Dive Brief:

• Retale, provider of location-based mobile shopping apps, announced Retale Store Traffic Guarantee, promising retailers using its platform for localized ad sharing and coupon offers that they will see an increase in foot traffic into their stores during an ad or coupon promotion period.

• Retale has partnered with third-party attribution provider Placed to ensure verification of its performance: Placed will measure campaign success by using its direct measurement capabilities against 60 billion first-party locations to connect Retale’s in-app campaign exposure to real-world behavior, Retale said in a press release. This will verify the impact of localized ads and coupons on in-store visits.

• Retale (whose clients cover more than 1.4 million store locations globally) also said that if the threshold for in-store foot traffic is not met, it will offer a guarantee to meet campaign performance parameters.

Dive Insight:

Retale is believed to be the first mobile app developer in the sector to offer this sort of guarantee, though similar guarantees or offers to prove performance are nothing new generally-speaking, as marketers across numerous industries increasingly want to see proof their marketing dollars are working effectively for them.

“Across the industry, we are seeing growing demand among advertisers for greater transparency and accountability from their media partners,” Nels Stromborg, EVP of Retale, said in a statement. “In-store traffic is one of the top KPIs that retailers and brands look to when measuring the success of a platform and their media choices. We believe that our partners are right to demand media visibility and accountability which drives core business metrics."

Retale works with retailers such as J.C. Penney, Target, Rite Aid, Macy’s and Meijer, among others on its list of 5,200 retailer customers. The success of its ad and coupon campaigns traditionally has been based on simply getting consumers to engage with its content on some level, so issuing a guarantee to drive foot traffic into stores ups the stakes — and the risk — considerably for Retale. 

However, the stakes are already high for retailers that are aware shoppers are leveraging mobile more during aspects of the shopping journey, but are still unsure of how to turn mobile engagement into a store visit, or better yet, a completed purchase in-store. A few years ago, a commitment to a mobile advertising campaign by a retailer was a little like making a wish that somehow consumers would connect the dots and eventually make a point to seek out that retailer. Now, retailers are expecting more. Just the hope of engagement on some level is no longer enough.