How To Track The Effectiveness Of Social Media Advertising On In-Store Sales

Kiev, Ukraine - May 20, 2013 - A social media logotype collection of well-known social network brand's placed on modern computer keyboard. Include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram and more other logos.
B&T Magazine
By B&T Magazine
SHARE
THIS



In this opinion piece, Delacon CEO Michael Center (pictured below), explains how marketers can now find out if social media ads are delivering a return on investment in-store.

Michael Center

Advertising spend on social media platforms continues to grow despite the recent scandals around transparency and brand safety, with revenues expected to top $1.3 billion in Australia this year. In June, SMI reported agency bookings on social media was up 13 per cent and by 2022 it’s predicted there will be more than $2.2 billion poured into social media ads.

While marketers have been able to track the effectiveness of their social media spend if the consumer’s path to purchase remains online, they often struggle in measuring its effectiveness once the customer moves from the online to offline world. Or, to put it more simply, a consumer sees a social media ad, but instead of buying it online, makes a phone call about it and then decides to visit the brand’s bricks-and-mortar store to buy.

In an age where marketing accountability is paramount, there is a solution for marketers to find out the effectiveness of social media advertising. By using call tracking technology, advertisers that have a physical retail presence can effectively work out the value of their social media advertising in driving in-store sales.

Companies that require customers to provide a contact number such as travel agents, health insurers, banks or car dealerships at the time of in-store purchase are able track if their social media spend is working by linking the purchase back to the original call the customer made.

Essentially, marketers can establish if a call to the contact centre has originated from a social media ad through the use of call tracking software that captures the caller’s phone number and the campaign that generated it, and then pushes this data into a CRM or point-of-sale platform.

When the caller then goes into a retail store makes a purchase and provides their contact number, that purchase/transaction can then be tracked or linked back to the specific social media ad they viewed through the data already stored in the CRM or POS platform, allowing the company to establish if social media spend is working or not.

For example, a retail-based finance company was concerned their social media spend was not delivering the returns they wanted and were planning to shift that money into channels which they could more effectively monitor and measure return on investment. As a consumer’s phone number is required to be given when making a transaction, call tracking was used to track the customers who had made an initial call after clicking or viewing an ad for the finance company on social medial and then completed the transaction at one of its retail locations. Far from being ineffective, social ads were found to be driving, on average, five per cent of in-store sales and, for the first time, were able to be measured.

What’s more, through call tracking technology, marketers can establish which social platforms are delivering the best results, and by using call tracking techniques, they can even work out which creative is more effective in driving sales.

With spending on social media advertising continuing to increase, marketers will always want to know how their online presence translates to the offline world when it comes to sales. With call tracking and a little data analysis, this question – which was once almost impossible to verify – can now be answered.

Please login with linkedin to comment

delacon in-store sales Michael Centre Social Media advertising

Latest News

Capgemini Identifies Six Focus Areas For CMOs Looking To Develop Data-Driven Teams
  • Technology

Capgemini Identifies Six Focus Areas For CMOs Looking To Develop Data-Driven Teams

The rapid growth in ecommerce during the pandemic has heightened the need for real-time insights to accommodate fast-changing customer behaviour. Accordingly, CMOs’ responsibilities are shifting, and around three quarters are now responsible for contributing to business growth (76 per cent) and data and technology (74 per cent). This is according to the latest Capgemini Research […]

PARIS, FRANCE - MARCH 05: In this photo illustration, the social media application logo, Tik Tok is displayed on the screen of an iPhone on March 05, 2019 in Paris, France. The social network broke the rules for the protection of children's online privacy (COPPA) and was fined $ 5.7 million. The fact TikTok criticized is quite serious in the United States, the platform, which currently has more than 500 million users worldwide, collected data that should not have asked minors. TikTok, also known as Douyin in China, is a media app for creating and sharing short videos. Owned by ByteDance, Tik Tok is a leading video platform in Asia, United States, and other parts of the world. In 2018, the application gained popularity and became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
  • Technology

TikTok Offically Reaches One Billion Users

TikTok says that it has officially reached more than one billion global users. In a blog post on its Australian newsroom, the video app said, “our global community is remarkable in its ability to reach millions of people, across generations. From music, food, beauty and fashion to art, causes, and everything in between, culture truly […]

Six Screen Creatives Announced For 2021 Emerging Writers’ Incubator Initiative
  • Media

Six Screen Creatives Announced For 2021 Emerging Writers’ Incubator Initiative

Six screenwriting creatives from across Australia have been selected as the inaugural participants in the Emerging Writers’ Incubator.  The Incubator is an initiative from SBS in partnership with Screen Australia, state and territory agencies Film Victoria, Screen Canberra, Screen NSW, Screen Queensland, Screenwest and the South Australian Film Corporation, and with the assistance of the […]

Bangkok, Thailand - Jun 23, 2015 : Group of credit cards on computer keyboard with VISA and MasterCard brand logos
  • Technology

Loyalty Republic Launches Card Agnostic Rewards Program

Australian start-up Loyalty Republic is introducing Australia’s first bank and card agnostic direct earn rewards program to democratise loyalty and make rewards accessible and fair for anyone using a debit card. The Loyalty Republic mobile app will place consumers in control of their rewards earning potential and redemption options, with a simplified model offering 1 point per $1 spent on debit card […]

Facebook Hits Pause On Instagram Kids
  • Technology

Facebook Hits Pause On Instagram Kids

Facebook hits pause on Instagram Kids project. Zuckerberg still working on his giant laser & flying monkeys, however.

Recommended

by B&T Magazine

B&T Magazine