Recognizing that your online traffic creates offline traffic, and how to manage advertising costs in the process.

Here is an interesting, though a bit brief article on US customers and online shopping.  This should not surprise too many small businesses: According to eCommerce Journal, 83% of US customers shop online weekly.  What should interest analytic-minded businesses is the following detail:

• 44% of consumers reported that they research electronics online, but ultimately purchase electronics at a store, 30% do so with kitchen items, 28% with media and 28% prefer to research furniture online and buy it in the store.

This implies that..

• A well planned website is necessary not only for an online presence, but it drives interest for offline sales.
• Consumer behavior online should not necessarily be treated separately from the offline retail resources.
• Store owners must take time to appreciate how customer work their way to making a purchase.

To the second bullet point, analytics can become an essential tool for discovering how customers are referred.  For example a store can offer an in-store coupon online on a landing page tagged with Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics, or another solution that offers a Map Overlay feature. While customers would come to a store to redeem, a business owner can use the Map Overlay feature to see where customers geographically viewed the landing page.  This information can help determine regions where more or less advertising would be needed, adjusting costs and resources.

One caveat: A Map Overlay is generally useful from town to town comparisons, not within a New York City borough (from Park Slope to Crown Heights, for example).  But a map overlay combined with a coupon indicates that an analytics tool with some planning can help analyze marketing cost and serve offers where they will be seen the most.