online marketing Archives - Datahash

Marketers Measure Success Differently Owing to Data Privacy Updates

Nitigya Kuchhal — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 09:20:09 +0000

There could not be a better time to be an online marketer. The world of marketing is evolving at a fast pace. As per reports, 80% of marketers lead their customer experience initiatives across the business, while 94% of marketers globally view the marketing function as critical to drive growth.

A recent report by Salesforce studied over 2,500 global marketing professionals along with their businesses. The report revealed that marketers today are under pressure to optimize and prove their marketing ROI in a tough environment of digital privacy policy. All this while also keeping with the constant operating challenge of organizing and accessing quality data.

Today, marketers aspire to build a cross-channel view that provides a holistic view while enabling speed to insight and rapid decisions at the pace of their business. Reports show that marketers rely on data to inform and create personalized, trusted customer experience – all of which is directed to maximize ROI.

Privacy Changes Have Led to A Significant Shift in Marketing Strategies & Investments

In the last couple of years, data privacy regulations – GDPR, Apple Mail Privacy Protection, and the deprecation of third-party cookies by Google have pushed marketers to adopt a consent-based route to collecting data. 90% of marketers agree that recent data privacy changes have fundamentally changed how they measure marketing performance.

Focus on Data Quality

Marketers need to know that they can rely on the data being collected to drive outcomes. Four In five marketers indicate that data quality is crucial to driving marketing-led growth and customer experiences.

But not everyone has access to a reliable data foundation nor the ability to unlock it. Marketers say employee resources and manual data integration are top challenges in efficiently evaluating performance. Though marketers are investing in analytics technology, only 51% of marketing teams currently have employees dedicated to analytics, according to the marketing report.

A Centralized View of Data

Reports suggest that 98% of marketers emphasize the importance of having a complete, centralized view across all cross-channel marketing. Marketers are required to integrate data across business units and sources while also being able to generate and deliver value. A unified data view allows marketers to lead growth in their organizations while engaging with customers.

90% of marketers plan to either increase or maintain investments in marketing analytics
88% of marketers plan to either increase or maintain investments in customer data platforms
87% of marketers plan to either increase or maintain investments in real-time interaction and personalization

Source Credit: Salesforce

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Value of First-Party Data Activation for ECommerce Businesses

Nitigya Kuchhal — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 12:35:38 +0000

The third-party cookie demise resulted in the loss of identifiers and identity resolution. However, businesses across the board, especially e-commerce, are self-correcting by re-directing investments from third-party data platforms to first-party initiatives.

The Ability to Collect Data Within Compliance Norms

The first dilemma for marketers is the ability to collect data ethically in keeping with compliance mandates set forth by the regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA. A good first-party data collection solution is expected to take care of this process along with compliance requirements.

The benefit of focusing on first-party data is that it enables businesses to create personalized experiences for their user base and get direct insights into the customer’s product interest while creating personalized experiences for them. Because first-party data is owned by the business itself, it will have control over the data being collected.

While many understand that first-party data can inform advertising, there are other ways to use this data to power an e-commerce business. As information that is unique to the business itself, first-party data can inform everything from products and pricing to branding. For example, e-commerce marketers will know exactly how a customer interacts with a brand and its products and this allows for dynamic pricing catered to a specific consumer.

Effectively Target & Personalize with First-Party Data

First-party data allows e-commerce businesses to carry out in-depth targeting based on customer demography, preferences, payment methods, discounts, behavioral characteristics, Add to Carts, SKUs, purchasing frequency, and so on and so forth. This allows the marketer to identify, create specific target groups and personalize advertisements directed to the user.

With first-party data, you will be able to identify customers based on their transaction history. This is in addition to identification based on the type of vendor they prefer – credit, debit, UP etc.

Let’s break this down further as we go over a few Use Cases

Ability to Target & Help Cart Abandons

There are instances where customers add products to their cart but don’t check out. Access to first-party data helps you identify these customers and connect with them via e-mails, calls, Ads.

Positively Reinforce ‘Friendly Payers’

Certain customers who are regulars prefer a particular mode of payment. You can group these customers with their transaction mode – Credit, Debit, UP, or Net Banking. You can then send them a regular appreciation email or even targeted ads with relevant offers with their preferred mode of payment.

Segregate users based on buyer demographics

E-commerce marketers usually study buyer demographics – where users in a certain demographic tend to buy a particular product more often. This is usually influenced by buying trends and more.

Access to first-party data allows you to identify the most bought items for a particular region in the last 30 days. Send targeted Ads to let customers know when a product is back in stock and even re-target customers who like to purchase a certain item.

Lead with Loyalty Programs

Brands implementing a loyalty program on their e-commerce website or mobile app can reap benefits in collecting first-party data. In such cases, customers are extremely motivated to engage with the brand to provide additional personal information that they would have otherwise avoided giving. Earning rewards and benefits can also appeal to passive audiences also to shop repeatedly on the website. Incentives for website specific events like subscribing to the newsletter, completing a quiz, or their personal profile are becoming increasingly popular for brands running a loyalty program.

Why Ecommerce Marketers Love First-Party Data

Using first-party data you can personalize an eCommerce experience for customers far more easily. With second or third-party data you risk bumping your head against the constraints of how that data was collected. It comes from another organization whose goals will never align 100% with your own. If you want a job done right, do it yourself.

When brands show they are responsible for data collection and are using it to provide better shopping experiences, customers are inclined to assist with sharing more about themselves. With stricter government laws and data privacy regulations in place. Brands should prioritize the implementation of consent mechanisms that allow customers to opt into experiences of their choice.

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How First-Party Data Has a Crucial Role to Play in Digital Commerce

Nitigya Kuchhal — Sun, 07 May 2023 18:45:18 +0000

Digital Commerce has seen significant uptake. According to 86% of surveyed leaders – digital commerce will be the most important route to market in the next two years.

Most CMOs report that they met or exceeded digital commerce revenue and profitability targets last year, which reflects an unusually favorable operating environment. This creates a challenging outlook for CMOs. There will be pressure to sustain performance and deliver incremental results, even as customer preferences and behaviors continue to evolve in the direction of a “hybrid” mix of digital self-service and in-person experiences.

The last few years have shown a significant period of change and disruption to customer purchase journeys, behaviours, and expectations. This has resulted in significant digital commerce growth on a global scale at an accelerated pace. Seventy-seven percent of leaders surveyed agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic forced their organizations to set up an online presence and launch digital commerce in a short amount of time. Across business models, organizations are most commonly leveraging digital-first innovations and direct-to-customer platforms to meet customers’ needs for digital commerce.

The Digital Commerce Outlook Will Be Challenging for CMOs

While consumers anticipate that many of their new habits will outlast the pandemic, they are also eager to return to a “hybrid” mode of engaging with brands both digitally and offline.

Consumers miss various aspects of the in-store experience, such as casually browsing products, exploring and trying out products in person, and finding deals. It’s safe to assume that customer purchase habits will continue to evolve, with customers shifting back to previous sales channels, causing a dip in digital commerce sales channel penetration.

This will vary depending on the customer and the industry. Nonetheless, it creates a challenging budgeting and planning situation for CMOs:

• B2C organizations have a challenging outlook, as an already extremely crowded and competitive space will become more intense. Leaders surveyed expect this to continue as they compete for customers’ attention and share of wallet.

• B2B organizations are mostly in a phase of digitizing pre-existing routes to market, and their challenge is to stay ahead of competitors who are also evolving their digital commerce strategies. They also need to think about how they leverage demand generation and marketing tactics to drive more value from new and existing customers. Executive leaders are well aware of the shifting digital commerce customer and market dynamics in 2021.

They recognize that this growth and performance was a given based on the customer shift from traditional to digital commerce channels. In fact, despite large meeting or exceeding commercial targets, only 27% of surveyed marketing leaders reported that they exceeded their senior leaders’ performance expectations for revenue and profitability.

Surveyed leaders agree that they haven’t future-proofed their organization. 37% believe they have the necessary digital commerce capabilities to be successful in the future in terms of talent, partners, process, and operations (best practices, technology, and analytics). Specifically, respondents reported that they need to evolve their digital commerce capabilities to produce more tangible digital commerce results. In doing so, they will also need to wrestle with the transformational aspects of digital commerce.

To close the gap between high expectations and future performance, CMOs need to socialize the challenging commercial outlook with other senior leaders. By jointly setting expectations through robust commercial scenario planning and creating a roadmap to evolve digital commerce capabilities, the target expectation-perception gap can be closed.

First-Party Data: A Strong Arm for CMOs

The significance of first-party data is its ability to help businesses truly understand their customers and build an accurate customer profile to improve relationships along every aspect of the customer journey. Winning in digital commerce in today’s uber-competitive online marketplace starts with having a top-notch e-commerce data strategy that can lead to offering personalized commerce experiences for your loyal customers. Ensuring that your marketing strategy is a data-driven strategy is arguably the most important step in optimizing your marketing efforts for your e-commerce business.

Lead with Loyalty Programs

Brands implementing a loyalty program on their e-commerce website or mobile app can reap benefits in collecting first-party data. In such cases, customers are extremely motivated to engage with the brand to provide additional personal information that they would have otherwise avoided giving. Earning rewards and benefits can also appeal to passive audiences also to shop repeatedly on the website. Incentives for website-specific events like subscribing to the newsletter, completing a quiz or their personal profile are becoming increasingly popular for brands running a loyalty program.

Build emotional bonds with your audience

Customers often feel connected with brands that understand their needs and cater to them continually. It is the brands’ responsibility to ensure that customer feedback is always considered and acted upon to deliver higher customer satisfaction. When brands engage with customers across social media, email, mobile apps, and retail channels, the expectation is to provide a highly individualized shopping experience taking past behavior and purchase history as well as purchase intention into consideration.

Brands should think about using all the intelligence collected from e-commerce channels and applying it to other channels in real-time to provide a highly individualized experience. A simple strategy could be to implement a mobile Wallet solution that creates new ways for shoppers to shop from their mobile devices. Delivering personalized digital coupons or updates about in-store events or having a digital loyalty card makes the shopping experience extremely seamless as customers switch between online and offline channels.

Impact on E-commerce

When brands show they are responsible with data collection and are using it to provide better shopping experiences, customers are inclined to assist with sharing more about themselves. With stricter government laws and data privacy regulations in place, Brands should prioritize the implementation of consent mechanisms that allow customers to opt into experiences of their choice.

E-commerce brands like Amazon, Sephora, and Expedia have implemented customer-centric loyalty programs that provide not only benefits to customers but also a great shopping experience that has in turn helped brands retain their customers. Sephora allows customers to take a quiz on the website or complete their profile and get additional points as well as personalized recommendations. Hudson Bay, Canada’s iconic department store, asks customers to provide information about their body type to provide best-fit recommendations without being creepy.

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