Drive to Store or how to increase customers through ad hoc digital strategies within your stores. Let's discover the most suitable tools together
When we talk about Drive to Store campaigns, we refer to advertising campaigns aimed at bringing potential customers into a physical store, quantifying the numbers, and determining the acquisition cost.
A Drive to Store strategy appears in marketing as the link between online and offline.
Today, GPS technology and mobile applications allow companies, through display banners or videos with custom CTAs on web pages, to incentivize potential customers to enter a nearby physical store.
This approach is gradually replacing more traditional methods like paper flyers or billboards, offering a more economical and measurable way to attract customers. This is precisely why the core of a DTS campaign is traceability, and Footfall Analysis is its central element.
Footfall Analysis refers to the analysis of the store’s "foot traffic," which is a tool to measure the increase in store visits, purchases, and the cost per incremental visit to the store. In addition to monitoring campaign performance, this detailed report also provides behavioral,preference, and socio-demographic information about the user, all while fully respecting privacy.
What are the potential operational methods of Drive to Store? Let’s take a detailed look at the possible operational methods through DTS:
Proximity: Based on the geographic coordinates of the stores (longitude, latitude), a maximum radius is set within which to reach users moving in real-time, in order to invite them to visit the store via a call to action.
Competitors: The goal is to attract rival/competitor customers through special offers directed at those who are physically present in competing stores in real-time, using their geographic location.
Retargeting: It is possible to target users who have visited your stores or those of your competitors for up to 6 months, with the aim of getting them back into your store.
How does a Drive to Store campaign work?
The 3 fundamental steps are:
Defining the target audience (age, gender, GEO, interests).
Choosing the operational method between Proximity, Competitors, and Retargeting.
Monitoring in-store users and purchases.
Why use Drive to Store?
Among the benefits offered by these innovative campaigns are:
Target Precision: Thanks to the geo-behavioral approach, it is possible to reach specific profiled users, even based on their browsing behaviors on apps and mobile sites.
Measurability: Thanks to real-time data, campaigns can be optimized quickly, identifying the main sources of success and providing a quantitative evaluation of the results.
Advanced Analytics: Through Footfall Analysis, the effectiveness of a DTS campaign is examined by associating visitor data with socio-demographic information to obtain a more complete user profile.
Cost Efficiency: It allows for maximizing the value of advertising budgets, optimizing results, and achieving a higher ROI.
Data monitoring during the setup phase, throughout, and post-campaign.
Synergies between Drive to Store and Meta
In an advanced digital omnichannelperspective, the audience/target created for the Drive to Store campaign can also be uploaded to Meta to improve performance.
Through the partnership between E-Business Consulting and Nielsen, it is possible to integrate external audience segments directly into Facebook Manager to then carry out the normal campaign delivery to different and optimized external audiences.
Specifically, the audience created for the Drive to Store campaign can also be used as the target for a campaign on Meta, further enhancing performance.
Gamification Activities
Pairing a promotion, a prize contest, or a gamification activity with the Drive to Store campaign is an excellent strategy to actively engage potential customers, create a stronger bond with the brand, and drive traffic to both physical and online stores.
Digital and physical represent two sides of the same coin and form a virtuous cycle by collaborating and strengthening each other. Investing in a Drive to Store campaign means enhancing and consolidating the customer experience.
To implement an omnichannel strategy, rely on E-Business Consulting, a digital marketing agency that can support you in developing a project from online to offline, for your store in Italy and abroad.
