What more share of wallet? Find the right marketing combinations

Editor’s note: Anthony Capano is managing director, North America, Rakuten Advertising, New York.

With the back-to-school season right around the corner, marketers are in the thick of their marketing campaigns to attract share of wallet. Marketers might feel the need to hold back their spend with concerns around how inflation affects consumer spending habits or supply chain shortages limiting inventory reliability, but new data (registration required) from Rakuten Advertising shows that is far from the truth.

According to the survey, most parents (41%) have made no changes to their budget or number of items they plan to buy due to inflation. In fact, the next most popular sentiment is that 17% of parents have increased their budget, while planning to reduce the number of times they need to purchase.

This proves that marketers should be capitalizing on this year’s back-to-school season as an opportunity to make up any lost margins from seasons past. There isn’t an easy plug-and-play solution to find that success and win share of wallet as consumer shopping habits and sources of back-to-school inspiration vary widely across the board.

Achieving mass consumer appeal

Data shows that different parents plan on seeking different types of incentives or deals when doing their shopping this year. Twenty-two percent prefer buy-one-get-one offers, 19% prioritize coupons, 17% prioritize discounts and so on. Every preferred incentive seems to be on par with the popularity of others, so marketers need to really diversify their spend to meet consumers on their own terms.

Marketers who only focus on one or two of these incentives will ultimately fall short, as they’re leaving a significant majority of other preferred options off the table. By approaching this back-to-school shopping season with a dynamic affiliate strategy, marketers can give consumers different rewards incentives to meet their individual preferences. A majority (68%) of shoppers this year will often or always seek out some sort of incentive when making a purchase decision, so it’s a vital component of back-to-school success.

Affiliate marketing and diversifying spend

Affiliate is undoubtedly going to be an important part of back-to-school success. Consumers don’t want to be sold to, and instead want to find out about new products, great deals and other shopping inspiration on their own terms. Affiliate marketing is great at delivering those sponsored messages and product links in a way that is noninvasive and organic. It’s important for marketers to diversify their spend across many different publisher types to stay top-of-mind for consumers.

Investing in strategies that span across different platforms and digital touchpoints will ensure that these wide range of offers that appeal to the masses are actually reaching the masses. Data shows that shoppers are going to be looking for back-to-school shopping inspiration in many different places. Some will look on retailer websites (38%), others will look for online ads (34%). Similar to how shoppers don’t have a single preferred incentive, preferences around publisher types vary across the board as well. 

Ensuring that one channel isn’t the be-all-end-all for a retailer is not only going to get in front of more eyeballs, but also will drive more performance. 

Earning and maintaining consumer loyalty

To summarize the findings of the report, marketers are in a unique position to get creative with their marketing spend and find unique and engaging ways to reach back-to-school shoppers. Because there isn’t a single solution that stands out, it will be interesting to see which marketers are able to find the right combinations that tick the right boxes, for the right consumers. 

Consumers are going to be spending this year, and marketers who dive in headfirst and get creative with their content and distribution will find themselves winning that share of wallet. And as we all know now with the evolution of the retail sales calendar, each of these shopping seasons are becoming more and more important at winning loyalty in the long term. The back-to-school shopping season provides retailers with a great opportunity to get a head start on their margins, earning and maintaining loyalty that will translate into success that leads into the busy holiday season