On average, Americans check their phones 144 times per day and spend 4.5 hours staring at their screens. Throughout that time, they’re bombarded with digital advertisements at every turn. The increase in time spent on a smartphone — up 30% from last year, according to reviews.org — might seem like it would provide an opportunity for digital marketers to reach more customers more frequently. In reality, though, the volume of ads simply creates noise, with most people overwhelmed and prone to increasingly ignore online ads that don’t speak to them, including who they are and why they shop — what motivates consumer behaviour?
Cutting through this cacophony to truly connect with, and provide value for, a target audience is difficult, but InMarket, a real-time marketing and measurement platform, including deep insights and analytics, can help uncover these key consumer motivators and help generate click-through rates that create six times higher engagement than the industry average.
“The investments we’re making in intent, visitation, and commerce data along with [artificial intelligence] are evolving our company to help brands better sense and respond to consumers’ needs in real time, including what motivates them — why they shop,” says Michael Della Penna, the company’s chief strategy officer.
“There’s old-school marketing and there’s the InMarket way of marketing. We go beyond the ‘who,’ which is the traditional approach to marketing: You build segments and you try to acquire new customers. We help clients find out the ‘why’: why those customers are shopping — what motivates them?”
Leveraging a combination of data, predictive AI, real-time analytics, and strategic in-store activation, the company is helping brands gain a deeper understanding of their target audiences and create hyper-relevant, personalized campaigns that break through the clutter.
Uncovering the Why of Consumer Behaviour
InMarket says it sees what seems to be an ever-expanding amount of data — demographic, psychographic, visitation, commerce, and campaign data, to name just a few. It’s not unusual to have thousands of attributes tied to any given consumer. Traditional approaches to advertising leverage the who — for example, let’s target individuals 21 to 44 years old with incomes of $75,000 to $150,000 who buy dairy and shop at Whole Foods.
Finding the why goes beyond these traditional “who” approaches to connect with target consumers based on their why: What motivates them? Is the consumer a healthy, wealthy shopper or focused on finding value and easily influenced by brand or private label alternatives on sale? Or are they loyal and motivated by health-consciousness, influenced by ingredient composition and health benefits? Mining this data, including leveraging AI predictive categories tracking actual purchase data and brand loyalty, allows brands and marketers to go beyond the who to connect with these consumers at a deeper level.
Tapping into this trove of first-party data and applying advanced machine learning, InMarket can identify buying patterns, predict purchasing intent, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences that connect with these consumers and drive real results. This includes creating subsegments and personalized approaches to these subsegments that include alternative creative, offers, and copy to better connect with consumers at these deeper emotional levels.
“We’re changing the dynamic of marketing,” says Della Penna. “We can understand not only the who, but why customers shop and when and where to best reach them, why they’re in the market for a product or service.”
InMarket’s ability to pinpoint these motivating factors, along with connecting with consumers in real time, has yielded eye-catching, market-leading results for clients. In a recent report, the company highlighted several campaigns that shattered industry benchmarks, with click-through rates reaching as high as 9.55%, over 15 times the typical average. These wins spanned diverse verticals, from consumer packaged goods for companies like Michelob ULTRA, Welch’s, and Kraft Heinz, to quick-service restaurants like Dunkin’, Wendy’s, and Frisch’s Big Boy, to showcase the power of understanding the why and leveraging real-time marketing and measurement capabilities to connect with these consumers when and where it matters most: while they’re shopping.
Covering the Whole Funnel
InMarket’s key differentiator, according to Della Penna, is its unique ability to understand the why along with the integration of top-of-the-funnel strategies and bottom-of-the-funnel activation. The company uses predictive AI to identify potential customers at the top of the funnel, then it can serve them relevant, targeted ads in the days or hours leading up to a shopping trip, priming the pump to drive higher engagement when those consumers are actually in-store and ready to make a purchase.
The Moments campaigns have consistently outperformed traditional digital advertising approaches, boasting six times higher click-through rates compared to industry benchmarks and a 95% WPP viewability score.
And InMarket’s impact extends beyond just driving short-term sales spikes. With a focus on understanding the “why, when, and where” of consumer behaviour, InMarket is empowering brands to craft long-lasting, meaningful relationships with their target audiences. It’s a strategy Della Penna believes will be crucial in an increasingly crowded and competitive landscape.
“No one really has the from discovery-to-purchase or from planning-to-purchase solutions that we offer in the market — that’s a big differentiator for us,” he says.