How Shopmium is disrupting data-driven customer engagement in FMCG

Founded in 2011, Shopmium is the app that gives grocery customers cashback on in-store and online purchases of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). Available to consumers in the UK, France and Belgium the app has been downloaded more than 10 million times, providing an invaluable tool for marketers as well as consumers.

Shopmium’s affiliate brands distribute their offers through a central, independent platform, while receiving a steady flow of consumer behavior data.

The FMCG business model, however, is traditionally dependent on third-party data, creating a
future risk as data sources such as cookies are phased out.

Enter Nielsen Marketing Cloud, which has teamed up with Shopmium to match the data it holds on consumers’ digital behavior with the shopping habits gathered via Shopmium. By applying data modelling, FMCG brands can identify and scale audience segments based on actual product purchase behavior and act on their findings.

Head of Shopmium UK Stuart Sankey, says: "More relevant and personalized content is what all consumers and users want.”

He adds: “Shopmium users are no different and with a greater understanding of their habits and preferences we will be introducing more personalized features and more content to ensure that we provide them with even more value every day.”

Due to the lack of direct to consumer relationship, first-party data can be difficult to collect at scale in FMCG. The Shopmium offering bridges this gap and enables sales data to be collected at a personal level via consented, deterministic identifiers

This segmentation can be targeted across an advertiser’s entire digital ecosystem such as display, social, digital out of home (OOH) advertising and video, among others. Furthermore, the data are free of cookies. Instead, the partnership is built on fully consented mobile advertising identifiers or mobile ad IDs, otherwise known as MAIDs.

Narrowing the focus on first-party data 

Through its logged services Shopmium captures its own first-party proprietary and exclusive data based on multi-retailer purchase receipts. It then delivers a pool of cookie-less seed data to its partners, which it says delivers 30-40 percent more engagement than third-party data.

Sankey explains: “Grocery purchase intent and verified purchase data is tough for advertisers to access at scale and at a competitive price, as it is historically generated, owned, and managed by the grocery retailers themselves.”

Shopmium and Nielson have identified new audience segments which media agencies and advertisers are already looking to tap.

Sankey adds: “This is primarily because our data covers the whole grocery sector, not just one retailer. It is granular, based on receipt data but scaled scientifically by Nielsen and of course cookie-less. The combination of all these factors means we expect demand to continue to grow through 2023.”

As a result, Shopmium users will enjoy enhanced CX through personalized features and more relevant content based on the deeper understanding Shopmium has on their habits and preferences. Via the Nielsen partnership, Shopmium’s affiliate brands can then serve more relevant adverts to consumers offering a more personalized, improved browsing experience.

Sankey says: “Improved user experience also transcends outside of the Shopmium App and into the wider digital ecosystem. Via the Nielsen partnership brands can serve more relevant ads to consumers offering a more personalised, improved browsing experience.”