How To Target People Who Buy Specific Products at Coles or Woolworths

Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

Over the last few years, targeting abilities in the digital world have been diminished. It feels like almost every second week that Facebook tells me that certain interests you I was targeting are no longer available.

On the one hand, platforms are pushing you towards automated targeting. For example, Facebook’s new Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns don’t allow you to set any targeting. Instead, you leave it up to Facebook’s algorithm and machine learning. Which, for the most part, actually gives you a pretty darn good return if you’re an eCommerce store! To learn more about this, check out my article on the simple one-campaign Facebook strategy for eCommerce stores.

But you’re here to learn about targeting people based on their purchase habits in supermarkets. What does that mean? Essentially, you can target people online based on the purchases they’ve made at Coles and Woolworths Supermarkets. Let’s dive in!

Key Takeaways:

• Target supermarket shoppers at Coles and Woolworths based on the items they have purchased.

• FlyBuys / Coles offers a self-service low barrier to entry option.

• Woolworths / Cartology offers a fully managed option with digital and offline channels.

Target Coles Customers through FlyBuys

I love FlyBuys targeting as it’s minimal barrier to entry and gives you maximum control.

How does it work? Essentially, if customers use FlyBuys at checkout you will be able to target them based on their purchases.

What targeting can you do? They have a whole bunch of pre-made segments (e.g. people who buy milk), but you can also put together custom segments.

Some of my favourite examples are:

• Anyone who has purchased more than 5 items in a single shop - for example, where the item contains the word ‘vegan’ in the title - is great for targeting vegans.

• Anyone who has purchased from specific brands - great for targeting your own customers or customers of your competitors.

• Anyone who has purchased any products within the babies category - great for targeting new parents.

Can you target people who’ve purchased your brand? Yes! This is a great way to engage your customers and add them to your digital channels.

Where can you run the ads? FlyBuys is a digital play, in that you can use their audiences on digital marketing platforms. They are currently integrated with Facebook Ads and programmatic.

Learn more about FlyBuys / Coles here - https://unpacked.flybuys.com.au/our-solutions/

Target Woolworths Customers through Cartology

I love FlyBuys targeting as it’s minimal barrier to entry and gives you maximum control.

How does it work? Essentially, if people are using rewards systems (e.g. Everyday Rewards at Woolworths or Flybuys at Coles) you can target them based on their purchases. This is a fully managed service by Cartology. This means that you are engaging Cartology to run campaigns on your behalf.

What targeting can you do? Each brand is different, but their targeting capabilities are essentially the same. Read up in the FlyBuys section above, as the targeting is essentially the same.

Where can you run the ads? Cartology is more integrated with Woolworths than FlyBuys is with Coles. This means that your ads can run digitally in platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, programmatic, and also in-stores.

Lear more about Woolworths / Cartology here - https://www.cartology.com.au/

Coles or Woolworths - which is better?

It all comes down to what you’re after and which audience will be more relevant to you.

Self or externally managed? Do you want to manage the campaigns yourself, or would you like an agency to manage it for you? If you’d like to be self-managed, go FlyBuys. Agency managed? Go Cartology.

Different products: Woolworths and Coles stock different ranges of products. If you’d like to build an audience of your own customers, then obviously you can only do this if your customers are stocked at the supermarket of choice. If you’d like to target competitors, then again it will depend on which supermarket is stocking them.

Barrier to entry: If you don’t have $30k to splash, then you’re going to be choosing FlyBuys / Coles (no barrier to entry), while Woolworths / Cartology have a ~$30k campaign starting point.

And there you have it - a couple ways to target people based on the purchases they’ve made in supermarkets.

Want assistance to integrate this type of targeting with your campaigns? Say hello! I'm a digital marketing consultant that helps SMBs with DIY digital marketing.