no conversion left behind: why national brands are shifting dollars to local

No ConversionLeft Behind

A Report

404 South 8th Street

Boise, ID 83702

www.balihoo.com1.844.BALIHOO

Why National Brands are Shifting Dollars to Local

It’s expected that businesses are going to spend $15 billion per

year on mobile, location-based advertising by 2018. While smaller

businesses are expected to increase their local marketing budget

by 8% from 2013 to 2018, it’s national brands that are making the

biggest shift to local with an estimated 37% increase from 2013

to 2018.

It almost seems counter-intuitive for a brand to grow from a small

idea to a powerful enterprise only to focus in on smaller customer

bases in their marketing. But hyper-targeted advertising is becoming

more prevalent among big and small brands alike. Why? Consumers

have come to expect a personalized marketing experience.

Consider the statistics below:

• 66% of people want ads customized to their location. 1

• Only 16% of brands don’t do any store localization at all.2

• In local search, national brands are showing less often than

small business in 4 out of the 5 tested industries.3

• 70% of national brands have invested heavily in local marketing.2

Why National Brands are Shifting Dollars to Local

NO CONVERSION LEFT BEHIND:

As consumers continue to expect personalization and relevancy, local marketing will likely be one of the key factors in determining the success of a brand. Though local marketing requires more resources to implement — especially in the beginning — it’s ultimately what makes advertising more relevant tothe consumer.

By focusing on relevancy to the customer, national brands are able to drive a higher ROI per dollar and are ultimately seeing better results inthe process.

Particularly for enterprise and national brands, local marketing

can require a higher level of problem-solving compared to

generic, national ads. But the payoff for doing so can be huge,

largely because local searchers are often the most likely to

take action.

When an online user conducts a search for a local brand,

product, or service, they are usually doing so because they are

ready to visit the store and make a purchase.

Consumers who conduct a local search — especially on their

phone — are some of the most motivated buyers out there:

• 78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases.4

• Half of all mobile searches are performed in the hopes of

discovering local results and more than 60% of those lead to

a purchase.5

• 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their

smartphone visited a store within a day. 5

• 18% of local searches on smartphones lead to a purchase

within a day (compared to 7% of non-local searches). 5

• 4 in 5 consumers want ads customized to their city, zip code,

or immediate surroundings. 5

Brands that are most effective at local marketing are able to

successfully capture these users’ attention when they’re most

interested, and they provide the user a clear path to becoming

a customer.

What Can Be Gained From Local Marketing?


Extra Space Storage has more than 1,400 facilities nationwide and

Public Storage has more than 2,200 facilities nationwide. They are

the two largest brands in the self storage industry, and they have

each devoted large portions of their budgets to localize

their efforts.

A 2015 study3 compared national brands and small businesses

in Google’s Local Stack across seven industries. In 6 out of the

7 industries, small businesses dominated the Local Stack and

national brands were rarely placed in the top three spots. Self

storage was the industry that bucked the trend thanks to the local

marketing efforts of Extra Space Storage and Public Storage.

Both brands have managed to have:

• Moz Local Scores consistently in the 80s or 90s

• Domain Authority scores consistently near 70

• NAP (name, address, phone number) listed on all major citation

directories

• Positive reviews for each of their locations

These factors allow them to consistently rank well in online

local searches, which is certainly a contributing factor in

their revenue of $782.3 million (Extra Space Storage) and

$2.3 billion (Public Storage).

Example: Big brands Extra Space Storage & Public Storage consistently rank well in their local markets


Extra Space also implements a variety of hyper-targeted

marketing tactics6. They adjust bids and ads across channels based

on the customer’s device, location, and time of day.

Some of their local marketing strategies include:

• Using location-based solutions to show users where the

nearest facility is in the ad, which boosted ROI by 184% and

increased click-through rate by 77%.6

• Targeting mobile users within a given radius of a facility, which

boosted ROI by 269% and increased conversions by 234%.6

According to Scott Jensen, the senior director of interactive

marketing, “Digital marketing allows us to operate on a local,

neighborhood level, considering the needs of individual

communities, yet do things at a much greater scale.”6

Local search marketing can be trickier for enterprise brands with

50 to 1,000 storefronts. But with organic search, social media

advertising, paid local search, and display advertising tactics, big

brands can still dominate local marketing.

Some of these tactics include:

LOCALIZE CREATIVE MARKETING, SEARCH ADS, AND ONLINE LANDING PAGES.

This can be as simple as updating the location based on your target

customer base and as complex as creating separate landing pages

with unique title and meta tags, appropriate Schema, photos,

Google Local Map, and an optimized URL.

AUTOMATE PAID SEARCH CAMPAIGNS ACROSSALL LOCATIONS.

Set individual budgets for each storefront that reflect the market

and your business’ goals. This step will go a long way in maximizing

your local marketing ROI while minimizing the effort to do so.

TRY DISPLAY ADVERTISING TO HYPER-TARGET CUSTOMERS BY INTERESTS AND GEOGRAPHY.

Location isn’t the only factor you can use to hyper-target your

customers. Paid search and social media advertising both allow

you to target customers by factors like age, gender, interests,

and more.

How Enterprise Brands Can Reap The Benefits Of Local Marketing


BE PROACTIVE ABOUT YOUR LINKS, CITATIONS, AND REVIEWS ONLINE.

Ever since Google’s Local Pack shrunk from 7 results to 3, these

factors will be some of the most important for small businesses

and national brands alike. Identify store locations that need more

links, updated citations, and online reviews.

BUILD CITATIONS AROUND THE INTERNET AND CLEAN UP ALL EXISTING CITATIONS.

Focus on NAP (name, address, phone number) and aim for high-

authority websites like Google+, Bing Local, Foursquare, and Yelp.

Add new listings, clean up duplicates, and verify that all citations

are accurate.

ENSURE THAT YOUR STORE LOCATOR AND STORE LOCATOR RESULTS PAGES ARE MOBILE-FRIENDLY.

Mobile customers will likely be looking for these pages, so make

them easy to find and easy to use on a mobile device.

CONSIDER SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING TO TAILOR SPECIFIC MESSAGES TO LOCAL DEMOGRAPHICS.

With hundreds of thousands of targeting combinations and 89%

reach accuracy (compared to the average online reach of 38%) for

narrowly target campaigns7, Facebook provides an unmatched

ability to unite customers with the brands they are most likely

to shop.

Testing is a critical step in any marketing plan, and it is particularly

important in local efforts. Many users conduct searches on their

phone and then visit the physical location to make a purchase,

which doesn’t provide a definite connection for

data-loving marketers.

To measure the effectiveness of local marketing efforts:

MEASURE CONVERSION RATES OF NON-SALES CALLS TO ACTION

Measure conversion rates of non-sales calls to action. When

measuring the conversion rates of local searchers on your

website, remember to look at the rates for smaller calls to action,

including links like “Find a Store,” “Contact Us,” and “Phone Calls.”

Concentrate on the full process of customer acquisition to identify

pages with low conversion rates and to view the full customer

cycle for mobile users.

MEASURE ROI WITH A VARIETY OF METRICS

It can be all too easy to look at sales as your only metric for

measuring ROI. Instead, try creating a waterfall flow of consumer

behavior to determine ROI. Look at impressions, clicks, store

visits, in-store conversion rates, and average order size to more

accurately estimate the success of your local marketing efforts.

A Key Step For Succeeding In Local: Test Your Metrics


So many brands view success of online marketing as

online sales. However, it just isn’t that simple. Many

consumers want to transact in person and an online

sale just doesn’t take that into account.

“ “

Hyper-targeted marketing with a local context is much more

relevant to the consumer than generic, nationwide advertising.

Especially on mobile devices, where highly motivated customers

expect to see customized content, localized marketing can lead

to a drastically higher ROI — even for brands with hundreds or

thousands of storefronts.

Brands who implement hyper-targeted marketing efforts

are seeing better results with fewer wasted dollars, especially

when they use tools like Balihoo to quickly launch 10,000

micro-relevant campaigns.

Paid search software can improve your KPIs, remove 90% of manual

tasks, launch tens of thousands of powerful digital campaigns,

and increase Adwords Quality Scores by up to 35%. That’s not to

mention the ROI these efforts will have for your business.

The most successful national brands recognize the importance

of thinking local in their marketing. By localizing your creative

marketing, paid search ads, and landing pages and by targeting

customers through display advertising, your brand can drive a

higher ROI per dollar.

Local Marketing Can Lead To Better Results With Fewer Wasted Dollars


10,000number of

micro-relevant campaigns you

can launch injust minutes

35%the potential

increase inyour AdwordsQuality Scores

90%percent of

manual tasks you can remove from

your day

Balihoo’s software solutions increase the ROI of localized digital

marketing for national brands and their agencies. By dramatically

improving the relevance of paid search, social, and display ads

over other campaign management solutions, Balihoo is proven to

increase click-through-rates and decrease average cost-per-click,

while removing manual tasks and setup time.

1. Search Engine Watch, Why Local Matters Even for National Advertisers

2. Balihoo Webinar: Three Reasons National Brands Must Lead Local Marketing

or Face Losing out

3. Integrated Digital Marketing, Are Big Brands Being Forced Out of the

Local Stack?

4. Clickz, Three Areas to Master in 2015 for National Brands Marketing Locally

5. LocalSEOCompanies, Local Search Statistics That You Should Know

6. Think with Google, Extra Space Storage Goes Local at Scale with Google

7. Nielson OCR, August 2013

About Balihoo

404 South 8th StreetBoise, ID 83702

www.balihoo.com1.844.BALIHOO