by The tool provides retailers with detailed consumer information and helps them automatically market to shoppers using email, online ads, and more.
R&A Marketing has launched Growth Suite, a new platform that allows retailers to track and gather customer data based on their location.
When you search for a chain restaurant from your phone, you’re often asked to allow the site to see your location so the company can better serve you. And Growth Suite works in a similar way.
R&A Marketing puts a tag on their retailer clients’ websites that asks the consumer if the site can know their location. When the consumer allows them to know their location, the retailer can then track and gather all of the consumer’s basic data (name, address, etc) and follow the consumer through their shopping journey.
“The best part is, someone who opts in is a consumer who has made the decision that they are ready to buy,” says Kevin Doran, owner and vice president of R&A Marketing. “This is a pure bottom-of-the-funnel customer who has already interacted with your site or your other ads. You’ve done all that work to drive the customer to the site—whether paid or organic—so when you get them to the site you can now interact and engage with them to gather as much information as possible.”
After consumers opt-in to share their location, they can receive direct mail, a targeted email and advertisements like social and display ads. And Growth Suite can track where each lead is coming from to let you know how your advertising is working.
However, the retailer can pick and choose which advertising features they want based on what they feel the need for their particular store.
Doran adds that the company has also introduced Fiona AI to help make Growth Suite more efficient.
Fiona AI uses multiple points of data to make a personalized analysis of a consumer based on what they’re doing on the retailer’s website. Based on what they do on the site, retailers can judge if they’re getting ready to buy in-store or something online, specifically, and give them a title of where they are in the buying decision.
The pricing for Growth Suite is based on the number of households the retailer wants to reach. For targeted emails, display ads, and social ads, R&A Marketing charges a monthly fee, and they can add on a direct mail piece for $1 per piece of mail per household.
R&A has solutions starting at $1,800 per month, and R&A can offer custom solutions for sites with lower traffic.
In addition, Doran says there are no contracts, and there’s a free trial of the platform so retailers can get a clear indication of what type and size of audience Growth Suite will be able to create and reach before signing up.
Right now, R&A Marketing has 15 retailer partners using the platform, and Doran says they see an average opt-in rate of 70-80%. He also adds that most retailers see a five to eight percent lift in sales over a 30-day period.
“Think about this in the way that someone when opts in to receive things from your site, this becomes an autopilot to grow your sales,” Doran says. “Not only can we gather the data, but we can see what type of advertising is working as well.”
There’s an old quote from John Wanamaker that goes, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half,” and Doran says he uses that often to describe Growth Suite, as it can help retailers know where to put their advertising dollars.
“This is a relatively new program for retailers,” Doran says about Growth Suite. “The tech has been around for a while; we’re just using it in a different way. And it’s the closest thing I’ve seen that gives you information about what advertising is working, and more importantly what isn’t”
