For CPG, Mobile Promotions Push Targets to Store

The US consumer packaged goods (CPG) and consumer products industry will spend $2.33 billion on mobile advertising this year, representing 47.0% of digital ad spending in the industry, eMarketer estimates.

Recent research by 4Info and Catalina examined how those dollars would affect in-store sales. The study looked at 83 mobile campaigns across a variety of CPG categories for 59 different brands; campaign durations ranged from four to 38 weeks, with 12 weeks on average. Overall, CPG brand mobile ad campaigns generated an average $500 million in-store sales, though the gap between the highest and lowest results observed was huge. In-store sales per thousand impressions were nearly $30 on average, with $76.33 the highest and $3.09 the lowest.

Marketers are boosting efforts to reach mobile coupon clippers, and eMarketer estimates that this year, 97.4 million US adult mobile users—43.2% penetration—will use their devices to redeem a coupon/code obtained via mobile for online or offline shopping. 4Info and Catalina found that such offers performed very well in-store for CPG. Out of mobile ad campaign types studied, those that included a promotion or coupon drove the highest in-store sales, with an average of $993,000—more than 2.5 times that of usage- and branding-focused campaigns. In-store sales per thousand impressions were nearly $40 for promotional campaigns, vs. $26.12 for brand equity and just over $20 for those focused on usage.

The study noted that geolocation targeting could help CPG brands boost the relevance of their mobile messaging when shoppers are in or near a store. However, January 2015 research by Econsultancy in association with Adobe found that just 18% of client-side marketers in the consumer goods industry worldwide were using geotargeting technology to deliver location-based notifications, and fewer than a fifth (18%) were planning to do so in 2015. Three in 10 weren’t even exploring the opportunity.

Courtesy of eMarketer