As mobile receipts-based promotions begin to mature, early adopters are taking the strategy to the next level by integrating with their loyalty initiatives and using it to measure the return on investment for different media channels. 

Walmart’s receipts push continues to draw the attention of big brands interested in leveraging the convenience of mobile and the retailer’s large customer to drive engagement and collect important shopper data.  These promotions as well as others from Sunoco and Healthy Choice all leverage the Snipp Interactive platform, with a number of these marketers repeat customers for Snipp, suggesting that mobile-based receipt promotions are proving effective.

“Brands are seeing the success of receipt-based promotions and are now building receipt validation into longer term loyalty initiatives,” said David Hargreaves, chief client officer at Snipp.

“Brands are also starting to use receipt-based promotions as a mechanism to measure the performance of media spend across different channels,” he said. “By using a different keyword across print, TV, online, social, etc. brands can use the resulting purchase sample to measure the ROI on different media channels.”

Mobile shopping
L’Oreal is rewarding its customers with a $5 egift card from Walmart, using the SnippCheck platform.

Consumers who purchase $20 or more of any of the qualifying products from any Walmart can text LOREAL to 811811 to get instructions. Customers then take a picture of their receipt, email it to [email protected] or upload it at http://lorealwalmartgift.com or send it via MMS.

Italian foods brand Barilla kicked off a new promotion in January enabling customers who purchase four products to send an image of their receipt via text or email or to upload it on the Web. Participants can then register to receive an ecookbook with recipes from the brand’s Olympic and World Cup spokesperson Mikaela Shiffrin.

Participants must indicate the type of table they would like to receive their ecookbook on, which is sent in the form of an iBook or PDF. Customers can earn one reward per month through March.

The promotion is running through InMarketing at Walmart, featuring unique email and keyword to track performance.

A Barilla-specific keyword and email are also tied to the promotion as the brand looks to drive incremental basket size at all retailers nationwide.

Consumers catch on
Since last spring, Walmart has been focused on integrating its customers’ use of smartphones with digital receipts to provide extra value.

In addition to running a number of brand-based promotions such as those from L’Oreal and Barilla, the retailer also introduced the Savings Catcher feature on its app, enabling users to scan a receipt and automatically check if nearby retailers are offering a lower price on purchased items. When the app finds a lower price, customers automatically receive an egift card in the amount of the price difference.

Marketers are gravitating toward receipts-based mobile promotions for several reasons.

“Adoption rates are almost eight to 10 times what they were 12 months ago,” Mr. Hargreaves said.

“Brands are consistently seeing the value of the data they can get from the sample: basket size, retailers, share of basket, competitor products as well as using the data to benchmark effectiveness of media spend on different channels,” he said.

CPG jumps on board
Other marketers are also embracing the potential of receipts-based promotions.

For example, Sunoco gas stations are giving customers a 30 percent discount on ski lift tickets at Killington Resort to those who fill up twice and send in a picture of their receipt.

ConAgra Foods’ Healthy Choice brand is integrating a receipts-based mobile promotion with its loyalty program offering customers beauty, fitness and wellness rewards when they purchase four of the brand’s products in a single transaction and send in their receipt.  Consumers can then choose from multiple rewards such as nutrition counseling, yoga classes or roller-skating.

“Across all our programs, which are heavily CPG, the demographic skews 80 percent female but skews sharply towards men for example for Nascar promos or BBQ promos we have done,” Mr. Hargreaves said.

“Forty eight percent of our programs have over 50 percent of the basket as qualifying purchases,” he said. “Forty percent use MMS as the method of participation when there is an option.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York