad format that asks them to engage with your format, whether it is by using a format that combines your message with an interactive feature that provides the ability to discover specific campaign components or comes with an interactive slider that gives the ability to switch between two creatives, offers the opportunity to highlight multiple aspects of your campaign platform to raise awareness. Delivering an ad that encourages people to interact is an effective way to raise awareness and boost recall, all tactics that can help drive voters to the polls on behalf of your candidate. 

Make sure that you check out all the insights from this series by reading the rest of the posts here:

  1. Leverage mobile to reach registered voters at home in the US
  2. Target registered US voters by their location and political affiliation
  3. Reach registered US voters based on past behaviors and social interest

Reach registered US voters based on past behaviors and social interest

In the next installment of our political advertising series, we’re sharing how advertisers can leverage voter’s behavior and interest in order to effectively connect with them. 

Political advertisers should consider partnering with a partner that has access to the breadth and depth of accurate audience insights and understanding. This understanding of where a person stands on certain social issues such as, equal rights, the environment, and gun control will ultimately help candidates understand who the voters are in their districts. It can also provide insight into if your campaign has a chance at earning a potential voter’s support or if they in the past have voted for candidates with opposite policies than your own. 

Having access to these data insights will ultimately allow candidates to determine who they should be reaching in order to garner support, and will help limit outreach to citizens that will most likely not support their campaign. Advertisers can also harness this data to build messaging that speaks to undecided registered voters, or those voters who may be considered ‘swing’ and have shown support for either party on various issues. Using this data provides the tools to conquer those undecided or independent registered voters. 

For even more insights, check out the first two posts in this series!

  1. Leverage mobile to reach registered voters at home in the US
  2. Target registered US voters by their location

How to prepare for the 2020 back-to-school shopping season

It’s clear to see that no one, not brands nor consumers, was prepared for the upheaval that the COVID-19 pandemic brought on. And with many US states still in uncertainty about certain aspects of updated reopening plans, we’re already predicting that the back-to-school shopping season might look different than ever before. 

Back-to-School is a billion-dollar shopping season for US retailers with US parents purchasing a myriad of items from clothing and accessories to technology and electronics. In 2019 alone that spend reached over $26 billion. And while we know shopping habits have shifted, 41% of US parents expect that they will still spend the same amount or more on their back-to-school shopping this year. 

When it comes to the major items being purchased in preparation for back-to-school, Deloitte found that many of these purchases still take place in-store. For instance, 62% of clothing and accessories shoppers plan to make their purchases in a physical store. The same was reported for school supplies with 62% looking to shop in-store for these items. 

Brands still have a great opportunity to reach their consumers and bring them into their brick-and-mortar locations for the purchasing but they will need to adapt their strategies this year to make the most impact. 

Check out our infographic to see how your brand can drive consumers into your stores for their back-to-school shopping this year!

Target registered US voters by their precise location and political affiliation

We’re rolling out three things that political advertisers should be thinking about this election year. In this piece, we are sharing how advertisers can leverage location data to develop a winning strategy.

It’s clear that mobile continues to be the device that people spend the most time with. Along with that comes the location data that is available through the location services function on smartphones. When users opt-in to sharing their data, we can get precise information on their physical, real-time location. 

With this information, political advertisers can narrow down their constituents by town, city, county, state, or nationally and geofence the desired area to deliver hyper-geotargeted messages.  This is incredibly useful when we look at campaigns based on the government office in which the candidate is running for. The strategy for a Congressional campaign versus a Mayor, Governor, or President will be vastly different in terms of the scope and who the target audiences will be. Political advertisers should work with a partner that has the capabilities to deliver campaign messages to the desired audience in the necessary location to avoid wasted ad spend on voters who are not applicable to your candidate. 

As mentioned, in many instances, instead of heading out to the polls in large groups, we are expecting that voters will be sending ballots by mail at staggering rates. In New York State alone, nearly two million absentee ballots were sent out in advance of the June primaries. Through a partner that is able to deliver impactful mobile location-based ads, campaigns can reach voters at home who are receiving their Vote-by-Mail ballot and educate voters on your issues through effective messaging. This is a great way for advertisers to reach those constituents they know are planning to vote.

In case you missed it, check out our previous post on how best to reach audiences who will be voting by mail.

Rethink Your Advertising Strategy with our Back-to-Store Report

It’s undeniable the recent pandemic has had massive implications on physical retail. From the way people shop, to how they spend their free time and how they move around, COVID-19 has left a lasting impact on consumer behavior.

As consumers head back into stores, brands are rethinking their advertising strategy to better meet new customer expectations, habits and behavior. To help, we’ve developed the Back-to-Store report – a customized study examining your stores’ catchment areas and with tailored strategies to encourage consumers back.

With Back-to-Store, marketers will have access to exclusive and actionable insights to better understand how their stores’ affinity areas are evolving, and identify which high-potential neighborhoods they should invest in. You’ll be able to track the evolution of consumers’ mobility and see which regions they find more attractive to better localize media spend.

Receive a personalized report with actionable insights to build a more effective drive-to-store strategy and boost footfall to your stores.

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*Please note that due to high demand we are only able to offer the report to brand-side advertisers at this stage.

Leverage mobile to reach registered voters at home in the US

With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting nearly every aspect of our daily lives, we’ve had to adjust to a new sense of normal. So far this year, we’ve seen major disruptions to events that we are accustomed to such as graduations, major sporting competitions, and awards circuits. This year also happens to be host to a number of pivotal elections in the United States government. But 2020 is shaping up to look different from any other election year. This is especially true when it comes to the presidential primaries and election.

With everything happening around the United States over the past few months, political advertisers are entering into uncharted territory. Sheltering in-place orders have resulted in massive changes to typical political campaigns. Public debates have been reimagined, conventions and rallies have been postponed or outright canceled due to the limits on crowd sizes.

We are also seeing major shifts in how people are consuming media and spending their time. In April 2020, 52% of Americans reported that they were spending more time using mobile devices since the start of the outbreak of Coronavirus in the US, with 26% of consumers stating that they’ve spent more time in-app. While reaching voters might not be as straightforward as it has been in past elections, US adult users are now spending over 3 hours per day on their smartphones, meaning that the device provides advertisers with major benefits in reaching them.

With people limiting their social interactions, especially in large settings and groups, spending an increasing amount of time at home and with their smartphones, we may see less voters going to the polls and more requests for voting by mail. It’s more vital than ever that political advertisers address these behaviors in their campaign outreach and leverage a partner that is able to reach registered voters in this unprecedented situation.

We’ll be rolling out three key things political advertisers should consider for their digital campaigns in order to win this election year.

Retail – Post-confinement consumer trends in France

Locala partnered with insights company Happydemics to study how consumer behavior is evolving with the easing of lockdown in France.

We surveyed more than 1,000 French citizens, aged between 18 and 65+, to get a view of how the crisis has impacted consumers’ habits and expectations.

Here are a few takeaways:

  • Nearly half of the people surveyed are planning on going to stores at least as often as they did before lockdown.
  • French consumers will be visiting stores for their personal pleasure, to fall back into their routine and to buy goods they couldn’t find before.
  • Brands are expected to offer more discounts, enforce health measures, and develop Click & Collect services.
  • The food sector will lead the way in terms of consumer spend.

To get the full insights, take a look at our French infographic.

 

Get in touch with us to plan your next drive-to-store campaign.

The Importance of Purpose

Last year Locala took a new approach on how we wanted to help our different communities across the globe. Whether it be helping to remove carbon emissions through our partnership with Ecotree or donating revenue to help hospitals fight COVID-19 in France, we are looking at how we can give back. Partnering with Givsly in the US, we have begun to shift the way we think about how we are spending time with our clients, realizing that outside of the traditional lunches and happy hours, we can provide an experience that has a real purpose and is socially impactful. 

Givsly is a for-purpose company that helps businesses rethink the way that they can create social impact and give back to their communities. Through their initiatives, they create opportunities for people to connect in exchange for donations to nonprofits they care about and develop turn-key events that companies can sponsor to create more purposeful experiences. 

Our CRO, North America, Ed Silhan sat down with Givsly for their For-Purpose Experience podcast recently to share why we are taking these steps.  

Ed, along with Givsly CEO Chad Hickey, Rob DeSalvo, SVP of National Sales and Content Solutions at Undertone, Nicole Adams, Program Manager at SuitUp, and Nikkya Hargrove, Director of Programs at Harboring Hearts, discussed how corporations are rethinking employee and client engagement and how they give back to the community. 

Three key themes seemed to emerge during the conversation. 

Younger generations are often driving this shift

As more college grads enter into employment, we are seeing the workforce skew younger, especially in the advertising and media sector. In 2020 GenZ and Millennials are noted to make up a majority of the workforce with GenZ expected to represent 75% of it by 2030.* 

We are finding that younger generations are seeking to have a more meaningful purpose and are striving to interact with their communities in a way that helps. According to Mackenzie Corporation, 77% of Millennials and GenZ involve themselves with a charity or good cause and they are now expecting that their companies address these social and environmental issues too.** With 10%-20% of GenZ employees reporting that they’d even be willing to take a pay cut in order to be able to work towards a cause they care about.

The demand from these employees is helping to drive the involvement of companies with CSR efforts and to shift the concept from  a ‘once a year volunteer day’ mindset to something that is becoming embedded into overall company culture and values.

Buy-in from leadership is key for success 

With the demand from their employees to promote social responsibility and get involved in socially impactful programs, 

Although we’re seeing that younger employees are leading the charge, it ultimately requires the senior management team sign-on in order for the programs to be implemented within the organization.  Recently, leadership teams are looking for ways in which to support  their communities and employees as well,helping to work with them to identify the right  opportunities  for their business. Building a responsible and sustainable business is crucial for the success of that business.

Having an executive champion helps to really embed the social responsibility programs within the company culture and really adds to the value of these initiatives among teams and encourages staff involvement. 

Purpose can help build deeper bonds with employees and clients 

We’re seeing that  people across the board are looking to interact with companies, whether it  be as an employee, client or as a consumer, that are socially responsible. 

88% of consumers want the brands they support and engage with to have CSR initiatives, some even stating they’d go so far to boycott a brand that supports a social issue/cause that conflicts with their own.***

For employees and clients, the sentiment is the same. Companies that have implemented volunteer programs have noticed that providing an environment where co-workers and partners can engage in meaningful activities has helped to build deeper relationships. 

We’re all striving to do good and make our communities a better place. When the corporations we engage with everyday help to make that possible it encourages us all to take part in having a  positive social impact.  

Tune into here to listen to the whole podcast. 

*Forbes

**Mackenzie Corporation

*** Cone Communications

How brands can help their consumers during times of uncertainty

This is not the first time that the advertising industry has had to deal with an unprecedented global situation that resulted in major challenges for brands and agencies. Throughout, major brands have become staples within American culture, and this is not the time for them to abandon their customers — this is the time for them to support people, reinforce what optimism there is and help customers navigate what is going on. And while there is an air of uncertainty, and the space needs to be approached with care and sensitivity,  we know challenging times often result in innovation. This is the opportunity for brands to develop new approaches to reach their consumers.

Here are three things that brands should consider: 

Don’t cut off communication with your consumers

This is not the time to abandon consumers. Keep reaching out to your consumers, whether it be to share new product offerings, knowledge on how to stay safe or just to offer a comforting message. It’s important to remain in contact with your customers so your brand doesn’t end up being forgotten. People will have a more positive sentiment towards a brand that was able to provide them with value during this period. Ultimately, the industry will bounce back and brands will need to be in a position where they are ready to react and not ramping up from scratch. 

Take a more localized approach

While your customers may not be heading out in droves to retail shops or shopping malls, that doesn’t mean they aren’t shopping. Where it is safe, brands can encourage customers into their stores by targeting people within a 5-minute walk of your store so they don’t take public transport to get there. Target your messaging based on location so you can share local opening hours and any delivery services. You could even work with a partner to develop new creative ad formats that let customers know if you have what they need as they walk past.

Additionally, during this time we can look to focus on awareness campaigns in local markets or driving consumers to online stores and sites. 

Personal screens will be more important than ever

People are changing their daily habits and lifestyles drastically at this time. Consumers will not be attending large scale outings or events, or in places like NYC even grabbing a bite to eat at the local cafe but we know that their smartphones are not going anywhere.  If anything, we’re going to see more time spent with mobile as people are trying to keep informed, check-in with loved ones and distract themselves. This is the key channel to reach consumers and should be reinforced during this time. Brands should harness this pattern of consumption shift. 

Introducing Academy – 20-minute training sessions from Locala

Locala is introducing academy, 20-minute training sessions on drive-to-store. These weekly webinars are here to help you learn something new and prepare to get ahead of your competitors when we can go back to the shops!

Click on the links below to register for the session of your choice or watch our replays:

Recordings of all Webinars will be available on this page and on our Vimeo channel afterwards.

2030 Trends – Are you ready for this new decade?

2019’s coming to a close, and with it ends a decade of innovation. In 2010, the iPhone outsold Blackberry for the first time, changing the way people accessed the internet and revolutionising the advertising industry. Since then we’ve seen Facebook become more than a social network, as it established its dominance on the advertising industry alongside Google. We’ve seen changes in the way personal data is used, with the GDPR and CCPA setting the rules for how advertisers engage with users going forward.

There’s been countless mergers and acquisitions, innovations and trends (and more years of mobile than anyone can count). Outside of ad tech, the traditional retail landscape has been overturned, as we said goodbye to BHS, Mothercare and Maplin. Countless other traditional brands struggle on as agile DTC start-ups thrive.

What might the 20s have in store? Now’s the perfect time to look ahead to what the next decade might have to offer.

A new era for privacy

Despite new regulations and seemingly never-ending cookie consent banners, the average user still has a very hazy understanding of how their personal data is used for marketing. But that’s beginning to change, the digitally native Gen Z not only understand how data is used, they have strong opinions on who should and shouldn’t have access to their personal information.

By 2030, most consumers will have a good understanding of how their data’s leveraged to improve their buyer journey. For the data exchange to feel compelling, the online experience must be frictionless, and measurably improved compared to an opted-out journey. Expect also to see more loyalty systems where users exchange personal data for discounts and rewards. For users who prefer to keep private, it will become clearer how to opt-in to services which require personal data, and to remain opted out of anything else.

Outcome-driven campaigns

Today’s industry is siloed by channels – digital, search, OOH etc. The challenge this currently throws up is how to combine the channels most effectively, and then how to attribute results to each channel, or each combination of channels. It’s time for a change. Rather than create an advertising plan by channel, consider creating a plan by desired outcome, and then optimising the mix to best deliver the result for that particular campaign, for that particular brand, at that particular moment in time.

This would require thinking about campaigns differently, looking at the business KPI the brand is trying to achieve – whether that’s store visits, purchases or branding – and then building the marketing plan around that central goal, optimising the mix as the campaign progresses.

This approach would require serious restructuring, but it could be the difference between good and outstanding campaign performance.

A brick-and-mortar revival

Despite many high-profile closures, there’s hope for the high street in the 20s. While eCommerce is changing the face of retail, it won’t eliminate the role of physical stores. Customers will see the physical store experience as a key part of the buying journey and brick and mortar stores will adapt to meet their new expectations. Sports stores may offer coaching, technology firms might teach how to correctly use their software, fashion retailers could hold talks on sustainable fashion. The more retailers lean into the experience, the more successful their shops will be.

Merging online and offline

The line between online and offline is blurring, customers aren’t shopping on a single channel anymore. They can go from online engagement to online purchase, offline engagement to online purchase, offline engagement to online search to online purchase to offline return – the possibilities are endless. Today, we have cracked online to online tracking as an industry, but we’re only just beginning to explore the opportunities of online to offline. Over the next decade, the industry will need to innovate to reliably attribute every single one of your customers’ touch points instead of last click only. Mobile data will play a large role, as it joins up advertising channel, location, eCommerce and payment channel.

Bringing brands and customers closer through one-to-one messaging

Thanks to significant advances in ID tracking, AI and personalisation over the next ten years one-to-one messaging will finally be within reach, so the buyer journey can be genuinely tailored to each customer.

Brands will be able to merge their CRM systems with their ad tech stacks to link their customers’ online and offline identity. Combined with dynamic creatives, this will help deliver targeted marketing campaigns to drive customers to the desired brand interaction. This one-to-one advertising will allow the message, tone and visuals to be adapted to the customer’s individual tastes, while still delivering campaigns at scale.

We’ve come a long way in 10 years. And the next 10 have a lot to offer as our industry continues to grow and thrive. Download our trends for 2020 to learn more about what the first year in 20s has in store for you. In the meantime, let’s raise a glass to a successful and prosperous decade.

Infographic – How to run a successful Drive-to-Store campaign

Getting customers off the couch and into stores can be difficult. That’s why advertisers are set to spend $133.5 billion by 2023 on drive-to-store advertising – campaigns which increase visits to stores, dealerships and restaurants.

Drive-to-store is Locala’s bread and butter, so to help you get the biggest bang for your buck, we’ve put together 10 basic steps to deliver a successful drive-to-store campaign.

To learn more about the state of drive-to-store advertising, and to access our full study, click here: The State of Drive-to-Store Advertising 2019.

2020 Trends: 2019’s almost over – what’s next for the industry?

As the digital advertising landscape evolves, brands are searching for effective ways to keep up with rapidly changing marketplace dynamics. Looking ahead, you’ll need to reach customers with engaging, relevant messaging to have a lasting impact that will get them into your stores.

From the advent of 5G and industry standardization to redefining traditional success metrics, you’ll need to keep an eye out for the hot trends to implement going into the new year. So, before we all cheer to a new decade, here are the five trends that will define 2020 in the ad tech industry.

Say goodbye to cookies

With behemoths Google and Apple introducing tighter controls around the use of 3rd party cookies this year, advertisers are now having a harder time delivering targeted ads to users.

If you want to keep your standards up and your ad delivery high, consider these alternatives:

  • Switch to a cookie-free app-based inventory,
  • Use location and contextual data sources to get insights into user preferences and offline and online in-app behavior,
  • Invest in first-party identity graphs to track users across their touch points.

Time to switch things up with 5G 

It’s happening – 5G networks are primed and ready to go! Thanks to unprecedented data speed, customers will start using their mobiles more – especially to stream content. This is a golden opportunity for you to invest in video formats that’ll have little to no load time.

Time to embrace mobile-first creatives and best practices. From short-form video content to focusing on formats suited to the mobile environment, make the most of mobile to stand out.

Media metrics are on their way out. Time to welcome business KPIs

Proving the effectiveness of a campaign is no walk in the park. Especially when your board doesn’t speak your language.

There’s an easy solution. Move away from media and marketing metrics like clicks, views, viewability and engagements, and turn to more tangible ways to judge your advertising performance – like increased numbers of customers in store or how many more people are buying your products.

Mobile is more than a channel, it’s a measurement tool

As we move into 2020, mobile is going to become more than just an advertising channel. It’s going to be the technology which helps prove campaign ROI.

With the ability to deliver one unique user ID, track user engagement and visits to a store location and so much more, brands will start using mobile as a measurement tool to prove campaign effectiveness. Don’t miss out!

Creating an industry standard

As it stands, the current system to validate campaign effectiveness is flawed. When those delivering the ads are also the ones reporting on campaign ROI, and the definition of store visits changes from one provider to the next, how can advertisers measure like for like?

To avoid any issues, independent third-party experts with no stakes in the campaign performance must become your go-to for evaluating and proving ROI on drive-to-store campaigns, and they must . It’s only by working with them that you’ll make sure your campaigns are delivering the visits you’re buying.

Whether all of these predictions come true or not, they all point to a rapidly changing industry, determined to deliver effective ads through creativity and innovation. Make sure to monitor these changes closely, don’t forget to adjust and look for hidden opportunities to stand out.

2020 has a lot to offer to brands who are ready to seize these opportunities. If you want to know more about what the coming decade has in store for you, download our 2030 report.

Three ways for brick-and-mortar to win over eCommerce this holiday season

As we move into November, you might notice brands launching their holiday advertising rollouts. Month-long campaigns to drive consumers into their stores for all of their holiday shopping.  And while we know that eCommerce continues to grow as a method for consumer shopping, 87.6% of 2018 holiday spending was still through brick-and-mortar/ in-store retail.

According to Blackhawk Network, in-store shoppers are still the majority, especially among older generations — 66% of GenXers and 72% of Baby Boomers shop at brick-and-mortar stores all the time.

So before ruling out brick-and-mortar and focusing all efforts on bolstering eCommerce sales, we came up with three strategies that brands can leverage to win over online shopping and maximize revenue this season.

1. Upgraded In-Store Experiences

The physical point of sale is still the most reassuring channel for shoppers, confirming that touching and seeing a product is an essential part of the shopping experience. And this season, shoppers are expecting more engaging retail experiences.

Leveraging a thoughtful experiential retail experience is how brands can entice customers into their stores and make their encounters enjoyable, giving them reason to spend more time there.

In an interview with eMarketer, Jaime Bettencourt, SVP of premier sales and account management at in-store media solutions provider Mood Media, provided some key insights on the benefits of experiential retail. “We surveyed about 11,000 customers worldwide and especially in the younger demographics—ages 18 to 24—consumers say that atmosphere and experience of the store is the top reason for shopping in-store vs. online.”

The visit to a physical store provides people with instant gratification after purchasing an item versus the wait that is required with online shopping. And oftentimes, consumers look at in-store shopping as an outing or event. By creating a fulfilling experience, brands are more likely to connect with consumers and make them actually want to shop in-store. These experiences can help create a connection with customers, further building brand loyalty and return business.  Curating an environment that provides a positive experience instead of the crazed holiday shopping rush will ultimately encourage customers to buy from your store.

2. Enhanced Use of Data and Technology

We know consumers usually take a multi-channel path to purchase, often beginning on mobile. Even while in a physical retail location, many people still refer to their mobile to assist them with their shopping. Retailers can leverage this as a way to enhance the experience for their shoppers.

As digital touchpoints become a key part of the shopping journey, we can expect to see retailers incorporate technology that will aid in the speed and convenience for their shoppers. According to eMarketer, “48% of US internet users believe scan-and-go technology would make shopping easier. And 43% would rather try scan-and-go than wait in a checkout line.”

Major retailers like Sam’s Clubs are looking to provide more convenience through technology in their locations. CEO, Jamie Iannone, wrote about some of the improvements they would be making at their facilities like mobile scan-and-go, as well as an updated app that will help consumers find their way in-store and navigate aisles to locate products.

3. Localized Drive-to-Store Strategy

It’s clear that in-store shopping is still a crucial channel for brands to meet their holiday revenue goals, but traditional advertising strategies may not work this season. And while creating spaces that are more welcoming and convenient will help, you still have to get people through your doors first. To be successful in getting shoppers into stores and purchasing items, brands need to develop an effective drive-to-store strategy that will help increase footfall and sales uplift.

Instead of pushing out national holiday campaigns, brands should look to run localized and relevant mobile ads that can urge consumers into their nearest store and make it as simple as possible for them. Creatives that seamlessly integrate into the user’s feed and lead to a real-time map that works with the GPS application within the smartphone will provide convenient methods to reach the nearest physical retail shop.

And while increasing visits is key, it is crucial for brands to work with a partner that is able to prove real ROI on ad spend. Simply counting visits during a certain timeframe is not enough to signify that a mobile drive-to-store campaign was successful. It is about knowing which visits came directly from the campaign and which visits were driven by other media channels, organically, or were attributed inaccurately. Measuring the extra visits that took place as a result of the campaign is what will really demonstrate ROI this season.

With the 2019 holiday shopping spend expected to reach $1 trillion this year, the opportunity for retailers is massive. As the season approaches, successful brands will be those who embrace essential tactics that will increase in-store visits, ultimately helping to achieve real business results. This will be key for retailers that are looking to increase revenue before the January sales that start off the new year.

Develop a winning strategy this holiday season

Home & Furniture – Drive more customers to your showrooms and stores

Buying furniture is never easy. Will this armchair still be comfortable in a few months? Will that green sofa still look good in a year? Ditto that coffee table? When we buy furniture, we are signing up to live with our purchases for a while – which increases the time and effort put into our decision to buy.

Recent trends reveal increased spending in the home improvement sector as well as growth in consumer confidence to buy their furnishings online – specifically through direct-to-consumer retailers. However, most sales still take place in showrooms and stores. Because customers are buying furniture they will be seeing and using daily, they are much more involved in the buying process, and need to touch and feel the products. This makes physical points of sales the most reassuring channel for them to make a purchase.

As visitation data accuracy keeps on improving, and savvy ad-tech partners begin to guarantee measurement of offline KPIs, industry investment into drive-to-store will be led by brands looking to get ahead. And by 2023, 58% of global ad investments by Home and Furniture brands will be funneled into drive-to-store.

Adoption of drive-to-store activity in the Home and Furniture sector will grow significantly over the next few years, with an average increase of 10% worldwide. The UK’s Home and Furniture retailers are among the most willing to invest in drive-to-store advertising. Over the next four years, their spend will increase to reach an 82% share by 2023 – well above the global trend. They will be closely followed by Belgian and French retailers, who will dedicate 78% and 65% of their ad spend to drive-to-store respectively.

That said, worldwide industry adoption of drive-to-store marketing will vary drastically, and some markets will only notice a small increase in the budget allocated to it. In Italy, the US and Canada for example, this share will remain below average despite some growth, and will amount to 47%, 50% and 50% respectively.

With consumers more willing to spend in physical stores than online, it’s time for Home and Furniture retailers to make the switch to drive-to-store advertising – to streamline the customer experience and drive more customers to their stores.[vc_row][/vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][cm_button text=”Click here for more industry insights” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fgo.s4m.io%2Flp_industry_home_en||target:%20_blank|” alignment=”text-center”]

Rentrée des classes : Le mobile est le meilleur ami des parents

L’été est fini. Septembre est là. Et, pour la plupart des parents, cela est synonyme d’une seule chose : la rentrée des classes. 

Pour plus d’un parent sur quatre, la rentrée des classes est vécue comme un moment de stress. Qui n’a jamais été confronté aux dilemmes du choix de couleur de cahier, de marque de stylos ou du scénario catastrophe de la rupture de stock ? Au vu du large éventail de produits, de revendeurs et des préférences de leurs enfants, 52% des parents ont aujourd’hui fait le choix de préparer la rentrée sur smartphone. Cela leur permet d’avoir accès à un plus grand choix de produits et de pouvoir les comparer avant de se rendre en magasin. 

Stress et rentrée des classes: Pour vous, la préparation de la rentrée des classes est-elle un moment de stress ?

 

Un avantage supplémentaire de l’utilisation des smartphones pour préparer la rentrée des classes est de permettre à plus de 50% parents de créer une liste de fournitures sur leur smartphone même. Ce choix implique une utilisation relativement longue des smartphones puisque près des 3/4 des parents les utilisent entre une et deux heures pour préparer la rentrée de leurs enfants. Leurs recherches portent généralement en premier lieu sur le prix des produits. Il est intéressant de constater qu’après ce travail de prospection, peu de parents achètent ces fournitures en ligne et que la plupart se rendent toujours en magasin pour acheter les produits sélectionnés.  

Le verdict est sans appel : près de 9 utilisateurs sur 10 jugent que le smartphone facilite la préparation de la rentrée des classes. Sentiment appuyé par le fait que 75% des parents estiment que le smartphone permet également de réduire le stress de la préparation. Une fois les produits à acheter déterminés et la liste de fournitures créée, l’expérience d’achat est facilitée et les parents sont plus efficaces au moment du passage en magasin. Vos devoirs pour l’année prochaine : utilisez vos smartphones pour commencer vos recherches pour la rentrée ! 

[vc_column][cm_button text=”Téléchargez l’étude complète” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmaf.fr%2Fpublication%2Fetude-le-mobile-meilleur-ami-des-parents-a-la-rentree-des-classes%2F%3Futm_source%3DMembres%2BMMA%2BFrance%26utm_campaign%3D8d4a6c998b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_02_12_54%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_d49f3d6312-8d4a6c998b-91455719||target:%20_blank|” alignment=”text-center”][/vc_column]

 

The LBMA and Locala Explain California’s New Privacy Law

CCPA, California’s new privacy law, is designed to give consumers more control over their personal information and protect the data rights of California residents.

The law, which is one of the strictest privacy laws to-date in the US, will have a direct impact on marketers and the digital advertising ecosystem.

Learn more about CCPA and how it could impact your business by downloading our CCPA 101 guide.

[vc_row][vc_column][cm_button text=”Download Here” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.s4m.io%2F07d3eb468915591b2ab6%2FLocala_Pager-US_CCPAxLBMA.pdf||target:%20_blank|” alignment=”text-center” shape=”btn-round”][/vc_column]

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With mobile influencing 90% of all car purchases, Locala brings to market a comprehensive strategy to drive-up dealership visits. Working hard to connect, engage and convert the modern car buyer, we guarantee the delivery of powerful KPIs at every stage of car buying – maximizing your ad-spend.

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