Mobile ads’ effect on foot traffic can be measured by the frequency with which users click a store’s ads. Using mobile advertising to generate foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores has several benefits.
Mobile advertisers care about driving traffic to physical stores because many companies have not yet fully transitioned online. Moreover, many managers are older people who still deny the ubiquity of the internet and resist its influence. Local businesses are also more likely to depend on foot traffic.
It is not surprising, therefore, that mobile advertisers are becoming increasingly concerned with driving foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores. That is why mobile advertisers must focus on driving foot traffic, as well as sales at the website.
No matter how many people access online stores or mobile apps, 90% of all sales are still made at a brick-and-mortar shop. Ninety percent of retail sales still occur in brick-and-mortar stores, where people use smartphones to locate stores offering the product they want, verify that it is available, check hours, and much more.
While people are increasingly turning to their phones to locate physical stores, they are still most likely to buy something after visiting one. As of 2015, 90% of pre-paid retail sales are still made at brick-and-mortar stores, and most smartphone users use their mobile devices to find stores, check inventory availability, and search for hours.
Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Not Yet Obsolete
Usage makes it critical that e-tailers drive foot traffic into their brick-and-mortar stores with mobile ads. You can also use mobile ads to drive traffic to your stores to target competitors’ customers. Marketers are using mobile advertising to boost mobile purchases and other digital KPIs, but they can also use it to get people into physical locations with increasing efficiency. While most sales still happen at physical stores, mobile ads are valuable for driving foot traffic into stores.
As countries open up, generating demand for their products at the retail level (offline) becomes the marketer’s priority. Generating demand through Facebook ads may drive people to think about new products, increasing the retail stores’ traffic. Facebook is an excellent channel for driving sales in-store by allowing retailers to target users with location-specific ads for this geographic location.
While ads based on local searches will help increase foot traffic, there is an even more powerful ad type specifically designed to bring online searchers directly into your brick-and-mortar shop. Your ads can even include directions on how to get to your store (i.e., The consumer would then be directed to the Apple App Store or the Google App store once they clicked the ad.
Foot Traffic May Be Required for Reserved Items
Another thing you can offer foot traffic is an option to reserve products online and pick them up at your location. There is not much you can do to reduce returns on orders, but if you are looking to drive foot traffic into your stores and enhance the customer experience, you could offer returns and in-store exchanges.
That said, there are plenty of ways to leverage insights from your local eCommerce experience and marketing tactics to bring in foot traffic to your store, and I will show you exactly how to do it. Here are four intelligent mobile marketing tactics for driving foot traffic to your store. One of the best things you can do to generate foot traffic, and as a result, sales at the store is by hosting events such as new product launches, runway shows, shopping festivals, and more.
Integrating mobile apps into your shopping experience is one of the ways mobile can help boost store sales. Mixing mobile in with a brick-and-mortar shopping experience, it customizes customer interaction, leading to sales and customer loyalty. A physical store also increases sales by encouraging customers to buy more, particularly if items at a physical store are displayed attractively.
Three-fourths of consumers are more likely to visit a brick-and-mortar store if they think local information from search results is useful. Customers purchase more online when they know there is an opportunity to visit physical stores. No matter their age, 80 percent of online shoppers will complete their purchase in a brick-and-mortar location when they know there is a brick-and-mortar option.
Online retailers offering a physical location option have generated more revenue. Bringing in foot traffic in stores is essential for brick-and-mortar retailers, as that is still where the lion’s share of sales is made.
Localized Advertising Best Drives Foot Traffic
Localized advertising helps retail marketers to improve share-of-mind and in-store visits. Increasing the share of mind and driving store walk-ins Retail chains are saturated with advertising for brands and products.
That is why advertisers with brick-and-mortar stores must prioritize their visibility on mobile. With mobile channels, customers are more likely to see the advertisement than on traditional media.
This digital advertising is usually optimized for smaller displays, as mobile devices have smaller screens than computers or laptops. Text ads, either through SMS text messaging or banner ads embedded in mobile websites, are used by companies to advertise to a mobile devices. PPC ads, mainly via Google Ads, comprise most online advertising.
To find out more about how you can attribute sales at a physical location to the digital ads customers are browsing from their phones, check out our blog post on the Top 3 Tools for Attributing Sales at a Physical Location to Digital Advertising. Let us dig in deeper to learn about why and how you can optimize for mobile devices to drive sales, whether it is in-store or online.
For instance, if you are advertising a local coffee shop, you could target your mobile ads at people who visited other coffee shops in the area. Now, your cell phone can act as a customized billboard, informing shoppers at a shopping center of your store’s location and related promotions. Customers can now walk into your store, receive all the product information they want, see it, and touch it, but then purchase online at a different Webshop.
Target is doing well in driving traffic through its Cartwheel program on the Target app, which allows users to view hours near a store, view various discounts and product categories, create a shopping list, and swipe through its weekly catalog.