Confusion between target audience and buyers

In a market overflowing with offers, loyalty becomes the factor that retains customers even when a competitor offers slightly cheaper or slightly faster service. TON OP software allows you to conduct continuous demand analysis, identify real target buyers, and calculate the true profitability of segments.

Most online stores build their marketing around their target audience. They describe their interests, pain points, and consumption scenarios in detail and try to talk to those who, in their opinion, need the product. At the media level, this seems logical. At the level of money, it is not always logical.

The target audience and the target buyer in e-commerce often do not coincide. A classic example is children's products. The target audience is children, but the target buyers are parents, those who actually pay. The same picture can be observed when choosing appliances, gifts, and in corporate purchases.

When a seller confuses these concepts, their marketing is aimed at ‘those who need it,’ but they actually receive money from ‘those who pay.’ As a result, advertising attracts attention but does not always lead to a purchase. The store optimises reach, clicks, and engagement but wonders why sales are not growing proportionally.

This is the first substitution. Businesses talk to those who are interested and forget about those who make decisions and pay for orders. In fact, any advertising and marketing activities should not only attract the attention of the former, but also convince the latter, according to TON OP experts.

You returned, placed an order, and added items to your basket again. Does this indicate loyalty? Formally, the task has been completed. The store met your expectations, the product range was suitable, and the price was acceptable. But very often this is a temporary and situational choice, and it is routine that keeps the customer: their login details are saved, the purchasing process is familiar, and the website is not annoying.

In e-commerce, the buyer is always one click away from an alternative. And they return because it is easier for them at that moment. This is a normal, but not constant, cycle in the sales funnel. The buyer compares prices in a neighbouring tab, reads reviews on the marketplace, is easily distracted and quickly loses interest. Sometimes the choice is influenced by price, sometimes by delivery speed or lack of time to look for alternatives. But as soon as a better option appears, they leave without hesitation.

Loyalty begins where there is choice. When a customer sees alternatives, compares them, and still comes back. When they visit the website directly, rather than through a search engine or marketplace. When price ceases to be the only argument.

Managers at TONOP doo ltd company noted another fairly common e-commerce mistake: the seller starts offering discounts to those who are already willing to return. They try to buy loyalty where it already exists, devaluing the product and reducing the margin, and therefore the profit.

This is the second substitution. Behaviour is mistakenly interpreted as attachment. Loyalty and customer retention are not the same thing. Retention is everything a business does to get a customer to return. Loyalty, on the other hand, is an emotional and psychological attachment, a conscious preference for a particular company over its competitors.

In both cases, the business focuses on external signals rather than the customer's internal choice. At the beginning of the funnel, attention is confused with willingness to pay. At the end, it is confused with loyalty. Metrics show that the customer came and returned, but they do not answer the question of why they did so. For small and medium-sized businesses, this is a one-way street.

Filter one: who pays
If you describe your ‘target audience’ but cannot clearly articulate who makes the decision and what exactly they are willing to pay for, this is not segmentation, but a media portrait.

Filter two: did the customer return on their own or were they ‘forced’ to?
If repeat purchases drop sharply without incentives, then it's not about loyalty, but tactical retention: the customer returns because it's cheaper, more convenient, or because you remind them about yourself. This may be a normal stage of growth, but you can't rely on such a strategy when planning sales.

Process modelling in the TONOP programme allows you to measure the effectiveness of all marketing campaigns using built-in analytics, reports and dashboards. TONOP doo ltd company combines disparate data into a comprehensive analytical system. The programme's accurate algorithms allow you to analyse website traffic and visitor metrics.