The challenge
The chain spent steadily on awareness marketing but could not see its effect on existing customers.
Grocery is a functional trip, so few believed marketing could raise visit frequency among casual shoppers.
The team also wanted in-store visits measured separately from online orders.
The solution
1. Guest WiFi: Build visit histories from in-store WiFi
Adentro (then Zenreach) ran on the chain's in-store guest WiFi. Guest WiFi and Customer Data built visit histories that showed who came in and how often.
2. Audience Segmentation: Define casual shoppers and a control group
Audience Segmentation isolated casual shoppers, defined as 1 or 2 visits in the past 60 days.
That audience was split into an exposed group and a matched control that saw no ads.
3. Retargeting: Switch to time-sensitive creative
The first phase used recipe and brand awareness creative from prospecting campaigns. Adentro then recommended a second phase built on limited time promotions, sales and local events.
Differences between the exposed and control groups appeared soon after the new creative launched.
4. Walk-Through Rate™: Compare exposed shoppers against the holdout
Walk-Through Rate™ used deterministic attribution to match ad-exposed shoppers to in-store visits, recording 2,700+ unique customer walk-throughs.
Comparing the exposed group against the unexposed control isolated lift. Only this controlled comparison supports the lift figures.
The results
- $175K+ incremental sales, over three weeks, measured against a holdout control
- 10% visit lift, among customers who shopped twice in the prior 60 days
- 6% casual shopper lift, visit lift among casual shoppers
- 2,700+ unique customer walk-throughs
Following the test, the chain refocused future marketing spend on the measured incremental results.