November 19, 2024
6
min read
How to Use Product Locator Analytics to Grow Your CPG Brand
From improving customer experience to refining supply chain operations. Discover the many ways a product locator can help CPG brands sell more.
In the highly competitive consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, brands face constant challenges in tracking product performance and understanding consumer behavior. With an ever-growing number of distribution channels and touchpoints, it can be difficult for CPG companies to pinpoint where and how their products are performing in real time. This lack of visibility often leads to missed sales opportunities and inaccurate demand forecasting, leaving brands struggling to optimize their marketing and distribution efforts.
Enter product locator analytics—a powerful tool that allows CPG brands to track the availability and performance of their products across various retailers and locations. By providing detailed insights into where consumers are searching for products, product locator analytics can reveal patterns in consumer behavior, help brands optimize inventory, and enhance marketing strategies.
In this guide, we'll explore how to leverage product locator analytics to overcome these challenges and drive growth for your CPG brand. From improving customer experience to refining supply chain operations, we’ll cover actionable steps to unlock the full potential of these insights and stay ahead in the marketplace.
What is a Product Locator?
A product locator is a powerful tool used by a variety of businesses, including CPG brands, that helps customers find where a specific product is available for purchase, either in nearby physical stores or online retailers. Product locators can usually be integrated directly into a brand’s e-commerce website for a seamless customer experience. This tool allows users to input their location (via zip code, city, or GPS) and search for a particular product, showing them a list of stores nearest to them where the item is in stock.
By streamlining the process of locating products, it improves the shopping experience and supports omnichannel strategies, driving both in-store foot traffic and online sales.
Key Metrics to Track with Product Locator Analytics
When using product locator analytics to grow a CPG brand, tracking the right metrics is essential for gaining actionable insights. By consistently tracking these key metrics, you can make data-driven decisions to enhance product distribution, optimize marketing efforts, and ultimately drive growth for your CPG brand.
Product Searches
Product search data is a wealth of information by itself. By reviewing product search analytics, you can identify which products customers are searching for the most, which products are underperforming, and the exact language customers use to find products.
Search Volume by Location
Search volume by location shows just how many consumers are searching for your product in specific regions or stores. This metric helps identify geographic areas with high demand, guiding marketing and distribution efforts. If a product is frequently searched for in a region but understocked, you can adjust inventory and improve local marketing.
Top Performing Retailers
Product locator analytics can help identify which retail partners are generating the most product searches and sales. It helps CPG businesses prioritize partnerships and focus marketing efforts where they’re most effective. Strengthen partnerships with top-performing retailers first–it’s easier to bolster these relationships than it is to boost performance in underperforming locations.
Customer Journey Insights
Product locator analytics can reveal the pathways consumers take before purchasing your product—whether they look online, search for local stores, or compare prices across retailers. Based on these metrics, tailor your marketing strategies to target consumers at different stages of their journey, from awareness to purchase. Optimize the pathways that are already performing well.
Customer Demographics and Location Data
Demographic and location data reveals who your typical customers are, down to their age, gender, and location. With this data, you can identify any untapped demographics and personalize your marketing based on customer locations.
Try the Grappos product locator on your website
5 Actionable Strategies to Leverage Product Locator Analytics
Leveraging product locator analytics effectively can drive growth for CPG brands. By implementing the following strategies, CPG brands can use product locator analytics to not only understand consumer behavior but also proactively shape their marketing, sales, and distribution strategies for sustained growth.
1. Optimize Product Placement
Use product locator analytics to pinpoint regions with high product search volumes but lower availability or sales. Prioritize placing your products in prime, easily visible spots in these locations. Maximizing visibility in areas where there’s high demand ensures that interested customers can easily find and purchase your products, boosting sales potential.
Share product locator insights with your retail partners to negotiate premium shelf space in stores where your product is in demand. Collaborate on product placement near the checkout, end caps, or eye-level shelves—locations that naturally attract attention. Strategic placement within stores helps increase product visibility and encourages impulse purchases, leading to higher sales.
For digital placements, optimize your product listings with high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and targeted keywords to improve search rankings and visibility on e-commerce platforms. Optimizing your digital shelf space improves discoverability, making it easier for consumers to find and purchase your products online.
Of course, you’ll need a product locator that can deliver this type of data. The Grappos Product Locator features the SearchTracker Gap Report, which aggregates data that helps you identify markets where demand is high, but your product isn’t stocked. This makes it easy to get your product into retail locations where demand is already high.
Learn more: 9 Essential Retail Strategies for New CPG Brands
2. Refine Marketing Campaigns
When you identify opportunity areas where demand is high, you can launch geo-targeted digital marketing campaigns or promotions in those regions. Use localized ads on social media, Google, or retail partner websites to drive foot traffic to stores or boost online sales.
Be sure to tailor your messaging to resonate with specific customer segments for more effectiveness. Hyper-localized campaigns help focus marketing budgets on areas with proven demand, maximizing ROI. From there, you can measure the effectiveness of campaigns based on locator-driven traffic and sales.
The Grappos product locator makes this process extremely easy. Grappos can be set up with Google Analytics Pixel, Meta Pixel, or other 3rd party pixel, to help gather customer data and personalize marketing efforts.
3. Improve Inventory Management
CPG brands can predict demand and optimize inventory levels based on search and sales data. Use search volume by location to identify areas with high demand and ensure that these regions are adequately stocked.
You can even streamline supply chain operations based on real-time insights using the search-to-availability ratio. By identifying regions with high search volumes but low availability, you can prioritize shipping and restocking efforts in those areas.
By aligning your inventory distribution with consumer searches and streamlining supply chain operations, you can prevent stockouts and ensure products are available where they are most needed–avoiding lost sales and enhancing customer satisfaction.
4. Expand Distribution
Product locator insights can play a pivotal role in helping CPG brands expand their distribution by providing real-time data on consumer demand, product performance, and regional opportunities.
Use search volume data from product locator analytics to identify geographic regions where there is significant consumer interest in your products but limited or no retail presence–this usually signifies untapped markets. By identifying these high-demand regions, CPG brands can prioritize establishing new retail partnerships in those areas, ensuring that they meet customer demand and increase market penetration.
Provide distributors with regional demand data to encourage them to expand distribution into areas with high consumer search activity. Highlight untapped regions or specific retailers where your products are frequently searched for but unavailable. Distributors are more likely to invest in new markets or expand into additional stores when they can clearly see demand, ensuring broader product availability across different channels.
5. Enhance Customer Engagement
Product locator analytics can significantly enhance customer engagement and satisfaction by offering data-driven insights that improve the shopping experience, address consumer needs, and personalize marketing efforts.
Analyze search volume data by location to identify regions with high interest in your products. Offer region-specific promotions, discounts, or loyalty programs to engage customers in these areas. Tailoring offers to specific regions or demographics makes your marketing more appealing and relevant to the local audience, leading to higher customer satisfaction.
Use insights from product locator data to ensure that your products are easy to find and purchase across various channels (online, in-store, mobile). Streamline the transition between online searches and in-store pickups or purchases. A seamless omnichannel experience allows customers to shop how and when they prefer, improving convenience and satisfaction.
A Data-Driven Advantage
Leveraging product locator analytics offers CPG brands a powerful tool for driving omnichannel growth. By providing insights into product availability, consumer behavior, and regional demand, product locators help optimize product placement, boost customer engagement, and expand distribution.
Ultimately, data-driven decision-making is critical for CPG brands looking to stay competitive. Product locator analytics not only empower brands to make informed choices but also ensure a more personalized and efficient customer experience, fueling long-term growth and success across all channels.
A wealth of insightful customer data is at your fingertips–don’t let it slip away. Start leveraging product locator analytics to grow your CPG brand today with Grappos →
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