Dive Brief:
- RaceTrac, the gas station chain with 450 locations in southern U.S. states, saw a 47% boost in store foot traffic from a mobile ad campaign in fall 2016 that encouraged smartphone users to visit its locations. RaceTrac worked with NinthDecimal for location data, digital ad agency Vert and design firm R/GA, according to a case study.
- Jamie Rodgers, brand director of RaceTrac, said the campaign boosted visits from existing customers and from competitors’ audiences. The company’s mobile ad was designed to guide mobile users nearby to the closest RaceTrac convenience store using their current location information.
- NinthDecimal, which processes data points from 135 million unique devices, created a digital profile of consumers who were most likely to respond to the ad based on past visits to either RaceTrac locations or competing convenience stores. The campaign served the ad to targeted users when they were within 10 miles of a RaceTrac convenience store.
Dive Insight:
Brick-and-mortar stores are developing better ways to track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts at the point of sale, where more than 90% of transactions still occur despite the growth of online retail. RaceTrac tapped into the idea that by targeting a small group of people who have a demonstrated history of interest in the company's specific products or services when they're near the brick-and-mortar store, it could optimize its ad spend and drive valuable traffic to its locations. This targeted effort reduces wasted advertising dollars and is often less intrusive or annoying to those consumers who receive the ads.
Location-based advertising is a big focus for social media companies this year, with Google and Facebook offering location-based digital ads with offline objectives. Advertisers are hungry for detailed data on foot traffic, as 78% of U.S. marketers surveyed by the Mobile Marketing Association in July 2016 said they boosted location-based mobile ad spend based on geographic data. The space's growth is rising alongside trends in consumer behavior, with nearly one-third of all mobile searches related to local products and services. Some brands have seen up to a 20% boost in conversion rate when they include specific location data in ads, making location-based marketing key for capturing consumer attention and winning new customers.
Enlisting this type of data is a critical piece of determining how people respond offline to digital ads they see, including websites and social media. The value of using location services to enhance marketing efforts on mobile and other channels is widely accepted, but the space is still relatively new, so most companies are still determining how best to use that information. Hertz, Nissan and Facebook are a few of the marketers that have increased their use of location data this year.