“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” Charles Dudley Warner famously said. This isn’t entirely accurate.
Weather impacts consumer behavior and many of the decisions customers make, from what to wear and eat, to where to go and when. And that creates a major opportunity for brands.
In the interest of determining just how much a role weather plays in consumer buying habits, we turned to proprietary foot traffic data to glean insights and lessons for marketers. Using location-specific data signals from over 600 million monthly users and 100 million points of interest around the world, GroundTruth helps brands predict behavioral trends and expose new mobile and location marketing opportunities.
1. Weather Triggers—and Hinders—Offline Sales
It stands to reason that the weather influences in-store sales. When it’s cold or stormy, our instincts often tell us to stay at home. Interestingly, though, foot traffic data shows that bad weather has more of an effect on purchase behavior than good weather does.
Insight: According to our foot traffic data, overall visits on our platform were 9 percent lower on bad weather days and just 6 percent higher on good weather days.
Marketing Lesson: Consider the point of sale when you’re planning location-specific campaigns, as you may see a decreased return on investment in inclement weather.
2. Targeting Based on Temperature? It’s All Relative
In the past, marketers have used temperature to determine where and when they should advertise, along with what they should promote. After all, selling ice cold beer in below-zero temps is rarely as effective as selling hot chocolate.
Insight: But even when targeting consumers with weather-specific creative, marketers must consider location. A 60-degree day in Southern California in the month of February is altogether different from a 60-degree day in New York—Californians might break out their coats while New Yorkers bask in the unexpected sunshine.
Marketing Lesson: Weather triggers different behavior in consumers depending on where they live, so avoid relying entirely on weather conditions and segment your weather data by location instead.
3. Weather Impacts Product Categories Differently
Weather may not hold sway over every move consumers make—regardless of what the meteorologist says, we still have to get to work—but it does affect decisions about which products we consume, and when.
Insight: Out of all retailers, Big Box brands experience the biggest negative impact from bad weather, our research shows. Those same retailers, along with Department stores, get a big increase in foot traffic when the weather is good, whereas grocery is the only category that doesn’t see significant benefits from good weather.
Marketing Lesson: When it’s raining, everyday essentials and household products can wait.
4. Make Weather Work for You
Insight: Knowing how the weather shapes consumer activity not only helps marketers plan more effective campaigns, but provides a far deeper understanding of your target customer’s current wants and needs. As first party location signals like foot traffic data become more robust, so too will customer personas and associated marketing strategies.
Marketing Lesson: Weather Triggering, GroundTruth’s location-based marketing solution, enables marketers to target against an extensive list of weather conditions and parameters. And thanks to the recent acquisition of WeatherBug, GroundTruth is able to provide even more insight by tapping into the largest network of weather sensors in the world. Working with GroundTruth’s marketers can customize their campaigns based on both current weather and forecasted weather to ensure that ads are relevant to location, time, and atmosphere.
In other words, brands can finally do something about the weather by making smarter targeting decisions and delivering more relevant ads—rain or shine.
