Online purchases are not isolated events, and using data insights in the right way marketers have the opportunity to understand not only what people will purchase, but when they will purchase it too.

A big-ticket purchase, for example, often inspires smaller accessory purchases. Which isn’t news to anyone. What is news however, is using purchase intent data to understand just how likely a person is to be in market for a high-value purchase in a category, based on a previous purchase and knowing what high-value item they’re likely to be in market for.

Look at home entertainment. Once a customer buys a new TV, they become 19 times more likely to buy a surround sound system and a Blu-Ray player. After purchasing a sound system and Blu-Ray, they become seven times more likely to look over their broadband and entertainment package, and reassess where they stand. This is a much richer picture than simply understanding what might be purchased. It gives a picture of people looking at making a cluster of high ticket items and their likelihood of making successive purchases.

Tales of the unexpected (purchases)

These linked purchases aren’t always logical either.

On the one hand, in the kitchen, people who buy a Miele washing machine are 10 times more likely to buy a large range style oven and 30 times more likely to buy a dedicated wine chiller.

On the other, a large appliance purchase won’t always result in more. Bosch buyers are 57 times more likely to buy a coffee machine, and eight times more likely to make that coffee-machine a Nespresso machine.

So marketers can not only validate expected outcomes with purchase intent data but also understand and see unexpected journeys and capitalize upon them accordingly in their efforts.

Foreshadowing the future

Even more valuable than being able to understand what future purchases will be is knowing when the next purchase will happen.

People that buy maternity wear are also in market for nursery furniture. From purchase intent data, we can also see that the best time to target people with nursery furniture is during the first three months of pregnancy because in that time they’re 18 times more likely to commit to a purchase.

Knowing the window of opportunity enables more effective targeting. Once someone’s purchased baby furniture, we see a 6-week window where they are 15 times more likely to buy a digital camera to make sure baby’s every moment is captured for posterity. While all this is going on, expecting parents are 8 times more likely to buy flights and nine times more likely to book hotels for their “babymoon”.

Leveraging a one-off purchase to drive others

Today securing even a single purchase can be a challenge. Consumers are becoming more speculative and have shorter attention spans in which to be influenced. With purchase intent data on their side however, marketers can validate their instincts and what they expect, prepare for the unexpected and understand when to target people to drive purchases. Critically for marketers, working from retail purchase intent data, they can understand not only how to drive single purchases, but also how to spark entire chains of purchases.

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