If you have clients that have used paid search ads or even banner ads linked to coupon offers, it can be tricky to track the Return On Interactive Investment and MediaPost's "Paid Search Drives Offline Sales: Compensation Model Flawed" draws on some interesting tracking devices and outlines some interesting benchmarks...
"A new study from RevTrax, which provides a direct-response cross-channel analytics tool, finds that offline sales benefit most from online paid-search ads. A two-year study ending in August found that for every $1 of ecommerce revenue generated from paid-search ads, marketers gained approximately another $6 of in-store revenue.
The data indicates that multichannel retailers must factor in-store sales into paid-search ROI calculations. If not, they will undervalue the paid-search channel's contribution to revenue by as much as 85%.
The study also found that by creating a keyword-level attribution model, marketers in the study better understand the ROI of each click on a paid-search ad. Retailers with an average transaction of less than $200 found the average click on a paid-search ad generated approximately $15 of in-store revenue, with some merchants seeing as much as $28 of in-store revenue.
Approximately 9% of clicks on a paid-search ad generated an in-store sale, with some merchants seeing up to 26% of clicks on a paid-search ad generating an in-store sale. Some merchants saw a cost of sale as low as 1%.
Clients measure the paid-search campaigns by keyword. They analyze brand keywords, competitive keywords and more. For the study, consumers saw a paid-search ad that led them to a printable coupon or mobile landing page displaying a unique barcode. The consumer redeemed the coupon inside a brick-and-mortar store. Using the unique barcode or promo code, each coupon was tracked back to the search activity that drove the initial engagement.
When asked if a specific market segment, such as automotive, does better than others, Sarelson said the success partly comes down to "training" consumers to look for the deals online before heading into the store. "There are marketers training frequent customers to look online first, but there are also marketers bidding on keywords in specific categories, converting customers away from competitors," he said.
Sarelson said as more brands drive consumers from online into stores to make purchases, companies must recognize the need to change internal business models that compensate ecommerce marketers for offline sales."