How one brand used surveys and sales data to find high-value shoppers outside their core audience: a case study
Imagine owning a restaurant but never venturing beyond its confines.
You see the bustling world from inside, yet remain a mere observer, curious about the many who stroll past without entering.
This image mirrors a project I recently completed with an ecomm brand. My client, much like our imaginary restaurant owner, sought to grasp the broader context of their market and, facing rising ad costs, contemplated targeting a new segment of shoppers. They turned to me for help.
Sales records and web analytics pointed to a customer base predominantly comprised of young women residing in urban hubs like Chicago, New York, and southern cities spanning from Los Angeles to Miami.
Initially, it seemed counterintuitive to target shoppers outside this demographic.
But this belief turned out to be wrong, and a deep dive into the sales data revealed how: when I compared the number of orders from each core based statistical area (CBSA) to its population, I found that geographic location only weakly predicted purchase behavior. That is, the brand’s orders simply paralleled the population distribution of each CBSA.
A poll of 1,152 shoppers from the brand's addressable market further challenged the initial assumption.
As expected, younger age groups — the brand’s primary target — were more familiar with the brand and its offerings.
Yet, surprisingly, shoppers between the ages of 35 and 54, though less acquainted with the brand, showed a comparable levels of interest to their younger counterparts.
This "interested but uninformed" group, undetected by the brand's first party data, stood out as a new segment worth targeting. Without comparing the sales data with CBSA population data, this segment might have slipped through the cracks.
