How CPG Brands and Retailers Can Predict In-Store Sales With Shopping List Marketing

Wouldn't it be great if, as a brand or retailer, you could see the exact products shoppers will purchase before they actually buy them? In lieu of a crystal ball, brands and retailers have searched through many technology options, and digital shopping lists have risen to the top of their core resources.

According to a Field Agent survey, 48 percent of all consumers use apps to keep their shopping list. This number is growing rapidly as consumers turn to these digitals tools to plan out their next shopping list.

Mobile shopping lists are accurate predictors of future in-store sales, presenting a huge opportunity for retailers and brands to get a real-time read on consumer purchase activity before they enter the store. Let’s look at what shopping list marketing is and four ways retailers and CPG brands can take advantage of these key shopping list marketing insights.

What is Shopping List Marketing?

Shopping list marketing is a strategy to reach consumers during critical grocery shopping moments by targeting mobile consumers while they're making decisions about what to buy on their next grocery trip. With 49 percent of shoppers now using a digital grocery list (and growing), the method has become an essential part of any digital strategy.

Shopping list marketing uses digital technology to find a consumer engaged in a product category and then serve them ads, enabling them to add promoted products directly to their preferred mobile shopping list or cart, often when they're planning their next shopping trip. To make the most out of this approach, retailers and brands should do the following:

1. Understand Real-Time Consumer Behavior

Sales data can take days or even weeks before brands and retailers can get an accurate view on purchase behavior or trends. By then, it’s often too late to adjust prices and promotions accordingly. This is especially challenging when introducing a new product or determining the sales on complementary products.

The good news is that shopping lists or shopping list marketing provides retailers and CPGs an opportunity to see what grocery shoppers add in real time, with insights into what products and brands are getting added to consumers’ lists or carts. As a result, grocery lists have become a valuable source of consumer behavioral data before they even enter the store. They also reveal key insights on things like shoppers’ brand preferences, basket size, trending product categories, and product adjacencies.

2. Inform Your Marketing Strategy

With this data, advertisers can see how a specific brand is doing and how that brand compares to broader category trends. Because there's a direct correlation between the products added to shopping lists and the products sold in-store, brands can see which specific products within a category a shopper plans to buy before sales data is even available.

For example, one bean brand launched a shopping list marketing campaign to get more shoppers to add its product to their shopping list. It became clear that not only did more shoppers add the brand to their list, but that the category also grew, driving incremental category sales. The brand was able to use this information to plan ad campaigns, guide its content strategy, and align creative with consumer behavior.

By understanding real-time consumer pre-shop behavior, retailers and CPG brands can develop smarter, more targeted marketing strategies and have greater flexibility to make decisions regarding ad spend and promotion.

3. See Performance of Your Competitors

Shopping lists reveal key insights on how retailers and CPGs can outperform their competition. While competitive brands won’t give up sales numbers for obvious reasons, CPGs can use list behavior to evaluate how they’re performing among shoppers. Equipped with this data, brands can collect deep insights on how their competitors are doing and stay one step ahead of the competition.

4. Predict Future Consumer Shopping Habits

As we learned during the onset of the pandemic, no one can predict the future. CPGs and their measurement partners saw unexpected demand for items like toilet paper skyrocket last year while sales for skincare and makeup declined. Fast-forward into 2021 and it’s apparent that what worked one year may not apply to the next.

This is especially true at a time when consumer behavior and preferences are constantly changing. For example, AdAdapted’s latest Q2 index shows jalapeños and fresh cilantro as the fastest-growing categories in grocery list building, indicating that there’s a renewed focus on fresh ingredients for summer parties.

Retailers and CPGs can turn to shopping list data to help predict how consumer shopping habits change over time. Before a trend even happens, shopping list data reveals what consumers are intending to buy on a daily basis. This allows brands the flexibility to adjust to meet the demands of an ever-changing landscape.

Harness the Power of Digital Shopping Lists

Shopping lists provide insightful data that can be utilized to predict in-store sales, evaluate current trends, and predict future category performance. Retailers and brands can also get a real-time read on consumer purchase intent, as well as capitalize on category and product demands.

By harnessing the power of shopping lists, businesses are equipped to understand the market, leverage predictive data, build the right strategies, and outperform their competitors.

Mike Pedersen is the co-founder and CEO of AdAdapted, a mobile add-to-list advertising solution for CPG brands and retailers, influencing pre-shop and planning.