The Effectiveness of Customized Promotions in Online and Offline Stores

Abstract

This study investigates the effectiveness of customized promotions at three levels of granularity (mass market, segment specific, and individual specific) in online and offline stores. The authors conduct an empirical examination of the profit potential of these customized promotion programs with a joint model of purchase incidence, choice, and quantity and through optimization procedures for approximately 300 conditions. They find that (1) optimization procedures lead to substantial profit improvements over the current practice for all types of promotions (customized and undifferentiated); (2) loyalty promotions are more profitable in online stores than in offline stores, while the opposite holds for competitive promotions; (3) the incremental payoff of individual-level over segment- and mass market–level customized promotions is small in general, especially in offline stores; (4) for categories that are promotion sensitive, individual-level customized promotions can lead to a meaningful profit increase over segment- and mass market–level customized promotions in online stores; and (5) low redemption rates are a major impediment to the success of customized promotions in offline stores. Optimal undifferentiated promotions should be the primary promotion program in this channel, and firms can benefit from offering a combination of optimal undifferentiated and customized promotions for suitable categories in offline stores.