Shopper marketing blog

In this article, you will discover how we use AI text analysis to unlock valuable shopper insights and change the way our clients understand customer preferences and behaviours. By the end, you will understand how we go from thousands of text-based product reviews to something as simple and useful as this:

Creating actionable shopper insights has always been crucial for businesses looking to get an advantage in consumer goods. By analysing the text content of shopper reviews using AI technology, consumer goods businesses can gain valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviours. AI (Large Language Model) text analysis allows businesses to go beyond simple quantitative data and understand the emotions, opinions, and sentiments expressed by shoppers in their reviews.

In 2018 we conducted research that showed 65% of our members look at our app when they are planning their food shopping, and 35% while they shop in the supermarket*. It is clear that grocery cashback apps are an excellent route to deliver shopper marketing goals (we have more on the whole Shopper Marketing approach here)

For example, we can use Geo targeting to serve brand advertising right onto consumers mobile devices at the first moment of truth, but the power of these apps goes a lot further than simply helping to raise brand awareness.

Based on our experience as Europe's No.1 grocery cashback organisation, here are the top 10 ways you can start using these apps to your advantage today:

In the digitally-centred grocery landscape, product reviews have become essential for all serious businesses. Not only do they influence purchasing decisions, but they also have a significant impact on a company's online reputation.

So how do you know you are if you're getting a genuine return on investment (ROI) from these product evaluations?

We'll examine the key indicators of a strong ROI and take a closer look at a helpful case study featuring Kellogg's Coco Pops. We will explore topics that directly demonstrate a good ROI:

1. - Online sales increases
2. - In-store sales increase
3. - Retailer search ranking improvements

Before we do, it is worth noting just how powerful reviews are as an influencer of choice, especially amongst younger shoppers. A Local Consumer Review Survey by Bright Local found that 91% of 18-34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Join Andrew Pearl VP Strategy and Insight EMEA at eCommerce performance analytics company Profitero and Paul Lees our Group Managing Director at CheckoutSmart, as they discuss fascinating original research on grocery ratings and reviews.

This study was specifically undertaken in the UK amongst over 3,700 online grocery shoppers to support the understanding of FMCG leaders and eCommerce teams, by answering their questions:

This is a summary of the work we have done using hybrid AI/Human analysis of shopper reviews of the sweet biscuit category in Ocado. This analysis uses AI to understand what is new and different across huge volumes of text while the experienced human sifts the output looking for category relevance and actionability.

Highlights

• Ocado has 875k (11.4%) of the 7.7m reviews across all categories in the Top 6 online grocery retailers*.

• The Category has 4k (1%) of the 421k reviews across all brands in Ocado over 2021-23. 

• 85 Biscuit brands have reviews on Ocado with an average of 47.8 reviews per brand

• There is a big opportunity for all brands to improve their review presence in Ocado by getting at least 30 reviews per SKU and the important area to shoppers of the most recent 3 reviews.

• Looking at individual SKUs in the category (see the Appendix for the full category list) 277 of the 308 listed need new reviews to optimise their sales online and in-store (see “How to get more reviews” below).

*Reports are available for the Top 6 grocery retailers (Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Ocado and Waitrose plus Boots and Superdrug)

At CheckoutSmart, we are passionate about consumer product reviews. We not only provide up-to-date reviews for brands nationwide, but we also take the time to analyse and learn from them. Reviews offer valuable insights from shoppers, giving us a glimpse into the latest trends and category-specific information. With over half a million reviews from the top 6 supermarkets in the UK alone at our disposal, we have a wealth of information to explore.

Whether it is the latest trends, such as we bring alive in our Moaning March post or category specific insights from the Haircare category, there is always plenty to hear and learn. As we have all the up to date reviews for the Top 6 supermarkets in the UK in our database (over half a million) we have plenty to delve into.

We also use the review data to run our Always On SmartReputation solution, delivering reviews with precision where they are needed by SKU and retailer. This ensures that our clients can have complete confidence in the freshness and impact of the reviews on their brands, alleviating any concerns they may have. This frees up resource to get on with more added value activity as well as reducing the anxiety of surprises when someone in the team spots a series of poor reviews on one of your key packs.

In this blog post, we will be delving into the fascinating world of coffee reviews in Morrisons. Morrisons stands out as an intriguing space for reviews, as they do not participate in syndication like some other retailers. This means that not all products have a significant number of reviews for analysis, potentially causing them to be overlooked. However, in the coffee category alone, we have gathered over 100 reviews for each brand we are examining from the past 2 years. This wealth of reviews provides us with a solid foundation for uncovering valuable insights.

The event held in London was an intimate and relaxed gathering, featuring a knowledgeable group of industry experts who weren't there to push products, but rather, to share their thoughts and ideas. The audience consisted of a diverse mix of food and beverage manufacturers, food service providers and operators, and a handful of retailers, contributing to a well-rounded and informative day filled with lively conversations and shared insights.

Rather than rehashing the entire agenda, my intention is to provide a condensed summary of the relevant topics, with a focus on novel and significant areas. However, summarising is not an exact science, so my apologies if I missed any insightful comments made by presenters.

The Food industry challenges

My overall summary of the themes for the day:

You can learn a lot from spiders

ML Measures for reviews insight

We believe that there is lots more to understand about ratings and reviews than just "How many do I have?" and "What's my average rating"?

Simply having 30 product reviews with an average rating of +4 is not enough to guarantee success. In fact, it's less than half the job. To truly convert shoppers, you need to have at least 30 high-quality reviews on every retailer site, and they need to be "fresh" - less than 6 months old. But it's more than this, it's about the ones that get read, the latest ones or the "Top 3" as we call them. These reviews must be positive and have influential text to maximize your conversion rate.  To achieve this, you need to work with a partner who can deliver high-quality reviews across all retailers.

After analyzing the Top 3 visible reviews for all products on Ocado's website, our data revealed that 52% of the reviews are 5-star, but only 18.3% are less than six months old. However, even those recent reviews may not be the most influential ones. To create the best reviews, they must not only be 5-star and fresh but also contain the right components. So, what makes a review text more influential?¹

¹ From Quality in Product Reviews: What Technical Communicators Should Know Jo Mackiewicz - 2015

In this post we look at all 6 components of influential reviews and provide examples of "the best" of each. We will then go on to answer two vital questions:

- How do you know if you have the best reviews?

NB All example data and reviews for this post are from Ocado data collected at the end of April 2023. All reviews are from the Top 3 latest reviews available on each item ie those most likely to be read by the shopper.