Mobile plays a critical role as an influencer in driving in-store traffic. Adidas wanted to find the value of each click on the store locator feature on its mobile site to get a better understanding of how consumers use their handsets to make these purchase decisions.

“One of the main goals for this case study was to highlight the impact of mobile to a brand’s bottom line where one-to-one measurement can be difficult and misleading,” said Kerri Smith, director of mobility at iProspect, Boston.

“It would be easy to look at mobile commerce sales only and say that budget may be better spent elsewhere,” she said. “But once you gain insight to how mobile is influencing conversions across multiple channels, you can see how detrimental ignoring mobile could be.”

Mobile fit
Nowadays brands are realizing that mobile commerce is not just about conversions. Instead, the medium is increasingly being viewed as a part of the overall shopping experience.

Mobile is essentially forcing marketers to redefine what direct response advertising means, per iProspect.

To drive in-store traffic, adidas leveraged its mobile search campaigns with location extensions that drove users to the store locator feature on the shoe brand’s mobile site.

Adidas claims that 13 percent of users who come in-store make a purchase in general. The average order value is $71.

IProspect estimated that one in five consumers – or 20 percent – who visited the store locator page on adidas’ mobile site went into a store. This number represents consumers with a higher intent to shop.

The higher intent therefore was measured as a 20 percent conversion rate for the case study. This is a seven percent increase from the average in-store conversion rate. Additionally, the average order value was increased to $80.

There was a four percent conversion rate from mobile to in-store purchases.

Mobile return
IProspect theorizes that every click on the store locator feature on adidas’ mobile site was worth $3.20, representing a 680 percent increase in incremental ROI.

Before running the test, the only metric that adidas was looking at was direct conversion on its mobile site.

If only a conversion rate is looked at, a $1 million investment equates to a $230,000 ROI, based on adidas’ traditional mobile conversion rates and average order values.

“The goal of the consumer varies across each device and the concept of redefining direct response allows brands to better service the needs of their customers in each ecosystem while understanding the intent behind multiple responses and their ability to influence conversions in multiple ways,” Ms. Smith said.

“For adidas specifically, it recognized that a portion of the customer base was leveraging smartphone devices as a tool to get closer to the product,” she said.

“Leveraging a location-based strategy, it was able to provide a relevant and beneficial experience to the consumer while influencing the ultimate purchasing decision. Consumers that were familiar and comfortable transacting via the phone could do so, while those more comfortable engaging physically with the product could do so as well.”

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York