All we need to do is look in the mirror at our own shopping habits. No longer do we spend our time in the car going to local brick-and-mortar stores searching for deals. We do our research online, as it is more convenient and cost-effective. This change in behavior has led many retailers to rethink their marketing strategy and allocate more advertising spend towards online adverting. Although straight forward in theory, this new approach can be difficult to implement, since available targeting options for retailers often use decade-old cookie based ad delivery systems which can only reach one out of three unique consumers in a store trade area.
Here’s an example. When a luxury brick-and-mortar department store goes-to-market with their spring lines, a need arises to reach targeted audiences within five to ten miles of the storefront. The target audience – 35-60 year olds with a household income above $200k. The objective is to reach all of them with unique product messaging.
In this example, a retailer who uses cookies will only be reaching the 30% of the qualified audience with an active cookie leaving 70% of their audience untouched. This gap is attributed to the fact that 50% of consumers block cookies, and nearly all mobile devices do not except cookies.
With Smart Zones, retailers can overcome these challenges through: