ETAIL ROUND-UP: WHERE TECH MEETS RETAIL
03.07.24 | KATIE WILSON
Anyone who knows me knows I've always been an open book, wearing my heart on my sleeve and embracing vulnerability as the key to authenticity.
I descended into the desert for a whirlwind 11 hours of meetings and networking surrounding the 25th annual eTail™ conference. eTail™ focuses on the intersection of technology and retail which is precisely what I have built my career around running ad sales teams for Google’s top retail clients and now working with brand and tech partners on their marketing and sales strategies.
As a consultant and fractional exec, my conference attendance and focus shifted. Instead of hosting large-scale dinners, booths, and happy hours, I was more free to roam the floor and discover what was happening in the field. As a consultant, I maintain an agnostic approach to vendors and try to learn as much as possible about each partner that could benefit my clients in the future. I took many meetings with great agency partners like Tinuiti and Hawke Media. I also met great brands that were potential partners for the new eComm tech startup that I am currently working with in the personalization and promotions space.
While there were many brands in attendance, I was immediately taken by the sheer number of service providers vying for their attention and budgets. With the rise of AI, personalization, and changes in data being top of mind, retailers have more to navigate in a tech space that is evolving by the minute. I have highlighted some of the top trends I took note of throughout the day from my many conversations with brands, agencies, and service providers.
🛍️ Rise of Personalization to increase ROI: As we lap the explosive eCommerce growth of COVID years, retailers are looking closer at their bottom line to determine where they can maximize their LTV from best-performing customers and attract new similar buyers. Personalization of the website experience, email marketing, and promotions are key to unlocking the right balance of offers and not devaluing the brand. In a recent study, Future Customer Journeys, commissioned by eTail and partners they found 37% of brands identified lack of personalization as a major roadblock to their customers’ journey. The largest challenge identified in their customers’ journeys was understanding their needs and preferences (61%). With more attention to increasing share from their top customers retailers should be looking into tech partners and tools to invest in this area vs. traditional ad spend to a generic pool of users.
🦸 1P Data Is Your Superpower: The upcoming deprecation of 3P cookies was top of mind for many. Ad measurement and customer journeys will forever be changed and many retailers are struggling to adjust to the new reality. Fear not there is a wealth of data at your fingertips as a brand in your first-party data and customer profiles. This data can be used to help find more similar customers, determine a loyalty program, or forge partnership deals with other brands. Many of the tech providers and brands highlighted the use of their 1P data as an area of focus in the next year. This is also a good reminder to push customers to buy on your own site vs. third-party or resellers. Large resellers like Amazon will not provide you with their customer data and those sales become a black box for marketers.
🥣 Marketing Mix is Back: Ah yes that age-old marketing chestnut of which is more important brand or performance? We still don’t have an easy answer but there is a renewed focus on measurement and flexing credit and KPIs. This appeared in the form of tech providers touting new dashboards and attribution methods and brand teams collaborating more closely with their performance counterparts in-house. Retailers need to think about the full-funnel approach to marketing and analyze their customers’ journey to see what is feeding that funnel and what happens in the messy middle between brand and performance. There will never be a silver bullet but attributing traffic correctly and looking at a blend of performance is key.
🧑🤝🧑Brands as Community: The Z Suite Z Suite (panel of Gen Z students) hosted a variety of CMOs to discuss their strategies for reaching Gen Z. And no the answer is not just to be on TikTok (although that helps). It centered around treating your brand and your audience as a community, having a two-way conversation, and fostering a space for your brand evangelists to share. This authentic connection to brands is key to driving strong LTV and acquiring new users at a time when so many brands are vying for the attention of this segment of consumers. They urged brands to have more user-generated content be their brand content.
🛒 Rise of Shopify Agencies: As Shopify continues to lead the way for easy setup and integration of eCommerce sites, they are also spanning a new industry of Shopify agencies. These agencies consult with and help brands build out their sites with knowledge of apps and plugins that will best support their needs. Some ones I met include SeaMonster Studios Shopify Experts Chelsea & Rachel Co. . As eCommerce continues to evolve and more tech providers enter the landscape, setting up your site can be daunting. I am seeing many more brands engage with digital agencies for marketing purposes and Shopify agencies for UX and integrations. Data providers would be the third big bucket of providers I noted at the conference, many of whom were sure to tag AI onto their name and offerings. As a brand or retailer, it is certainly more complicated than ever to vet providers and determine what mix is right for you.
Katie Wilson is the founder of Serious Moonlight Consulting and a founding member of THE BOARD.
She helps companies untangle their sales & marketing processes for sustainable growth. Available for projects, fractional leadership, 1:1 coaching, and advisory.
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