When it comes to retail, businesses want marketing that will get customers in the door. That’s why in-store visit reporting is essential.

How marketing drives in-store visits

Think about it: It’s the job of the sales team to get dollars in the registers. In-store visits measure consumers who were served a digital ad and subsequently visited a retail location associated with the ad. This is a powerful indicator of return on investment for retailers and affiliates with physical retail locations.

As marketers, it is our job to understand the needs of our clients and design strategies that garner the desired result (like increasing sales). To do so, it’s necessary to understand and define the goals of the client and tactics that achieve those goals. Tactics that report on in-store visits provide the client with a level of insight into campaign performance not possible with other conversion types. Not all conversions are created equal!

Marketing metrics that matter

Impressions and clicks are attractive metrics, yielding tens of thousands, even millions of results per campaign. These large numbers are attractive to business owners leery about the cost associated with digital marketing, and the return on investment associated with it. Six-, seven-, and eight-digit metrics are compelling at a glance but are not the most valuable result from a digital tactic.

In-store visits represent actual consumers who visit the location after being served an ad, giving the retailer the opportunity to close a sale. These consumers are at the lowest level of the sales funnel. They have moved beyond awareness and nurturing, and have become a living, breathing lead. For this reason, in-store visits are the most valuable results for clients looking to close sales in their locations. In-store visits are low-hanging fruit, and tactics that have the ability to report on in-store visits are the most impactful to a retailer.

Benefits of tracking in-store visits include:

• Tangibility: In-store traffic counts the consumers that come into the actual location. This conversion can be used to develop additional metrics including cost per acquisition and return on ad spend. This down-funnel metric measures if ads are actually converting customers, not just if people are seeing your ads and scrolling past.
• More door swings = more sales: Consumers inside retail locations present the greatest opportunity to close sales. These consumers have worked their way down the sales funnel and are seriously considering a purchase. Talented salespeople can convert these leads into sales in-store.
• Upsell opportunities: In-store visits present retailers with the opportunity to not only sell the products in the ad that the consumer was served, but also additional products and services not mentioned in the ad but appropriate for the consumer. These upsell opportunities bring greater return on the investment made by the retailer via their digital campaign.

Track in-store metrics to move the needle

Brick-and-mortar retailers understand that customers in their locations give their sales team the opportunity to sell the advertised product, along with complimentary and supplemental products from their inventory.

The in-store visit metric is a quantifiable measurement of opportunities served to the client’s sales channel. Including tactics that provide in-store visit conversion reporting in your marketing strategy will allow you to provide comprehensive results so you can prove opportunities generated, campaign success, and ultimately ROI.

Boost in-store visits with BrandMuscle

Ready to bring more customers in the door? With BrandMuscle’s proven ecosystem of local marketing solutions, you can drive results on the local level.

Get in touch with our local marketing experts to learn more.