Discover how you can measure the impact of online activity and offline sales with some actionable takeaways that can help you get to grips with the true value of your marketing efforts.

1. O2O:
Linking
Online
Activity
to Offline
Sales
UK

2. Introduction Many online marketers know that
their digital marketing efforts will be
impacting offline sales but they don’t have
the tools in place to measure it.
This can be especially frustrating for any digital
marketers working in a business that has
historically prioritised their traditional offline
marketing channels.
We want to address any scepticism around the ability
to measure the impact of online activity
on offline sales as well as giving you some
actionable online to offline takeaways that can
help you to truly understand and authenticate
the value of your online marketing efforts.

4. Find the Links &
Capture the Data
1

5. Think about where you can make the joins...
and don’t stop thinking!
Anything that can be used to build a join to
identify as many links as possible.
• Email addresses
• Collected in store and matched online
• A postcode
• On a store finder and delivery confirmation
• An online voucher redeemed in store
• Quote IDs
• Generated online & referenced on the phone
Once you have found the joins,
ensure that your data platform is
flexible enough to handle the
imports and provide the structure
to glue it all together.
TOP
TIP

6. You won’t Join
All the Dots!
2

7. Think about incentivising shop &
telesales staff to collect data, which
will enable you to join as
much data as possible
TOP
TIP
Joining a good percentage is enough!
You won’t be able to clearly identify every time an
offline sale has been influenced online but a good
percentage is enough to:
• Map out ‘typical’ user journeys
• Gain insight
• Infer actions
The user journeys that you have joined can help you to:
• Build a clearer view of the link between online activity &
offline sales
• Identify ‘webrooming’ or ‘showrooming’ shopping trends
• Link online efforts to tangible in store purchases

8. Joining O2O can
Empower Marketers
3

9. It’s not just about ROI & CPA!
Showing that you are driving more sales from your online
budget should allow you to make a better argument for that
budget to be increased. However, the empowerment this
insight provides by enabling you to make more confident,
data-drive decisions is also important. Imagine how good it
would feel to confidently say that:
“17% of any new customer journeys start online
and convert offline.”
“23% of our in store shoppers have already
researched online.”
To persuade the business, start with smaller
assumptions that are believed company
wide. Once you have conquered those
you can then move on to de-bunk some
of the more complex myths
TOP
TIP

10. It’s Possible to Join
Online & Offline Now!
4

11. O2O is not as complex as you think...
The data structures and technologies involved are
not as complex as you might think. This is why so
many top brands are already leading the way with an
omnichannel marketing strategy.
Every day we help omnichannel retailers to have a much
better view of the link between online and offline.
They now have the measureable data to inform their
marketing strategies so that they can succeed in a market
where there is no distinction between an online customer
and offline customer.
Get in touch if you want to discuss the
challenge that your business has
when understanding the true value
of your online marketing on offline sales
rm-salesuk@mail.rakuten.com
TOP
TIP

12. SummaryExample
ONLINE
• Sales
• Newsletter sign up
• Retail appointment requests
• Brochure requests
• Interactive map login
• Call back request
Reaching Destination O2O with Virgin Holidays
Here is an example of how we made the join for
one of our clients, Virgin Holidays:
OFFLINE
• Telephone quotes and
sales
• In-store quotes and sales
Email addresses were identified as a consistent customer
identifier that could be to be collected across channels.
Multiple points where email addresses could be used to
log a touchpoint and make a join were identified:

13. Our ‘Universal User’ technology uses the unique
key to link any number of visits and sales across all
online channels and devices, and offline
in-store touchpoints and phone calls, to a
single user.
Results
• Over 200,000 universal user journeys joined
YTD
• The revenue attributed to online marketing
has increased
• The ROI of specific channels, consistently
increased
• Strategic insights are driving increased busi-
ness efficiency and profitability
Click here to read the full case study.

14. Still looking for inspiration?
Understanding the correlation between your
online marketing activity and offline sales will
allow you to turn any assumptions and myths
into quantifiable metrics.
Ultimately, this will give you and your business
greater confidence when setting budgets and
Summary
making decisions. But it isn’t just about
attribution .
It’s about having the confidence to
talk about the influence that your digital
marketing efforts have on offline touch points . . .

15. It’s
about being more certain about
your instincts or digital marketing ‘spidey senses’.
Let go of any scepticism about linking online to offline and
embrace an omnichannel marketing approach in 2015.
The data and proof is out there to be captured if you
are willing to see it.

16. Rakuten Attribution
(formerly DC Storm) arms
digital businesses with performance
measurement tools, analysis and reporting,
powering great decisions and driving success.
rakutenmarketing.uk/attribution
rm-salesuk@mail.rakuten.com
+44 (0)1273 807272
Are you ready to
connect the dots?