The future of retail and how companies can track their customers’ behaviour took another step forward today.
Now Google and Ephiphany, a media agency, have teamed up to be the first in the UK to track in-story footfall through search activity, reports the Drum.
Jewellery business Pandora are the first to trial this project to trace the impact of search activity on in-store footfall.
This ground-breaking project will cover 90 per cent of the jewelers 210 stores throughout the UK, Helen Harris, head of digital marketing and eCommerce at Pandora UK said: “We’re still a predominantly store-based business. We’ve only been selling online for four years, but online sales already account for over 10 per cent of overall sales.
“We had a hunch that search was driving in-store footfall and sales but we didn’t know for sure. This new tracking project has given us the ability to confirm just how much store footfall online activity is driving, so the initial results have been really interesting and informative.”
The retail industry is looking at ever more sophisticated ways to manipulate all of their data to ensure they are targeting and attracting the right customers to their brands. As we increasingly use the internet to shop or research products, it is important for businesses to know what impact they have had on the customers before, during and after they leave the store.
Tom Salmon, managing director of Epiphany, said: “We know that marketers are using data to optimise their marketing and business strategies in ever more sophisticated ways. Understanding the relationship between search and store visits brings huge benefits.”
Christel Hansen, industry manager at Google, said of the project: “The modern consumer is always connected and seeking inspiration on various platforms and devices both online and in stores before a purchase. To improve our understanding of this path to purchase we were excited to initiate this project.”