Admitad: brief summary of coronavirus March

In this season of self-isolation, the economy has switched to the crisis mode. We have already told you about Q1 of the total offline lockdown. This time, we are providing more thorough statistics covering March specifically.

What happened in March?

Compared with March 2019, the total size of the cart has grown, but the number of orders is falling. On the one hand, it means the demand is decreasing — since people rarely leave their home and choose their goods more carefully. On the other hand, this trend might just indicate that the prices are growing too.

Rising average check means that people around the world have started bulk-shopping. The trend has been upheld by the fall in sales on the lower end, namely goods from China. Chinese advertisers in total lost about a third of their sales compared with March 2019.

At the same time, the rising number of clicks means that even advertisers with CPL campaigns can profit from the situation — especially online game developers and online service providers.

#stayhome #staysafe

At least half of the month people were self-isolated and ignored the non-priority goods, such as clothes, presents, flowers, pet toys, paid software. They only leave home to get to the nearest store, but buy a lot there to feel safer. They stopped visiting gyms and started caring for their children and pets (or did they?)  

Pizzas and canned foods

The most obvious observation that every marketer has made by now is that switching to home office mode made people spend more time in their apartment. But they didn’t start eating less — consumption habits do not change overnight. Cafes and restaurants that used to serve customers offline started handling online orders. Due to this transition, the delivery businesses are growing rapidly. But we have to consider that deliveries tend to grow at the beginning of the year even under the normal circumstances — usually, till the first weeks of April.

Since most offices now are remote, healthy food deliveries are wildly popular among cafeteria-free office employees.

Consumers started storing basic goods during the first weeks of March, but the trend went down afterward as they switched to food deliveries from the restaurants. The decline in the supermarkets at the end of the month was possibly caused by the fact that people discovered they could order not only pizzas but also wholefoods online.

Hammer drills, chairs and microphones

Since earthlings now spend more time home, they started discovering the imperfection of their apartments and trying to fix them. For that, they are buying hand tools and new furniture — such as comfortable office chairs. The 2nd week of March was the most prominent in terms of sales growth.

By the 3rd week of the month (March 15-21) consumers realized they needed more electronics, both for entertainment (PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch) and for work (web cameras and microphones for conference calls) 

Dumbbells and shampoo

Having lost their regular working out environment, gym addicts make up for it with other exercises. They need dumbbells, weights, resistance bands, and sometimes even sportswear.

For those who don’t do sports, there are other ways of keeping good looks. This is why cosmetics, lotions, shampoos are in demand as well as all kinds of supplements to keep your skin, nails, and hair healthy.

Toys and hand sanitizers

Taking care of your loved ones is everyone’s responsibility these days. Someone shows their love to children instead of pets, others bought every possible pill in a 3-mile radius early March and stopped leaving their shelter.

According to Admitad data, March 8-21 were the busiest days for Kids shops.

Pharmacies were on the rise during the first weeks of the month, pet shops — only during the second one.

What is there for businesses to do?

Stop cutting down the CPA channel. It is somewhat naive to believe that shutting down your affiliates can save your money — on the contrary, it prevents you from getting sales. If you do not get any, you do not pay. 

“In this time of crisis, advertisers across many industries are in dire need of targeted traffic. They are not ready to waste their budget on “blank” clicks. Such companies might find the cost-per-action model useful, especially when working with coupons and cashback publishers. However, if you develop online services or multiplayer games, the affiliate channel can also increase your number of registrations. Arbitrage and advertising on social media might do the trick.” — says Artem Ozerkov, Chief Operations Officer.

“It is important to remember that by disconnecting publishers from your program you undermine your future recovery. When the crisis has passed, you will have to reconnect with those you have abandoned. This is why we in Admitad recommend avoiding sharp turns for now. Please discuss any changes in the program with your manager — unless you want to risk your reputation among the network’s affiliates.” — COO adds.

Earlier, we launched a free support hotline for advertisers. Both your questions about how to get your business through the rough patches and your ideas for cooperation are welcome here — blackswan@admitad.com.