LONDON, UK, 23rd June 2014: Rakuten Marketing’s display arm, Rakuten MediaForge, today reveals that it takes the average consumer 233 hours, nearly 10 days, to purchase a product online after initially being targeted by an ad.
These new insights into display advertising and re-targeting patterns are based on its portfolio of high street and emerging retail brands in the UK. The new data shows how much the time to sale differs across sectors, with fashion being the most considered purchase at 282 hours and travel buys surprisingly the least, at 176 hours.
A proportion of shoppers however, do buy immediately after being retargeted with an ad. 14.4% of sales across the travel sector are made straightaway, compared to 8.3% of fashion purchases and 11.7% of luxury fashion buys; suggesting that luxury shoppers are more impulsive than high street customers. Typically, the shopping journey will involve 2 to 3 engagements with the brand’s ad before a product is purchased.
In addition, Rakuten MediaForge has found globally, that people who engage with an interactive banner return, and convert up to 44% faster than those who click. The metric of ‘engagement’ measures beyond a click, tracking the interaction between the consumer and an ad. It captures actions from scrolling, hovering or even watching a video within an ad. The shopping journey transcends over PC, mobile and tablet for all sectors.
While desktop is the device where the final purchase is most likely to happen, tablet devices are likely to drive around 10% of sales, particularly across luxury fashion, travel and children’s products. Children’s products, for example, was the category that involved the fewest engagements to purchase and with the highest volume of purchases made on tablet devices, as busy parents have less time to browse.
Rakhee Jogia, Director of Display at Rakuten Marketing, comments: “Customers are making increasingly considered shopping decisions. Brands therefore need careful planning to target consumers even more effectively, truly taking advantage of each engagement and reducing the delay to purchase. With sales taking place across numerous channels, over a number of days, it’s become ever more challenging for brands to keep the interest of distracted consumers. With the help of data insights and more creative placements, brands can deliver display campaigns that increase conversion levels.”
About Rakuten Marketing: Rakuten Marketing provides advertisers and marketers with expert technology and services for affiliate marketing, retargeting, display, mobile, omni-channel attribution, search marketing, lead generation, and automated product feeds. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and throughout the United States. As part of Rakuten, one of the world’s leading Internet service companies, Rakuten Marketing includes Rakuten LinkShare the #1 ranked performance marketing network, Rakuten MediaForge, a leader in retargeting and display recognised for its pay-for-performance consumer engagement business model, Rakuten Search a full service search engine marketing company, and Rakuten PopShops, a data analytics engine and product feed and deals content aggregator.
Contacts: Megan Mason Hotwire Megan.mason@hotwirepr.com 020 7608 4670
