Unlike TV, not all Channels are
Digital!
Making the Clickless Clickable
When we try to track the performance of
a business with a digital presence, we tend to look at the purely
digital side of analytics. This is an obvious choice as activity on a
website, mobile app, social media forum, etc., is inherently digital.
This certainly lends itself to analysis systems. When we speak of
multi-channel analytics, the tendency is again to lean toward the
digitally available channels.
We should try not to overlook the
other, more organic or old-school channels that lead to a conversion.
Let’s face it, a business (like sales, for example) is primarily
concerned with serving the customer and getting a conversion (in this
example, a sale). As long as the sale occurs, the business is happy.
Whether it occurs on the web, by phone from a catalog, by phone from
the website or in a store, the business is going to be happy. It has
to be remembered that the business wants more than the sale, though,
they want to know what led to the sale (so they can keep on doing it!).
We've all seen ads in papers,
magazines, billboards or on television which tell us to “Say you
heard about it here!” This is certainly one way in which businesses
seek to track the effectiveness of what I will refer to as clickless advertising Certainly this is somewhat effective, but it requires
full participation of both customer and store clerk. Participation
can be encouraged on both fronts by the use of coded coupons. If the
customer uses a coupon with a code, the coupon must be used to get
the discount. The code is entered on the cashier's terminal and the
discount is applied. The system can now track a few things based on
this interaction. If the code was unique to the source, you have the
specific advertisement that led to the sale, you have the location of
the store where the coupon was used and you have the payment type
used by the customer.
The greatest goal (Holy Grail) in this
arena would be to turn clickless advertisements into clicked ones. ISIS is already doing this:
ISIS is only available in certain areas
and on some phones at this time so, for now, it is a limited
resource. On the other hand, most of us carry phones and more and
more of these are smartphones. The QR code is a perfect solution for
capturing the needed data.
You see an ad in the paper, magazine,
train, theater playbill or even on TV. The add announces that you get
an additional 10% off for scanning the QR code. Scanning the QR gets
you a tracked page (analytics will track the referral source) the
site returns a new QR code to the phone. This code is scanned as a
coupon in the store (tons more data collected). And ISIS / ISIS-Capable smartphone was not even
required!
In conclusion it is unlikely that
clickless advertising will go away any time soon. While businesses
are tracking the effectiveness of their clicked advertising it will
be necessary to track these offline sources in order to continue to
justify their expenditures and assess their continued value in the
marketplace.
Resources:
