The retail landscape, to which Nectar is intrinsically linked, is shifting all the time, but the pace of digital change has accelerated over recent years. For example, Sainsbury’s online groceries business has grown significantly in the last 24 months, and 70% of Argos sales now originate online. In addition, Nectar now has over 10 million users registered to the Nectar app.
At Nectar360, Nectar’s B2B offering, we've been harnessing the first-party data that comes with this growing digital reach on the privacy-first web. The aim of our Digital Trading Platform is to use first-party customer insights collected from a Nectar card swipe or scan in store to help our 700+ clients (Sainsbury’s FMCG suppliers and Nectar partners) connect with relevant customers digitally — and help close the measurement and attribution loop between online advertising and in-store sales.
Using first-party data to close the measurement loop
We are focused on helping clients in four areas: brand awareness, customer acquisition, increased sales, and new product launch. Nectar’s data enables advertising investments to be truly accountable, linking campaigns to actual shopping transactions both online and in-store.
And in instances where a digital ad doesn't lead to an immediate online sale, Nectar360 is still able to measure the impact of online advertising and those customers buying in-store with the help of Google technology.
Most fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) businesses have limited first-party data, because a large proportion of their products are purchased through retailers. Having access to customer insight through Nectar360 has helped brands connect the dots, engaging customers with relevant products based on their actual buying behaviour.
Nectar360’s’ Digital Trading Platform is underpinned by the Google Marketing Platform (GMP), which enables both targeting and closed loop measurement for Nectar360’s FMCG brands based on Nectar360’s invaluable first- party sales data.
Adding real-time insights on which creative and what audience segments are performing best makes Nectar360’s approach a powerful and effective way for our client brands to spend their media investment.
Through our Digital Trading Platform, and its extensive first-party data, campaigns and audiences can be created (in both an anonymised and aggregated privacy safe way), meaning that clients can create a clear view of customer behaviours and the ability to reach valuable future customers whilst retaining their existing customers.
Nectar360 can also see if a customer has lapsed, and their recency of buying a product, and then work to re-engage these customers, and importantly, measure the impact across selected audiences.
Serving customers relevant ads
Google Marketing Platform technologies enable Nectar360 to combine anonymised data of in-store and online sales with audience and performance insights. This helps Nectar360 to deliver more relevant ads for its client’s brands across both YouTube and the wider web (via the Google Display Network). For example, with Sainsbury’s, ads may or may not be co-branded, but they all link back to the Sainsbury's Groceries Online site, with the product readily available for customers to buy.
A good example of the power of the Nectar360 data is when a client might come to us with customer behaviour brand profiles based on their own qualitative research. From there campaigns can be built by using bespoke audiences based on actual customer behaviour or by building lookalike audiences which can be further enriched by intent signals from Google as appropriate.
Nectar360 is then able to optimise campaigns in-flight based upon real time measurement, to make sure budget is being used as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, real-time insights on which creative and what audience is performing best ensures that media spend is as efficient as possible in driving measurable sales outcomes.
Finding new customers
The Digital Trading Platform can also be used to find and attract new customers for brands. For example, a leading household brand wanted to reach new customers whilst inspiring existing customers to the wider brand for their new pet food product. With the majority of pet food sales typically happening offline and in-store, measuring the effectiveness of online advertising has traditionally been difficult.
Nectar360 used offline and online sales data to inform the creation of pet owner and pet food shopper audiences. Performance of these segments was then optimised during campaign flighting using real-time sales data. The result was a 30% conversion rate, compared to a 3% to 5% norm.
A similar successful partnership with Nectar360 was a large laundry detergent brand. We were able to assess the value of different audience segments for the client’s product by monitoring daily offline sales data. By switching off campaign delivery against under-performing audience segments, Nectar360 saw a conversion lift from 1.9% to 5.9% in the second wave of the campaign.
Using the Google Marketing Platform, Nectar360 now has a unique ability to both target relevant digital advertising based on actual customer sales behaviour, find new customers, and critically measure advertising performance (in terms of incremental sales).
