According to the November Millennial Media’s SMART report, focusing on mobile advertising trends within the Retail & Restaurant industry, during the first six months of 2012 Retail & Restaurant advertisers’ spend grew at an average of 11% a month.
Top 10 Global Brand Advertising Verticals (Q1&Q2, 2012; Ranked by Ad Spend) | |
Rank | Categories |
1 | Telecommunications |
2 | Finance |
3 | Retail & restaurants |
4 | Entertainment |
5 | Automotive |
6 | Education |
7 | Travel |
8 | CPG |
9 | Technology |
10 | Portals & directories |
Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 |
Clothing retailers accounted for 30% of all Retail & Restaurant campaigns in Q1 & Q2 2012, led by department stores that used mobile to drive consumers to their locations and mobile retail websites. Home Products represented 21% of the campaigns studied. Within the sub-vertical, home improvement stores ran mobile campaigns around each season’s home needs. Together, Restaurants and QSR/Fast Food brands represented 16% of the advertiser mix. QSR and Fast Food restaurants, typically owned by franchisees, utilized the location-based targeting abilities of mobile to stay top of mind when users were near one of their locations.
Retail & Restaurants Vertical Mix (1st Half 2012) | |
Subset | % of Spend |
Clothing | 30% |
Home products | 21 |
QSR/Fast food | 11 |
Computers & electronics | 10 |
Online retailers | 9 |
Jewelry | 7 |
Retail stores | 7 |
Restaurants | 5 |
Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 |
Across the vertical, Retail & Restaurant brands leveraged mobile with the goal of driving consumers to their locations, whether in-person or online. Together, Increased Foot Traffic and Site Traffic made up 55% of Retail & Restaurant Advertisers’ Campaign goals in Q1 and Q2 of 2012. The Post-Click Actions that support these Campaign Goals, such as Store Locator, View Map, and m-Commerce, also indexed very high for Retail & Restaurant brands
73% of campaigns with Product Launch/Release goals were Computers & Electronics brands. These advertisers utilized mobile to inform consumers about new technologies and models entering the market. Online retailers most often leveraged mobile to generate sales leads through mobile registrations (57%).
Retail & Restaurant Campaign Goals (% of Top 1500 Campaigns Studied in Q1 & Q2 2012) | |
Goal | % of Campaigns |
Increased foot traffic | 30% |
Site traffic | 17 |
Brand awareness | 16 |
Product launch/release | 11 |
Sustained in-market presence | 11 |
Registrations | 7 |
Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 |
Store Locator, m-Commerce, and View Map all over-indexed for Retail & Restaurant advertisers in the first half of 2012, and were most often delivered to consumers as part of a mobile landing page. Store Locator was the largest, involved in 44% of the post-click campaign action mix. These three actions can all be the results of the largest campaign goal within the Retail & Restaurants vertical, driving customers into stores and onto retail websites to make purchases.
In addition to Store Locator, mCommerce, and View Map, the other post-click campaign action that over-indexed compared to all advertisers was Retail Promotion, accounting for 30% of the post-click campaign action mix. By engaging with mobile users around a store location, and providing them with a coupon, discount, or other sales incentives, advertisers were aiming to keep their brands top of mind with shoppers and drive increased traffic to their stores, says the report.
Post Click Campaign Action Mix | ||
Activity | Retail & Restaurant Advertisers | All Advertisers |
Application download (mobile only) | 8% | 40% |
mCommerce (mobile only) | 36 | 8 |
Mobile social media (mobile only) | 30 | 17 |
Place call | 9 | 10 |
Registrations | 33 | 29 |
Retail Promotion | 30 | 16 |
Site search | 40 | 21 |
Store locator | 44 | 19 |
Catch video | 13 | 16 |
View map | 18 | 6 |
Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 |
Some of the top performing audiences in the Retail & Restaurant Vertical in Q1 & Q2 included Fashionistas, In-Market Auto Intenders, Foodies, and Movie Buffs. Business & Finance Enthusiasts was also a top performing audience on the Millennial Media platform for the Retail & Restaurant Vertical.
61% of Retail & Restaurant advertisers on the Millennial Media platform utilized a form of location-based targeting in their campaigns in the first six months of 2012. Of these campaigns, 60% of them were a restaurant brand, including both Fast Food, Casual, and Fine Dining advertisers. Mobile users search for food and dining-out options on the go, whether they are looking to get a quick snack, or try a new restaurant.
Retail and Restaurant Campaigns Leveraging Local Audiences (% of Total) | |
Campaign | % of Audience |
QSR/Fast food | 39% |
Retail stores | 22 |
Restaurants | 21 |
Home products | 7 |
Clothing | 7 |
Computers & electronics | 2 |
Online retailers | 1 |
Jewelry | 1 |
Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 |
For additional information, please access the SMART report here.