eCommerce Benchmarks & Insights for Multichannel
Grocery Brands
How MikMak Helps Food & Beverage Brands Grow, Commerce-First
Grocery Benchmarks & Insights Report
Overview
According to eMarketer, digital Grocery sales will account for 19 percent of all US eCommerce sales in 2026, becoming the largest eCommerce category
*Purchase Intent Clicks:
The number of times a shopper has clicked through to at least one retailer during a single session.
MikMak Commerce-enabled Brand Websites drive the highest Purchase Intent Rates* for Grocery brands compared to other channels
Walmart is the most popular online retailer for Grocery Brands based on Share of Purchase Intent Clicks*
*Purchase Intent Rate:
The percentage of shoppers who clicked through to at least one retailer.
Accelerate Sales & Market Share
Purchase Intent Rates by Channel Type
All channels that see traffic from Grocery have a combined average of 5.6 percent. Make your products discoverable
For all brands, it is important for shoppers to be able to find your Grocery products across all media and brand websites, and be able to purchase in-store or online.
MikMak Commerce for Brand Websites: Example Learn More
Right now, Grocery brands that use MikMak Commerce on their brand websites drive the highest Purchase Intent Rates* at 14.2 percent. Search drives the second highest with 9.1 percent. Video ads follow with 2.5 percent. Social and Display ads see the lowest Purchase Intent Rate, both at 1.1 percent. Average - 5.6%
Meanwhile, in terms of eCommerce shopping traffic for Grocery brands, social platforms lead the way with 38.6 percent of Purchase Intent Clicks*. This is largely due to marketers investing a large portion of their advertising dollars into social media. Brand Websites drive the second most in-market traffic with 19.3 percent. Display and Video tie for third, both at 15.9 percent. Search rounds out these channels, driving 10.2 percent of Purchase Intent Clicks.
When looking at social channels specifically, all social channels driving traffic to Grocery brands see an average Purchase Intent Rate of 1.8 percent. YouTube drives the highest Purchase Intent Rates for Grocery brands at 4.7 percent (2.6x the average). Pinterest follows at 2.6 percent (1.4x the average). Facebook is sitting just above average, in third, at 2 percent (1.1x the average).
Purchase Intent Rate by Social Platform Share of
How MikMak makes products discoverable
MikMak Commerce provides premium consumer shopping experiences that create a seamless path to checkout at any retailer, from anywhere across your entire media mix, including social media, retail media, programmatic, paid search, CTV, video, email, and brand websites.
Drive more conversions with Shoppable Recipes
In the highly competitive eCommerce space, product visibility and accessibility are paramount. MikMak’s new Shoppable Recipe capabilities are transforming how brands leverage recipe content. This feature enables consumers to easily purchase products directly from a brand’s recipe content, boosting basket value and accelerating sales. It also offers brands valuable first-party data to fine-tune future marketing initiatives and opens up new avenues for product partnership marketing.
A grocery brand Increased purchase intent by leveraging MikMak Commerce to create shoppable QR codes included in HelloFresh deliveries along with a free product sample.
13x Higher Purchase Intent Rate from
QR Codes compared to other platforms
24% Share of Purchase Intent Clicks came from New York City
6% of shoppers selected items from the variable shelf
Read our blog to learn more
"What we're trying to do is build a community around our brand with loyalty programs and engaging social media content that includes recipes, ratings, and reviews, which are key to the consumer."
Neha
Mallik, Mizkan
LISTEN HERE
Beat the competition
To effectively grow market share, you must know, compare, and optimize your performance against brands in your category by channel, retailer, and more. You must also understand how performance changes over time.
Purchase Intent for Grocery brands peaks in the first half of the year
Months in 2023, Ranked by Purchase Intent Rate
While it’s typical for Grocery brands to see more traffic around the holiday season, last year showed that Purchase Intent Rates are actually higher near the first half of the year. Monday, May 22nd, 2023, exactly one week before Memorial Day, saw the highest Purchase Intent Rate of the year at 3.3 percent.
* Top 5 Peak Purchasing Dates
Strengthen Retailer Partnerships
Using proprietary, retailer-specific consumer insights in joint planning discussions with retailers can help unlock shelf space and media value.
Walmart is the top retailer for Grocery Brands
Right now, among the top five retailers for Grocery brands, Walmart leads the way, seeing 37.5 percent of Purchase Intent Clicks. Target follows with 20 percent. Amazon is third with 21.1 percent. Instacart comes in fourth with 14.2 percent, and Kroger rounds out the top five retailers seeing 7.2 percent.
“I think what’s unique about this space is that we are only successful individually if we are successful collectively.”
Suzanne Long, Albertsons
Share of Purchase Intent Clicks by Retailer
Online Grocery delivery options are consistently growing. According to Statista, the Grocery Delivery market worldwide is set to achieve a staggering revenue of $786.8 billion in 2024, and $1.271 trillion in 2028. Grocery brands that invest in delivery options now are likely to see future results.
An Enchilada Sauce product sees the highest Purchase Intent Rates, compared to other Grocery products
When looking at the products currently driving the highest Purchase Intent Rates, or the likelihood that a shopper will click through to a retailer option, Enchilada Sauce takes the lead. While the Purchase Intent Rate does not measure product popularity, it can give brands an idea of what products people might likely add to their cart after seeing branded media.
Top 10 Grocery Items (by Purchase Intent Rate)
1. Enchilada Sauce 6. Chocolate Candy
2. Antioxidant Drink 7. Cheese-Flavored Snack Crackers
3. Potato Chips 8. Chocolate Candy
4. Sliced Cheese 9. Apple Sauce
5. Medium Roast Coffee 10. Red Licorice
How MikMak helps brands strengthen retailer partnerships
Do you know if your media investment resulted in a purchase? If so, what was in that cart? This is where MikMak Sales Insights’ closed-loop attribution, or the ability to tie granular consumer touchpoints like platform and campaign all the way through to purchase, comes in. Drive business impact and accelerate your eCommerce growth by gaining visibility into your consumers’ shopping journey, all the way through purchases at select retailers.
Leading Food and Beverage Brand identified the best product messaging per retailer and geolocation in just one week
MikMak has partnered with Circana for a first-of-its-kind report measuring the impact of digital marketing on offline sales. Brands can now confidently understand the influence their digital marketing has on brick-and-mortar sales.
7.2x Increase in purchase intent
1.2x More purchase intent identified from shoppers for Walmart in Chicago
Product Planning MikMak Insights used to update product messaging at brick-and-mortar shelf
"It’s tools like MikMak that give us the visibility on where our consumers are in the funnel from a consideration to purchase perspective and it allows us to support our retail partners.”
Denise Woodward, Partake Foods
LEARN MORE
LISTEN HERE
Drive Profitability & Reduce Costs
Improve marketing effectiveness
Do you know where is best to invest your next marketing dollar? First, it’s important to understand the channels, campaigns, creative, and audiences that actually convert.
New York sees the highest Purchase Intent Rates for Grocery Shoppers in the US
Grocery Shoppers are most likely to purchase Thursday afternoons
Top Days of the Week (by Purchase Intent Rate)
Top Hours of Day (by Purchase Intent Rate)
How MikMak improves marketing effectiveness
MikMak provides the world’s leading Grocery brands with exclusive first-party consumer insights. With MikMak Insights, you can look into your performance from every angle, and dig deeper than other providers.
Sabra drove higher purchase intent than competitors and improved media efficiency by leveraging MikMak Insights to make campaign optimizations
2x Increase in Purchase Intent Rate after switching campaign objectives
+86% Increase in Purchase Intent Rate after updating campaign creative
+50% Higher Purchase Intent Rate than the Grocery vertical
Collect first-party data
To truly improve performance and lower costs, you must also own and have a consolidated view of your consumer data and audiences.
How MikMak provides
first-party
data
Use first-party data collected by MikMak Commerce to build and segment qualified shopper audiences within your ads managers/DSP to improve media targeting based on product interest, retailer preferences, and channel behavior. You can also retarget or build lookalike audiences to be leveraged across your entire media plan.
Baby Boomers drive the most in-market traffic to Grocery brands
"We're training our teams to A) Let the computers do the computer’s thing B) Start with the end in mind when we're talking about our data strategy"
Jay Picconatto, General Mills LISTEN HERE
"When you start running a business connected to econ and digital, you realize there's a whole ecosystem of companies that have emerged and risen in the last ten years. MikMak is a good example. It's a mindset of engaging brands and convincing internally."
Antoine Borde, Danone LISTEN HERE
MikMak Spotlight: Candy
While taking a deeper dive into the Grocery sector, MikMak looked at the top channels and retailers specifically for Candy brands. Here’s what we found out:
Brand Websites for Candy brands see the highest Purchase Intent Rates, compared to other channel types
Purchase Intent Rate by Channel Type for Candy brands
YouTube sees the highest Purchase Intent Rate for Candy brands, compared to other social channels
Purchase Intent Rate by Social Channel for Candy brands
Walmart sees the most in-market traffic for Candy brands
Share of Purchase Intent Clicks, Top 5 Retailers for Candy brands
MikMak Spotlight: Candy
MikMak made a leading Candy brand’s media shoppable without increasing their CPMs
No CPM Increase with the addition of CTAs in ads driving to MikMak
17% Increase in viewer engagement with CTA
59% Of consumers preferred to shop at Walmart
“As we continue to make the brand more relevant and insert ourselves into culture, it's really important that we create experiences that allow people to have the same feelings that they have when they consume our product.”
Gabrielle Wesley, Mars Wrigley
MikMak Spotlight: Non-Alcoholic Beverages (Soft Drinks, Soda, Juice, and Coffee)
In addition to Candy, MikMak also took a deeper look at the top channels and retailers specifically for Non-Alcoholic Beverages, including Soft Drinks, Soda, Juice, and Coffee. Here’s what we found out:
Brand Websites for Non-Alcoholic Beverages see the highest Purchase Intent Rates, compared to other channel types
Purchase Intent Rate by Channel Type for Non-Alcoholic Beverage brands
YouTube sees the highest Purchase Intent Rate for Non-Alcoholic Beverage brands, compared to other social channels
Purchase Intent Rate by Social Channel for Non-Alcoholic Beverage brands
Walmart sees the most in-market traffic for Non-Alcoholic Beverage brands
Share of Purchase Intent Clicks, Top 5 Retailers for Non-Alcoholic Beverage brands
MikMak Spotlight: Non-Alcoholic Beverages (Soft Drinks, Soda, Juice, and Coffee)
Leading Beverage brand increased Purchase Intent by expanding their campaign to additional social channels using MikMak Commerce
1.9x Higher purchase intent after expanding a campaign to Facebook and Instagram after launching only on Snapchat
53% Of shoppers selected Amazon over other eRetailers and marketplaces showing the value in offering multiple retailer options
"Every single thing we put out is trying to do one thing and to do it very well. We start with the premise of what's the dumbest thing we could do? That has us questioning every single thing that we put out."
Hamid Saify, Liquid Death
Save time and money
With consistent, real-time reporting and easy access to consumer, retailer, and platform insights, brands’ internal teams and agencies can save a ton of time and money. Couple these insights with best practices, and your team will be sure to gain market share and drive profitability time and time again.
1. Feed-Based Video Ads
● Design with sound off in mind.
● Capture attention within the first few seconds
● Showcase your brand early and consistently throughout the video
● Optimize for the 4:5 aspect ratio to maximize screen real estate
● Experiment and try new approaches to engage viewers effectively
2. Reels (and Story)
● Keep it simple and highlight a single benefit or product
● Try unconventional angles or perspectives to make your content stand out
● Use varied layouts and interesting compositions
● Create a focal point in the foreground to guide viewers' attention
3. Image Ads in the Feed
● Consider the mobile best practices mentioned earlier
● Tailor the messaging to resonate with the target audience's needs
● Focus on your core products that drive the majority of omnichannel sales
● Pay attention to merchandising to enhance the appeal of your ads
How MikMak saves time and money
MikMak offers one easy-to-use global platform that automatically enables consistent reporting and fast decision-making across the entire organization. With the MikMak Platform, brands can also leverage direct integrations with third-party Product Information Management (PIM) platforms including Salsify and Syndigo; as well as Data Visualization Platforms and Data Lakes like Salesforce and Google Data Studio.
● Get the basics down. Are YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook part of your marketing mix? Are you taking a multichannel approach with multi-retailer checkout? Are Walmart, Amazon, and Target in your check-out options?
● Develop more nuanced insights for consumer relevance. Which channels are part of their shopping journey? Add the channels and retailers that resonate with your consumers to the mix. Is retail media included in your media mix? Can you expand to new formats like QR codes and CTV?
● Get the most out of your brand website. Is your brand’s website utilizing multi-retailer checkout? The MikMak Shopping Index sees high Purchase Intent Rates from brand websites. Make sure your products are shoppable at this important touchpoint.
● Optimize your content. Keep your creative and marketing outreach focused on consumer behavior. Consider implementing Shoppable Recipes or other innovative content to capture new shoppers.
● Be agile and quick with your data, and use insights to adjust your creative and advertising methods effectively
● Explore growth opportunities. Check your performance against category (and subcategory!) benchmarks to see how you stack up against the competition.
A/B test creative and messaging to see if purchase intent increases.
We're here to help. MikMak helps multichannel brands gain deeper consumer insights to grow and protect market share. Contact us at marketing@mikmak.com!
All data and insights from this Category Benchmark and Insights Report are sourced from the MikMak Shopping Index.
The MikMak Shopping Index was developed to provide a standardized set of metrics, methodology, and benchmarks to help drive brands’ business results and strategy. It is a collection of key eCommerce KPIs collected across hundreds of brands and over 250 channels and more than 4,000+ retailer integrations to understand consumer online shopping behavior.
All data in this report is from 2/12/2023 to 2/12/2024.
Did you know that your brand can gain exclusive first-party consumer insights and multichannel analytics by partnering with MikMak? Use MikMak Insights to access data that helps your brand develop and apply eCommerce strategies that work, with a complete understanding of consumers' behavior and preferences.
We're here to help. MikMak helps multichannel brands gain deeper consumer insights to grow and protect market share.
Let’s chat!
Want to get even more insights?
Looking for a different category?
Contact marketing@mikmak.com!