Evolving the Fine Art of Shopper Marketing Measurement

Measuring the success of shopper marketing is a challenge almost as old as the practice itself. Inconsistencies in the definition of shopper marketing, the “owner” of the practice and the objectives associated with activation are common. While no formal industry method currently exists, marketers are still navigating these uncharted waters daily. We’ll break down some steps and considerations to help make those waters a little more manageable.

Establish the what

Measuring success starts with identifying clear program objectives upfront. With our clients, this is most often a collaboration. What does success look like? Is there past learning that we can apply to this program? Are the objectives realistic, given timing, budget and business performance to date? These are just a few questions to guide our discussion. It’s important to keep in mind that we may end up with a mix of hard and soft objectives. 

• Hard objectives: grow HHP, grow the category, drive $X in sales 
• Soft objectives: excite the category buyer to take on new SKUs, secure x% of retail adoption, win an Effie award

Shopper marketing often contributes benefits that are not easily measured. Shopper programs provide focus for the sales force and can lead to long-term retailer support. Shopper marketing can also reinforce the brand strategy to elevate a brand above competitors and contribute to brand equity. We must include these more qualitative outcomes in the upfront discussion of program objectives.

Establish the how

Once objectives are identified and clarified, we determine what data is available to measure these objectives. Measurement plans typically include measures for delivery, brand performance and sales impact.

We break the types of measurement into a few different buckets: 

Delivery performance

• Includes quantity of ads served, cost to deliver the ads, engagement and pacing. Each media vehicle performs differently. It is important to plan and set standards based upon the individual tactics and how they ladder up to a larger overall plan.

Brand performance

• Measures success in supporting brand awareness or generating trial/repeat purchases. We use a control/exposed methodology to assess whether the media is making an impact on the target consumer. Measuring brand performance ensures products and branding are memorable to consumers and can help convince a consumer to purchase their product versus a competitor’s

Sales performance

• For any marketing effort the true impact needs to be realized through sales. ROI is the most popular measure of shopper marketing success. However, the challenge is isolating the variables that contribute to incremental sales. One such variable is trade support, as shopper programs often run in conjunction with trade. Reading store-level data is the best approach, but it is not always available. We therefore need a variety of data.

Introducing Thread

It’s easy to see how these performance metrics inputs and outputs can quickly become overwhelming. In order to provide a holistic, singular view of all shopper marketing metrics, we’ve developed Thread, our proprietary data platform to aggregate, store and analyze marketing performance. 

Built upon leading technology, the platform supports all of our data needs, from automating the extraction of data from media partners to helping deliver actionable insights from its robust AI engine. Thread is not just a platform to build dashboards. It helps our internal team take the right action at the right time to support our clients’ goals and deliver success. 

The simple fact is, there is no industry-adopted standard of measurement when it comes to assessing the full impact of shopper marketing programs. To address this, the Path to Purchase Institute has formed a commission of shopper marketing leaders across a range of companies and agencies. They’ve tasked the commission with establishing best practices and adoptable standards of measurement across shopper marketing. We are proud to be part of this commission and look forward to contributing to this important and much needed work.

Through our internal development of powerful tools like Thread, as well as our collaborative efforts across the industry, we are excited to continue leading shopper marketing to be more measurable, effective and efficient through inspired thinking and innovative execution.