Facebook long ago ceased to be a platform for image-building activities. The belief that social media sell, and that the effectiveness of these activities can easily be measured, is becoming increasingly common. However, is it possible to measure the conversion of advertising activities conducted on Facebook into traffic and sales results in brick-and-mortar stores (offline)? Retail Incubator, available in Business Factory and ROI Hunter, is meant to be the answer to these questions.
Retail Incubator is a dedicated program for the Retail industry available within the ROI Hunter tool, the only Facebook Marketing Partner for the CEE region. The advantage of this program is primarily the ability to check the impact of campaigns conducted on Facebook on both online and offline sales.
'The Retail Incubator program, which we introduced as a Facebook Marketing Partner to the market, is a true Game Changer for the Retail industry. I am glad that we managed to carry out this test with Tchibo precisely on the Polish market. It shows marketers that spending on online activities also has a significant impact on purchases in the traditional channel, and that - most importantly - all of this is finally precisely measurable' recalls Agnieszka Chabrzyk, Business Factory & ROI Hunter, Country Director Poland.
Retail Incubator consists of several stages of operation. The first is launching a campaign on Facebook (e.g. remarketing activities using DPA, their optimization for ROI, etc.). In the next stage of advanced remarketing activities, a range of narratives and creatives are tested for individual target groups. Then the program participants move on to integrating offline transaction data. Thanks to the analysis of comprehensive offline and online data, campaigns can continue to be run that navigate customers to visit the nearest store and precisely measure the results. After the campaign, it is known which people exposed to which Facebook activities made a purchase not only online, but also which of them visited brick-and-mortar stores and made a transaction there.
One of the first brands to decide on the Retail Incubator program is Tchibo. The brand wanted to check whether it is possible to improve the effectiveness of sales campaigns on Facebook - and how these activities, in addition to optimizing online conversion results, affect offline traffic and conversions, i.e. in brick-and-mortar stores. The Tchibo brand opted for a comprehensive approach and demonstrating that online spending also translates into offline sales - thanks to data integration, it measured the impact of Facebook activities on all sales parameters.
The result is a very high return on investment: ROAS from the online campaign: 3.5!, and ROAS from the 'store visits' campaign and offline purchases at as much as 4.9!.
ROAS — Return on Ad Spend. A measure of the effectiveness of paid advertising expressing the revenue attributed to ads in relation to media spend. Unlike ROI, it usually does not take into account all operating costs.
Why it matters: It states directly whether advertising pays for itself: campaign revenue versus the spend on it. A simple, quick indicator for ongoing budget management.
When it is used: In e-commerce and performance: ongoing campaign optimization and comparison of sales channels.
What omitting it risks: Without return on ad spend, campaigns are evaluated by clicks and reach — you can fund advertising that loses money for years.
Retail Incubator is a program for the Retail industry available in the ROI Hunter tool, which allows precise measurement of the impact of Facebook campaigns on both online sales and sales in brick-and-mortar stores. The first test of the program was Tchibo's campaign on the Polish market.
Thanks to the integration of offline and online data, the brand achieved a high return on investment: ROAS of 3.5 for the online campaign and 4.9 for campaigns leading to offline purchases. This is proof that spending in social media also translates into the traditional sales channel.
