What Is Shopper Marketing? Definition and Tactics (2024)

Have you ever been peckish at the grocery store, tried a free sample, and left with a two-month supply of cookies? Or bought custom shampoo because an Instagram ad captured your hair care journey to a T? If so, you’ve seen shopper marketing at work.

To get a potential customer’s eyes on your products in today’s fast-paced world, you need to meet them where it matters most: in the moment. The goal of any shopper marketing strategy is to offer people just what they’re looking for at just the right time. These strategies mix data, creativity, and opportune timing to drive sales and build lasting brand loyalty—all good things for a growing business.

What is a shopper marketing strategy?

Shopper marketing is a strategy that leverages behavioral insights to influence a consumer’s purchasing decisions at critical points in their customer journey—from the moment they first learn about a product to the time they make a final purchase decision. While traditional marketing has myriad goals—including brand recognition, sales, and engagement—shopper marketing focuses on the experiences that influence customers to buy something. 

In a physical retail space, this can mean enticing customers with tactics like flashy window displays or point-of-purchase displays. For ecommerce businesses, shopper marketing tactics can include creating personalized ads and recommendations and designing attractive product carousels.

Understanding shopper behavior

Understanding shopper behavior is critical for creating a shopper marketing strategy. To understand consumer preferences, gather and analyze many sources of shopper data, including transaction histories, web browsing patterns, social media interactions, and demographic information.

With artificial intelligence (AI), you can create predictive models that forecast shopper behavior and personalize the shopping experience for various customer segments. For instance, a shopper’s past online behavior can trigger personalized discounts and product recommendations, or in-store sensors can track foot traffic to optimize product placement. 

You can also use data-driven insights to find your target audiences, understand how they discover your store, and learn what influences their path to purchase. 

Effective shopper marketing tactics

You don’t need to hire an expensive shopper marketing agency to boost brand success. Use these tricks of the trade to entice shoppers, improve customer satisfaction, and build a brand identity that increases sales:

Visual merchandising 

Visual merchandising is a powerful shopper marketing strategy that targets customers who have entered your store. Think about the last time you were at the supermarket. Did you see flowers near the point of purchase on Valentine’s Day? Candy on Halloween? School supplies in September? 

Studying in-store consumer behavior can tell you what products are popular at certain times of the year, where certain items are likely to be most successful, and the prime locations for certain products. Use visual merchandising techniques such as endcaps, aisle displays, and free-standing signs to entice shoppers into making a sale.

You can use similar tactics on your online store as well, by showcasing seasonal products in carousels at the top of high-volume pages or as part of collections and recommendations.

Free samples

Few shopper marketing efforts have a more effective and immediate return on investment (ROI) than free samples. This strategy is a showstopper for brick-and-mortar stores that sell consumer packaged goods (CPG), but it can also drive sales for online retailers. Allowing potential customers to try your product before purchasing takes the pressure off the buying process and generates goodwill.

For retail brands, work with retail partners to offer free samples at a booth in the store or have store personnel offer free samples during checkout. For online purchases, send customers trial-size products with their purchases, a tactic that’s particularly popular for skin care, cosmetics, and fragrances. If your products are too big for a free sample (a furniture brand, for example), send free swatches of fabric, paint, or anything that will help your potential customer get a tactile experience. 

Interactive demonstrations 

Interactive demonstrations are a classic shopper marketing strategy brands and retailers use to create meaningful, personalized experiences for potential customers. Demos show customers what your product can do; plus, a well-trained representative can answer questions, give suggestions, and nudge shoppers to make a purchase. Products that need some explaining or practice to get the hang of—like specialized cookware, pizza ovens, skin care tools, etc.—typically benefit from demos.

Demo videos can benefit online shopping experiences just as well. Whether you do interactive livestreams, use virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) so customers can get a hands-on feel for your products, or share demonstrations on your YouTube channel, there are many ways to educate customers. For example, clothing brands use virtual fitting rooms so customers can see themselves in an outfit before adding it to their carts, and furniture companies use AR to help shoppers see pieces in their own living spaces. 

Dynamic advertising

Physical stores can’t develop a brand marketing campaign for every demographic that might waltz by a storefront, but social media algorithms have become the perfect vehicle for personalized experiences. Dynamic ads automatically interpret user data to generate personalized content based on interests, behavior, and demographic information.

For example, you can create relevant, geo-targeted ads on Facebook and TikTok that show up on the For You pages of target shoppers in your specified geographic region. 

Customer loyalty programs

You don’t just want to influence shopper behavior the first time around; you also want your customers to come back. Customer loyalty programs target repeat customers, encouraging them to choose a brand they’ve tried and enjoyed already when they want to make another purchase.

Offer a loyalty program with exclusive discounts and bonuses for members like a punch card for a free 11th coffee, points they can earn and redeem at your online apparel store, or an extra 15% off for becoming a member and signing up to receive your email newsletter.

Influencer marketing campaigns

Shoppers tend to trust user-generated content (UGC) more than the polished ads brands pump out, making it a great, cost-effective strategy for small businesses. If your current customers aren’t generating a lot of content you can use, partner with influencers to stimulate highly authentic UGC.

Influencer content can build trust and meet potential customers where they are. If your target audience uses or shops on social media channels, influencer marketing campaigns are a great way to reach them. With features like TikTok Shop, Instagram Shopping, and YouTube Shopping, you can publish content that’s both entertaining and allows customers to shop directly on their preferred platform.

Example of shopper marketing

OSEA Malibu, a brand that offers seaweed-based skin care products, was founded in 1996 but has gained a global presence in recent years thanks to influencer marketing campaigns. Today, in addition to its online Shopify store, the brand is sold at retailers like Ulta and Nordstrom and in thousands of spas worldwide.

OSEA Malibu’s CEO, Melissa Palmer, approached influencer marketing carefully with an eye on what would resonate with the brand’s target audience. When brands started working with Instagram and TikTok influencers, OSEA decided to seek out content creators aligned with its brand values. Instead of partnerships with the expected beauty influencers, it worked with nutritionists and healthy-living influencers.

“We went for non-typical content creators,” Melissa explains on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “In 2016, you didn’t see a lot of nutritionists posting about what skin care products they were using.” This strategy allowed OSEA to tap into niche communities like nurses and flight attendants and influence purchase decisions among health-conscious consumers.