How Brands are driving actual in-store sales with Facebook Ads

The ability to directly link marketing inputs to in-store sales has long been the Holy Grail for traditional marketers. The brands that are keeping pace with consumers have successfully been able to tap into Facebook's reach, efficacy and powerful targeting tools to establish a seamless link between Facebook advertising and direct offline retail sales.

Brands across categories are using Facebook not just to create awareness but also to convert people at multiple stages of their purchase journey, right down to the final purchase in-store. Whether it’s a men’s skincare brand like Garnier, a women’s jewelry brand like Tanishq, several brands have bridged the online-offline divide to make a significant—and proven—impact on retail footfall and sales. Read on to find out how they did it.

Building brand & driving sales on Facebook
Taking a multi-screen approach to driving sales, Veet used Facebook to bolster its TV ads and strengthen its campaign with the aim of encouraging women to buy its hair removal cream. The brand partnered with creative agency iContract and Facebook’s Creative Shop to devise an integrated campaign and adapt its existing TV ad into snappier video ads. To ramp things up, it powered the ads with reach and frequency buying to reach 18- to 55-year old women in India on a massive scale. This robust multi-screen strategy made an impact on Veet’s target audience, resulting in 11%1 incremental lift in in-store sales in a market where Facebook ads were implemented vs. a market where they were not. Learn more about Reach and Frequency buying.

Garnier's skincare brand found that in-store sales for its acne-fighting face wash for men increased after it ran a Facebook-only campaign to measure the impact on sales in a cluster of major and minor markets in India. It used demographic and location targeting to reach men aged 18–34, as well as reach and frequency buying to reliably connect with 60% of its target audience on Facebook. The brand witnessed a 26%2 increase in in-store sales in a large market where they ran the Facebook ads vs. a comparable market without Facebook.

Driving footfall was important for jewelry brand Tanishq, which has 160 stores in 80 cities across India. Most people still like to touch and feel the jewelry before making a final decision but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be enticed into stores using online content. The brand chose to showcase its designs with stunning close-up shots using carousel ads to catch people’s attention. Crucially, it led them to its offline stores by including a “Shop Now” call-to-action button that brought people to its website, where they could get a discount voucher to be redeemed in-store. The incentive paid off, and Tanishq saw a 30% increase in in-store sales among 25- to 44-year olds during its campaign as well as an increase in in-store footfall, as measured by actual sales data from the client. Learn more about driving store traffic with Facebook ads .

Measurement matters
The final but critical piece of the puzzle is measurement. Brands are also discovering useful ways of measuring the impact of online campaigns on the offline/in-store purchases so they can get a fuller picture and assess efficacy of the campaigns. For example, skincare brand Garnier wanted to test whether running ads on Facebook could have a direct impact on in-store sales. The brand teamed up with data insights company Nielsen to compare results across 2 key markets using Matched Market Testing methodology. One market ran the Facebook ads whereas the other did not. After analyzing the results and comparing them with historical sales data, Nielsen was able to show that Facebook Ads had driven 26% higher sales2 in the market targeted with Facebook ads compared to the one that was not.
Veet also teamed up with Nielsen to assess the impact of Facebook campaign on the brand's in-store sales. With the Matched Market Testing methodology, the team was able to prove that there was an incremental sales lift in markets with Facebook ads to the tune of 11% vs. the other market where Facebook ads were not run.

Making the magic happen
Advertising on Facebook can help brands drive real business outcomes like driving in-store sales. The key to driving brand imagery and sales outcomes depends on 3 key interventions:

Tailoring the creative for mobile. Learn more.
Planning for sufficiency in Reach and Frequency on Facebook that leads to incremental Reach and Brand Impact over the TV plan.
Measuring the brand impact. Learn more.

To sum up
Facebook’s creative ad formats like PockeTVC, carousels etc. help brands to tell a story in a unique and impactful manner. Some of our unique ad products dynamic ads, lead ads etc. help brands convert users across the funnel and drive final sales or purchases. Facebook helps brand reach the right set of target audience covering demographic interest & behavior segments. It is really not that hard to drive in-store sales by leveraging the power of Facebook. Many brands have done it; you can too!

By Sandeep Bhushan, Business Head—CPG, Tech and Media, Facebook India and South Asia