O2O:Linking Online Activity to Offline Sales

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Many online marketers know that their digital marketing efforts will be impacting offline sales but they don’t have the tools in place to measure it.

This can be especially frustrating for any digital marketers working in a business that has historically prioritised their traditional offline marketing channels.

We want to address any scepticism around the ability to measure the impact of online activity

on offline sales as well as giving you some actionable online to offline takeaways that can

help you to truly understand and authenticate the value of your online marketing efforts.

Find the Links & Capture the Data

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Think about where you can make the joins... and don’t stop thinking!

Anything that can be used to build a join to identify as many links as possible.

• Email addresses • Collected in store and matched online

• A postcode • On a store finder and delivery confirmation

• An online voucher redeemed in store

• Quote IDs • Generated online & referenced on the phone

Once you have found the joins, ensure that your data platform is

flexible enough to handle the imports and provide the structure

to glue it all together.

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You won’t JoinAll the Dots!

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Think about incentivising shop & telesales staff to collect data, which

will enable you to join as much data as possible

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Joining a good percentage is enough!

You won’t be able to clearly identify every time an offline sale has been influenced online but a good percentage is enough to:

• Map out ‘typical’ user journeys• Gain insight• Infer actions

The user journeys that you have joined can help you to:

• Build a clearer view of the link between online activity & offline sales• Identify ‘webrooming’ or ‘showrooming’ shopping trends• Link online efforts to tangible in store purchases

Joining O2O can Empower Marketers

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It’s not just about ROI & CPA!

Showing that you are driving more sales from your online budget should allow you to make a better argument for that budget to be increased. However, the empowerment this insight provides by enabling you to make more confident, data-drive decisions is also important. Imagine how good it would feel to confidently say that:

“17% of any new customer journeys start online and convert offline.”

“23% of our in store shoppers have already researched online.”

To persuade the business, start with smaller assumptions that are believed company

wide. Once you have conquered those you can then move on to de-bunk some

of the more complex myths

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It’s Possible to JoinOnline & Offline Now!

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O2O is not as complex as you think...

The data structures and technologies involved are not as complex as you might think. This is why so many top brands are already leading the way with an omnichannel marketing strategy.

Every day we help omnichannel retailers to have a much better view of the link between online and offline.

They now have the measureable data to inform their marketing strategies so that they can succeed in a market where there is no distinction between an online customer and offline customer.

Get in touch if you want to discuss the challenge that your business has

when understanding the true value of your online marketing on offline sales

rm-salesuk@mail.rakuten.com

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ONLINE• Sales• Newsletter sign up• Retail appointment requests• Brochure requests• Interactive map login• Call back request

Reaching Destination O2O with Virgin Holidays

Here is an example of how we made the join for one of our clients, Virgin Holidays:

OFFLINE

• Telephone quotes and sales

• In-store quotes and sales

Email addresses were identified as a consistent customer identifier that could be to be collected across channels. Multiple points where email addresses could be used to log a touchpoint and make a join were identified:

Our ‘Universal User’ technology uses the unique key to link any number of visits and sales across all online channels and devices, and offline in-store touchpoints and phone calls, to a single user.

Results

• Over 200,000 universal user journeys joined YTD

• The revenue attributed to online marketing has increased

• The ROI of specific channels, consistently increased

• Strategic insights are driving increased busi-ness efficiency and profitability

Click here to read the full case study.

Still looking for inspiration?

Understanding the correlation between your online marketing activity and offline sales will allow you to turn any assumptions and myths into quantifiable metrics.

Ultimately, this will give you and your businessgreater confidence when setting budgets and

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making decisions. But it isn’t just about attribution .

It’s about having the confidence to talk about the influence that your digital

marketing efforts have on offline touch points . . .

It’s about being more certain about your instincts or digital marketing ‘spidey senses’.

Let go of any scepticism about linking online to offline and embrace an omnichannel marketing approach in 2015.

The data and proof is out there to be captured if you are willing to see it.

Rakuten Attribution (formerly DC Storm) arms

digital businesses with performance measurement tools, analysis and reporting,

powering great decisions and driving success.rakutenmarketing.uk/attribution

rm-salesuk@mail.rakuten.com+44 (0)1273 807272

Are you ready to connect the dots?