How brands can meet omnichannel grocery shoppers, wherever they are

February 17, 2022 | By William Donovan, Sr. Industry Marketing Manager, Grocery

Consumer shopping behaviors have shifted significantly over the past couple years, including when it comes to groceries. While the channel for purchasing groceries has historically been in-store, more consumers are turning to online shopping than ever before. In fact, 61% of consumers shop for groceries online more now than they did prior to the pandemic.1

No matter where grocery customers choose to shop, Amazon Ads can help connect them with brands and products across the purchase journey.

“Through Amazon’s unique grocery channels, including Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh stores, we are hyper-focused on providing great customer experiences for advertisers and shoppers alike,” said Ru Vallury, Sr Manager, Grocery, at Amazon Ads. “Whether consumers prefer the convenience of online retail or would rather pick out their own produce at a physical store, Amazon Ads is committed to helping brands understand these omnichannel shopping behaviors and effectively connect with the most relevant audiences.”

Here are 3 tips on how Amazon Ads can help grocery brands connect with omnichannel grocery audiences and measure campaign success.

1. Provide a seamless grocery shopping experience online and in-store.

According to a 2021 Kantar study, grocery shoppers typically research products for 8 to 9 days, consider 2 to 3 products and purchase 1.2 This customer journey presents multiple opportunities for grocery advertisers to reach audiences with their brand story and play a role in the decision-making process. Because 95% of consumers grocery shop both online and in-store,3 it’s important for brands to implement marketing strategies that enable a seamless omnichannel shopping experience.

How Amazon Ads can help:

Marketers can leverage Stores to introduce their brand story, mission and products to audiences online. We’ve found that Stores with 3+ pages on average lead to 83% higher shopper dwell time and 32% higher attributed sales per visitor.4 Additionally, Stores that have been updated within the past 90 days on average have 21% more repeat visitors and 35% higher attributed sales per visitor.5 With these best practices in mind, brands can help shoppers utilize this feature as they move from product discovery to purchase―regardless of whether they ultimately decide to buy their groceries online or in a physical store.

2. Implement a connected home strategy.

In a recent study Amazon Ads conducted with Ipsos across 3,000 Americans ages 18-64, 64% of respondents reported that they use a smart media device (i.e. smart TVs, smart speakers, smart displays, and streaming devices) at least once per month.6 When it comes to grocery shopping, connected consumers use their smart devices across the purchase journey to create shopping lists, redeem coupons, learn about brands and read product reviews.7 Therefore, grocery brands should consider using a connected home strategy to engage these audiences.

How Amazon Ads can help:

Amazon Ads offers brands multiple solutions to engage with connected home audiences. For example, brands can engage smart speaker users through Amazon audio ads across Amazon Music’s ad-supported tier. Additionally, brands can engage streaming audiences at scale with Amazon Streaming TV ads. This is an especially effective solution being as, according to a Kantar survey, grocery shoppers that are connected through a screen spend half their time watching TV via streaming services.8

3. Measure the success of your omnichannel campaigns.

When grocery brands are actively marketing and selling across an ever-growing number of channels, it’s important to leverage robust measurement to understand campaign performance. That way, advertisers can adjust and optimize to ensure they’re getting the most out of their investments.

How Amazon Ads can help:

Amazon Ads offers a suite of first- and third-party measurement solutions that provide brands with deeper insights around brand discovery, purchase propensity and loyalty, as well as metrics like brand reach, brand lift and sales. These metrics help advertisers understand campaign performance across the full funnel, both online and offline. For example, Whole-Foods Market in-store attribution allows advertisers to view overall campaign performance and effectiveness to understand online and in-store impact.

This is just the beginning for grocery at Amazon Ads. We’re committed to continue connecting the shopping experience across online grocery delivery/pickup and physical stores to help brands meet shoppers wherever they are, whether they shop in-store, online or both.

1, 3, 7 PowerReviews, N=7,916, US, 2021
2 Kantar ShopperScape Study, US, 2021
4-5 Amazon Internal, US, 2020
6 Diving Deep with Connected Consumers, N=3000, Amazon, US, 2021
7-8 Grocery Audience Study, Kantar, US, 2020