As recently reported by our President, Alex Porter in his post A Tool to Calculate the Value of Mobile Marketing? Google has released a new tool called the Full Value of Mobile Calculator to help consumers calculate the in-store value of mobile activity. This tool is a huge step in the age old question “how do I know what in-store sales I’m getting from my online marketing?”. This is a concern we hear often from franchisees and franchisors and it is one that is hard to validate. Coupons offer a clear connection between marketing dollars spent and consumer good sold, however, coupon usage in 2012 dropped 17.1% and it is unclear whether the trend will continue or usage will bounce back. So, consumers need additional tools to predict the correlation between online marketing and in-store activity.
Here are all of the metrics needed to calculate in-store ROI. The last two values aren’t provided in the tool but can easily be calculated:
Here is an example of the graph that is created once you input the required values:
The great thing about this tool is that if marketers don’t have exact metrics for their stores, Google provides industry-by-industry averages to use. Here are industry standards for the percent of visitors that actually visited your store after clicking on the mobile ad:
Along with in-store value, marketers can also determine the value of calls to their location, mobile app downloads, and cross-device value (for website purchases).
The hope for this tool of course is that marketers will understand the value of mobile and put more resources into key components of a mobile presence like a mobile-friendly website. Have you found out the value of your mobile traffic yet? If so, what are your key takeaways?