Omnichannel analytics is the key to providing a seamless and integrated customer experience across various channels. This includes brick & mortar stores but also online platforms, mobile apps, social media, and any other touchpoints where customers interact with a brand.
Omnichannel strategies aim to meet customers wherever they are to enhance satisfaction and brand loyalty. To achieve this, it’s essential to keep in mind that today’s shoppers consult digital touchpoints throughout all stages of the purchase journey. Our Digitally Influenced Shopper Report has found that nearly 1 in 2 consumers regularly consult a retailer’s website or app before shopping in-store, and 1 in 4 continue checking the digital shelf while in-store.
Below are a few routine obstacles that any brand – even a #1 category leader – can expect to face, no matter how well prepared they are. Notice the difference in how brands with and without omnichannel analytics tackle these challenges:
|
Scenario |
Outcome with omni analytics |
Outcome without omni analytics |
|
In-store sales decline for your best seller shortly after its online PDP images are replaced with incorrect content |
eComm team notices the broken PDP via content tracking and alerts the content team, who works with the retailer and Salsify to reinstate the image. The underlying issue is fixed and in-store sales recover quickly. |
eComm team is not tracking PDPs and is not consulted on the in-store sales drop. Lacking a true lead, the brand spends months going through a standard checklist of potential issues, but sales remain low as the problem is unresolved. |
|
New product launches are supported by in-store and online execution, but after 3 months, sales are behind plan. As a result, the CMO wants a full debrief with actions to remedy sales. |
eComm team supports the marketing team and identifies two issues: the product is not appearing on page 1 for relevant terms, and online reviews highlight confusion with the product’s attributes. The problems are addressed within weeks and sales recover. |
The marketing team wastes time and money on expensive shopper research projects which take weeks. 6 months later the problems are still not resolved. |
Hiccups like these are inevitable, but brands with omni analytics capabilities can resolve them quickly. They’re also equipped to identify and seize new opportunities. Brands without omni analytics are in the dark, spending all their time fighting fires and little to no time taking advantage of new trends and technologies that drive growth.
While the shift to eCommerce as the main growth driver has taken place relatively quickly, brands have generally been slower to adapt and remain organised around offline. This is particularly evident in sales structures, internal understanding especially at the c-suite level, and supply chain infrastructure.
Many brands are investing in online capabilities but haven’t linked the online and offline worlds. Not only does this lead them to underestimate the importance of digital, it also prevents a true omnichannel view from taking root and driving growth. It’s no surprise our eCommerce Benchmark Report found that despite investment, many cross-functional teams are unequipped for omnichannel.
Start with the shopper in mind
Shopper understanding should be the foundation of an omnichannel analytics strategy. Recent global events, including Covid, supply chain issues and the cost of living crisis have accelerated existing trends and created today’s digitally influenced shoppers, who rely on digital validation to support their omni purchase occasions. In thinking about how to reach these consumers, brands should ask themselves the following questions:
While today’s consumer behaviour is relatively new, the overarching paths to achieving brand growth will look familiar. At the simplest level, omnichannel growth is a factor of basket building, category penetration, brand penetration and frequency.
How does this look from an omnichannel perspective? For a start, offline growth drivers often translate to online growth drivers (to varying degrees), but online also presents unique opportunities. We encourage you to refer to the chart below and assess whether your brand has built out its strategies for driving growth online to the same degree as traditional offline tactics. It’s also important to consider whether your offline & online strategies are working in harmony.
|
Strategy |
How does it drive the growth agenda? |
What does this mean offline? |
What does this mean online? |
|
Category Penetration |
Reacting to changing shopper needs to bring new shoppers into the category - both new and lapsed |
Cross category promotions, special packs Out of aisle shopper Marketing Click & Collect sampling Fixture education |
Virtual bundles Sponsored search and retail media in complementary categories Q COmmerce shopper expansion |
|
Brand Penetration |
Using your brand equity to regain lapsed shoppers and gain new shoppers |
Category management excellence to maintain brand presence in fixture Cross brand promotions with complementary categories Out of aisle shopper Marketing Click & Collect sampling Fixture education Innovation to re-engage shoppers In-store sampling |
Enhanced PDP content to drive shopper education Maintaining SOV in search through media and keyword sponsorship, including conquesting Innovation with full PDP shopper education, video, enhanced content Sampling gift with online delivery / click & collect |
|
Basket Building |
Driving category spend through cross sell, trade up and stock up |
Correct PPA - pack size meets shopper needs, value perception Trial promotions Full 4P marketing to drive premiumisation offering - driven by packaging Seasonal promotions |
Correct PPA - pack size meets shopper needs, value perception, bulk packs for stocking up Full 4P marketing to drive premiumisation offering - driven by PDP content and education Online bundling recommendations Seasonal promotions Retail media targeting opportunities |
|
Frequency |
Driving category spend through repeat purchase, impulse and new occasions |
Convenience bundle packs / multi buys Secondary locations in high traffic areas, location based ads, receipt/returning customer ads Personalised loyalty coupons |
Epacks to meet impulse occasions, subscribe and save, display ads at checkout Personalised loyalty coupons & retail media targeting Social media influenced sales |
Define how you measure omnichannel success
Even as CPGs are increasingly recognizing the value of unique online growth drivers, many are still chasing growth strategies before fully establishing a strategy that defines which levers are worth pursuing and how success should be measured. Omnichannel analytics defines the online and offline metrics not just for evaluating the success of campaigns, but also for informing which tactics are worth implementing in the first place.
You are what you measure
Brands have a wide variety of potential retail levers to measure within the shopper journey. Broadly, these fall under discovery, consideration and loyalty, as shown below.
When mapping your brand’s current systems for measuring the shopper journey online and offline, look for gaps within this framework and consider selectively adding metrics to build out your omnichannel measurement capabilities. Ultimately, omnichannel measurement is about gaining access to leading metrics: the day-to-day signals that inform sales, market share and profitability.
|
Shopper Journey Lever |
In-store Measure |
Common sources of this data |
Online Measure |
Common sources of this data |
|
Discovery / Awareness |
Availability Share of space on fixture Share of secondary display Share of range Share of promotions Brand awareness measure |
Retail analytics providers (e.g. Circana / Nielsen / GFK) Retailer data sources (e.g. Walmart Retail Link) Loyalty card data providers (e.g. Dunnhumby) |
Availability Share of range Share of promotions Share of keyword search (sponsored & organic) Share of retail media execution Product review count |
Digital shelf data providers (e.g. Profitero) |
|
Consideration / Purchase |
Availability Price Promotions Share of retail display (shopper marketing) |
Retail analytics providers Retailer data sources Loyalty card data providers |
Availability Price Promotions Product rating Brand awareness measure PDP content benchmarks & compliance |
Digital shelf data providers (e.g. Profitero |
|
Repeat purchase / Loyalty |
Availability Share of range Share of new products launched Share of promotions |
Retail analytics providers Retailer data sources Loyalty card data providers |
Availability Share of range Share of new products launched Share of promotions Change in product review count Change in product rating |
Digital shelf data providers (e.g. Profitero) |
The end goal of thoughtfully measuring shopper journey levers is to create an internal process where brands assess omnichannel strategies against these leading metrics. This testing and learning allows brands to quickly hone in on the tactics that will drive consistent brand growth as reflected in the critical lagging metrics: sales, share, and profitability.
How to choose the right KPIs
You’ve done the work to understand how your shoppers behave, and you understand what metrics can help evaluate omni growth strategies – and now you want to grow your brand. What’s the next step?
First, define your desired KPIs – which will likely include sales and market share. The type of metrics brands focus on are fairly consistent throughout different maturity levels: value and unit sales, profitability, inventory, and market share.
On global marketplaces such as Amazon, 1P brands tend to focus on 1P sales to start, but we recommend tracking 3P sales as well - especially if your brand’s products are frequently sold 3P via wholesalers, where failing to account for 3P sales shortchanges your brand’s performance metrics. Colgate-Palmolive’s Todd Hassenfelt believes monitoring 3P data is essential to keeping a finger on the pulse of your category:
The depth and frequency of data collection around these KPIs vary widely based on maturity. As brands progress and come to rely on better data, monthly reports on category sales and own brand share should be exchanged in favour of daily, SKU-level data including competitors, broken out by fulfilment type. The best solutions should incorporate flexible categorization based on all relevant product attributes and purchase channels.
While there is an increasing array of retailer sales data, many offerings are essentially extrapolations of bestseller rank or from shopper panel purchase history. It’s tempting to assume that any data is better than none - but accurate sales data is fundamental. As Circana’s Anne Zybowski puts it:
Because sales & share changes often determine whether digital shelf changes and strategic efforts are deemed successful or not, brands with inaccurate sales data risk proceeding along the wrong path with a false sense of confidence.
The gold standard of KPI measurement uses ePOS data sourced directly from retailers, ePOS data is most widely available in the US and UK, while retailer data in other markets is more likely to offer aggregated vs granular insights. In general, brands should aim to generalise & apply insights from retailers with more comprehensive data.
Ultimately, the combination of KPIs that works for a given brand will always look slightly different. But it’s essential that whatever providers are used and whatever type of data is collected, brands harmonise the data to develop a smooth omnichannel analytics operation. This has proven to be a major struggle for CPGs:
No one provider will supply every KPI your brand needs, so interoperability is key. For example, Profitero’s sales & share solution offers full flexibility to match any data reporting hierarchy, including Amazon categories, brand custom categories, Nielsen and Circana. This flexibility allows cross-functional teams to connect online casuals to different use cases and critical decisions across the organisation.
Profitero’s integration with Circana provides holistic, omnichannel measurement, combining the best of online digital shelf casuals with multi-retailer ePOS insights. Our interoperability is designed with omnichannel analytics in mind: the ability to integrate Profitero’s online Amazon sales and digital shelf causals with Circana’s store data structure & categorisation within their Liquid Data reporting and insights platform provides brands with the most advanced and flexible option available.
You can learn more about the integration here.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our omnichannel analytics series, where we’ll tackle how leading brands leverage digital shelf insights to accelerate omnichannel growth.