Two lightweight lines of JavaScript code sit tight on the site, watching and listening as customers interact with pages.
That snippet of code, which retail media tech company AdsPostX calls OmniSDK, identifies and combines implicit and explicit signals about user behavior, according to CEO Jon Nolz. Retailers can use this information to show customers relevant offers after checkout.
Implicit signals include dwell time, whether the user visited the product detail page and whether the user removed an item from their cart or left an item in their cart without buying it. Explicit signals might encompass traits such as location, first name, order ID and price.
“OmniSDK is like a Google Analytics or FullStory-type solution,” Nolz said. “It all operates behind the scenes.”
Don’t forget the salsa
AdsPostX, which launched a little over a year ago for post-transaction customer services, rolled out OmniSDK earlier this month. OmniSDK promotes related product offers that might come from the company’s catalog or third parties. The sniffer tool cross-promotes products based on signals like what items customers are browsing and searching for in real time.
For instance, if a customer buys a suitcase, it’s safe to assume they might be planning to travel. In that case, Nolz said, “why not serve an offer at the end of checkout for Booking.com, Hotels.com or Budget Rental Car?”
By the same token, why not remind a customer who has bought tortilla chips that you also sell complementary items like salsa or guacamole? Ideally, the customer is happy because they get good recommendations, and the retailer is happy because it’s selling more stuff.
A recommendation engine tied to individual behavior and aggregated, anonymized customer data aids AdsPostX in serving up curated product offers. If a grocer knows a certain customer shops nondairy milk, the data may as well be used to customize offers.
But “there’s a fine line,” Nolz said. “We don’t want to get too deep into PII to be creepy or to cause privacy concerns.”
Choose your moment
At the finite post-transaction or post-checkout moment, companies are typically offering a person who’s already made a purchase a “frictionless offer,” Nolz said, like a free trial or a heavily discounted item.
It’s less risky to target a customer with an offer at this point “because it’s not disrupting the path of purchase,” Nolz said. “Nothing’s going to touch you until you’ve already put your credit card in and hit submit.”
In January, AdsPostX teamed up with CitrusAd, a Publicis-owned retail media company, after finding that many retailers wanted to work with one vendor, not multiple partners. CitrusAd, which doesn’t usually offer post-transaction ads, “chose to partner versus build,” Nolz said, by naming AdsPostX as its exclusive post-transaction partner for campaign extensions. The two businesses are about to pilot their first customer together through this partnership.
When a user takes an action – for example, updating their credit card – OmniSDK picks up the data and ties it to intent-based and behavioral signals.
“Most retail media solutions are standalone. We’re [offering] this unified technical solution,” Nolz said.
Unlike search and banner ads, which are as ubiquitous and bothersome as mosquitoes, post-checkout engagements – like order confirmation emails, order tracking or account pages – “are often ignored by retailers,” Nolz said, “because the [ad] volume isn’t there.”
But when you add up the impressions, clicks and conversions from all the little perks and offers that AdsPostX places on post-checkout pages, he said, “the value you generate from it starts to be a meaningful, incremental new line of revenue.”
