[New Research] Driving Grocery Sales Using Contextual Commerce

Navigating the Digital Landscape To Reach Today’s Grocery Shopper

In an increasingly digital world, grocery retailers have had to adapt to reach new customers. With 7 in 10 consumers shopping for groceries online at least weekly, online advertising, shopping and delivery are key to holding onto longtime customers — and reaching new ones. 

To explore shoppers’ online activity, including their social media usage, experiences with online recipes and interactions with contextual commerce, Chicory partnered with the Path to Purchase Institute (P2PI) to survey 1,000 consumers. You’ll find data from this report on contextual commerce and grocery shopping trends throughout this article. This proprietary research reveals opportunities for brands to influence grocery purchasing decisions at various stages of the buyer's journey.

Leveraging Contextual Commerce Strategies To Drive CPG Brand and Grocery Retailer Growth

The P2PI-Chicory data also highlights contextual commerce as a leading advertising strategy for connecting with consumers online and boosting grocery sales. Contextual commerce is a future-proof digital media solution that combines contextually targeted ads with shoppable capabilities. Popular examples of contextual commerce in the grocery space include shoppable links on food blogs, in-recipe ads and in-cart ads. 

Unlike social media ads, which rely on demographic or behavioral targeting without considering context, contextual commerce uses keyword targeting to engage with customers actively in shopping mode. Brands leveraging contextual commerce benefit by reaching high-intent audiences, and consumers benefit from receiving highly relevant, yet privacy-conscious, ad experiences. This is particularly crucial in today's landscape, where the deprecation of third-party cookies is imminent.

Throughout this blog, we’ll delve into the different ways in which contextual commerce drives engagement and conversions — with a specific focus on online recipe content. Online recipe content is the number one contextual opportunity for CPG brands and grocery retailers. 

Crafting Connections Through Recipe Content 

82% of consumers browse food blogs and recipe sites for meal inspiration, and 85% refer to online recipes while shopping or making their grocery lists. Brands can capitalize on this high reliance on recipes using contextual strategies — creating their own brand recipes, or advertising on thousands of existing recipes through a contextual advertising platform, like Chicory. Brands like Land O’ Lakes have already implemented this tactic, taking the time to show their community exactly how they can use their products. This increases the value of their products and establishes a positive connection with their audience. 

Simplifying Purchases with Curated Meal Bundles 

Another effective way to showcase your products is by curating product and ingredient bundles to help shoppers easily bring new, exciting meals to their kitchens. This approach adds significant value for consumers: they don’t have to parse a recipe into a shopping list, and they don’t have to think too hard about what they’re going to use a particular ingredient for. 

A contextual commerce strategy simplifies this process. By utilizing Chicory’s pairings ads, you can promote products in adjacent recipes and push time-sensitive bundles, like all the ingredients needed for Super Bowl nacho spread. 

Promoting bundles or complementary items proves highly effective as well: 65% of online shoppers (and 58% in-person) buy complementary items when shopping for ingredients for a recipe, like a baking tray alongside ingredients for nachos — a trend particularly common among Gen Z and Millennials. 

Harnessing the Meal-Planning Mindset

52% of consumers have recently made one or more online purchases via contextual commerce, with the most common channels being social media, content websites or blogs. Contextual commerce generates high engagement because the ads are highly relevant to the consumer’s current browsing activity. This effect is even more pronounced with contextual, in-recipe ads: 78% of consumers surveyed were more likely to buy a brand in-store if they'd seen it in an in-recipe ad. This is because contextual, in-recipe ads marry relevancy with intent, reaching shoppers while they actively seek meal or purchase inspiration. 

Embracing Privacy-Conscious Personalization 

Personalization is crucial for providing an exceptional customer experience — over 30% of Gen Z (and 26% of Millennials) express a greater likelihood to click on a link if it is tailored to their browsing or shopping history. But as third-party cookies are phased out, and as fears of online data security issues rise, adopting a privacy-conscious approach to personalization becomes paramount. In fact, 12% of consumers are deterred from shopping online by fears of online data security issues. 

With contextual commerce, consumers encounter ads in spaces they intentionally navigated to, and that align with their current mindset. This creates a personalized experience without the need to rely on their browsing data. 

Driving Grocery Sales and Positive Brand Sentiment with Contextual Commerce

Contextual commerce advertising offers unique advantages to brands, ranging from privacy-conscious targeting to increased engagement. Recognizing this, Pre Brands maintains its own recipe library and strategically places ads in relevant online recipes all across the internet using Chicory, effectively boosting both sales and brand awareness. 

The results for Pre Brands and other contextual users are significant. Pre Brands drove over $600K in incremental sales within just five months of live campaigns with Chicory. The impact of these campaigns is expected to endure: after seeing a contextual, in-recipe ad, 78% of consumers remember the brand next time they’re shopping, and consider purchasing from that brand. Moreover, 79% affirm that contextual, in-recipe ads positively influence their perception of the brand, further validating the effective and non-intrusive nature of contextual advertisements.

Contextual commerce is rapidly becoming an indispensable tool within omnichannel marketing strategies. It helps brands stay top-of-mind for online shoppers — whether they’re shopping online or in-store — and it provides a personalized ad approach without intrusive targeting.

Get the Latest Grocery Shopping and Contextual Commerce Trends

Access the latest consumer grocery trends in the full report from P2PI and Chicory.