Capturing the Constant Consumer: Turning Early Discovery into Bottom-Line Results

In today's dynamic retail landscape, consumers are always "on," constantly browsing, researching, and buying across various channels. They don't follow a linear path to purchase but rather engage in a continuous cycle of discovery and consideration, acting on impulse, need, boredom, or ease. 

“Shoppers don’t move through a neat and orderly funnel or follow a gently curved path.”

To effectively reach these "constant consumers" and drive tangible results, brands need to widen their retail media lens and understand how upper funnel, or discovery, marketing directly impacts their bottom line.

For too long, upper funnel investments have faced scrutiny, particularly if immediate conversions aren't apparent. However, as cited in their most recent article on the matter, Criteo emphasises discovery campaigns are critical for long-term performance and actively drive, not just support, your overall marketing success. When integrated into a full-funnel marketing strategy, these campaigns lead to stronger engagement, higher conversion rates, and ultimately better ROI.

When integrated into a full-funnel marketing strategy, these campaigns lead to stronger engagement, higher conversion rates, and ultimately better ROI.

Understanding the Constant Consumer's Journey

The traditional marketing funnel no longer accurately reflects the modern shopper's behaviour. Consumers frequently start their product searches on retailer, marketplace, or brand websites (47% when they know the general item they want) rather than search engines. Many of these searches begin on home or category page, highlighting the need to expand beyond product detail pages (PDPs) and search pages, Furthermore, a significant majority (69%) value the ability to compare products across different retail stores, necessitating multi-retailer campaigns.

According to the Criteo shopper survey, Q3 2024, the "constant consumer" also engages in extensive research, with 7 in 10 shoppers in categories like CE, Fashion, and Beauty visiting 2-5+ websites to read reviews and compare prices. Top buyers can take an average of 8 days between their first visit and purchase. This underscores the importance of being present on review and video websites (offsite ads), where 46% of shoppers go for more information after initial discovery.

Connecting Discovery to Your Bottom Line

Investing in the upper funnel, as highlighted in the Criteo report on the Caturing the Constant consumer report, is about building long-term performance. Discovery campaigns introduce your products to new audiences, expand your reach, and drive future demand, ultimately increasing the size and quality of your conversion pipeline. Advertisers who include upper funnel tactics in their media mix consistently see stronger returns, including lower acquisition costs, higher conversion rates, and increased customer lifetime value.

In fact, diversifying with upper funnel campaigns focused on new customer acquisition can lead to an average 35% new customer rate.

To demonstrate the real results of your upper funnel efforts in reaching the "constant consumer," it's vital to track both immediate (direct) metrics (visits, CTR, time spent on site, direct sales) and secondary metrics that reveal longer-term influence.

These secondary metrics include assisted conversions, view-through conversions, incrementality, brand lift & engagement, and full-funnel journey insights.

A full-funnel attribution approach is crucial to connect discovery to conversions.

This involves:

• Mapping the full journey using tools that track users across devices and channels.

• Shifting your attribution model away from last-click to data-driven or multi-touch attribution.

• Segmenting and analysing performance by audience, campaign type, or creative.

  
  

As the Criteo report on the Caturing the Constant consumer cites, a shopper might discover a brand through an upper funnel ad, not click immediately, but later search for the brand and convert. Without proper measurement, the initial discovery touchpoint's impact would be missed.

Widening Your Lens with a Full-Funnel Strategy

By combining the power of upper funnel discovery with a broader retail media strategy, brands can effectively capture the "constant consumer" at multiple touch-points.

This includes:

• Being present at every entry point, including home and category pages on retailer sites.

• Leveraging onsite display and video to aid discovery with visually appealing brand imagery and messaging. Onsite display has been shown to improve share of sales and drive incremental revenue.

  
  

• Utilising offsite ads to guide investigative shoppers on review and video websites.

  
  

• According to a Criteo report on the Caturing the Constant consumer, maintaining consistent campaign uptime ("always on"), which can lead to a significantly higher quarter-over-quarter sales lift. Brands with consistently live campaigns saw almost a 20-point higher QoQ sales lift.

  
  

• Adopting an omnichannel strategy by integrating online and offline efforts and including offline attribution, which can significantly increase ROAS. Campaigns with offline attribution saw a +42% average ROAS increase.

  
  

• Investing in multiple retail media solutions to achieve a synergistic effect, resulting in 16% higher ROAS and 18% better conversion rates compared to using only sponsored products.

The Bottom-Line

To truly capture the "constant consumer" and achieve sustainable growth, brands must embrace a broader retail media strategy that includes a strong focus on the upper funnel. By effectively implementing and measuring discovery campaigns with a full-funnel perspective, businesses can move beyond immediate metrics to see the real impact on their bottom line: increased brand awareness, higher conversion rates, improved customer loyalty, and ultimately, significant revenue growth.

Just as widening your commerce media lens reveals more commerce moments, understanding how to connect early discovery to tangible results unlocks the full potential of your marketing efforts in today's constantly evolving consumer landscape.

To capture the 'constant consumer,' you need to be present across their entire journey... Let's discuss how a full-funnel approach can unlock your brand's full potential.

Get in touch with 365 Digital today to build your 'always on' commerce media strategy: sales@365digital.africa.

SOURCES

• Criteo retail media data, 2022-2024, US retailers. Criteo retail media data, H2 2023, aggregated across all US and EMEA retailers. Criteo retail media data, H1 2024, aggregated across all retailers.

• Criteo shopper survey, Q3 2024, Global (N=7120). Criteo retail media data, July 2023-June 2024, aggregated across all retailers. Criteo retail media data, users who purchased in July 2024 and their previous 30 days of history, US retailers. Criteo shopper survey, Q3 2024, Global (N=7120).

• Criteo shopper survey, Q3 2024, Global (N=7120). Criteo commerce data, Global, Health & Beauty and Consumer Electronics products purchased in the week of April 9-15, 2024 with 1-month max shopping window considered. Hundreds of retailers and brands observed. Criteo retail media data, 2023, aggregated across top US and EMEA retailers.

• Criteo shopper survey, Q3 2024, Global (N=7120). Criteo shopper survey, Q3 2024, Global (N=7120).Criteo retail media data, H2 2023, analyzing top 6 retailers by region (US, EMEA, APAC).

• Criteo retail media data, H2 2023, aggregated across all regions. Criteo retail media data, H2 2023, aggregated across all regions. Criteo retail media data, 2023, US Retailers, 2023, Aggregate results from 296 campaigns (online), Aggregate results from 2,010 campaigns (online and offline).