We explain how intelligent commerce marketing uses the different strengths of big players in the area of digital advertising and at the same time reduces dependence on Internet giants.
Successful push marketing increases brand perception and is aimed at performance marketing. In doing so, it subsequently activates latent demand and thus the demand of potential buyers. It supports customer loyalty and provides lasting communication impulses against the background of search word and email marketing, which is naturally limited in terms of scaling options. This should be based on well-founded analyses of customer and buying behavior. Because it is only this knowledge that makes it possible to address potential buyers with the right message at the right time.
In the age of GAFA, the options of programmatic advertising combined with real time bidding (RTB) and the use of demand-side platforms (DSPs) for purchasing media services are proving to be particularly efficient tools for booking, displaying and optimizing online advertising using software and automation.
Potential benefits: Facebook
The most powerful argument for using the social network as an advertising medium is very good targeting data, based on likes, shares and other interactions that can be attributed to user profiles.
Advantage: Product campaigns can be tailored comparatively precisely to the interests of users. There are also other communication options such as customer feedback (useful for product or service optimization of a retailer) or the activation of “fans” of a brand, for example through offers that are available exclusively to them on Facebook. Carousel ads, slideshow ads and collection ads are formats that specifically dynamize advertising from e-commerce providers.
Potential benefits: Amazon
Since potential buyers on Amazon usually go through several phases of an information and buying process, Amazon data on the buying behavior of customers is considered particularly “rich” compared to other players on the advertising market.
Exciting: With the Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP), a campaign can be programmatically connected to customers on Amazon as well as on other websites. In this way, campaigns aimed at additional reach in particular can be successfully implemented. All target groups of users can be represented, including buyers of special interest products.
Potential benefits: Google
The benefits of the Internet giant include wide reach and diverse advertising formats on different platforms such as Google Shopping Ads, Display or YouTube, both mobile and desktop. There is also the option to manage campaigns via Demand Side Platform (DSP) and Supply Side Platform (SSP), which work across marketers.
Since Google users often interact on several Google products, there are interesting targeting options for affinities and purchase intentions. Recommendation: Particularly granular campaign setups should be used to achieve the various campaign goals.
More options
A holistic push marketing setup should combine various programmatic purchasing platforms and at the same time guarantee a certain degree of independence from the individual platforms through central campaign management and results measurement. Ideally, this involves using additional advertising opportunities beyond GAFA. These include the Chinese platform Alibaba (media revenue of 840 million US dollars in Q1/18) and “domestic” data alliances such as Media Markt Saturn, Zalando Media Solutions, Otto Group Media, etc.
Precise customer journey tracking across the various platforms in consumers' search, information and buying behavior is always decisive for every campaign success. The associated learning effects are part of the added value of such a strategy. This is because they enable continuous readjustment of the campaign and thus constantly increasing target group accuracy. It is essential to take into account the conditions and capabilities of mobile devices. This is true not only because, according to Statista, the share of mobile online buyers among total online buyers is about to exceed the 50 percent mark, but also because of consumers' digital information behavior before making a purchase in brick-and-mortar stores. Smart campaign setups, which are intended to increase frequency in stores, rely on tracking tools that make store visits quantitatively measurable following contact with digital advertising. Retailers can also benefit from analyzing their own customer data by using these findings in digital campaigns for the right settings and addressing users as granular as possible. User segmentation based on proprietary data is also conceivable, which combines artificial intelligence and the expertise of data scientists to implement advanced lookalike targeting, which can be used to address “statistical twins” of the best buyers.
Data protection
Data protection requirements in marketing have become more demanding as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect. However, the hurdle for advertisers is not too high. Because: on the one hand, not only do the GAFA platforms provide correspondingly compliant solutions, but on the other hand, German companies in particular have usually already been relatively well positioned in terms of data protection in the past.
Conclusion: With manageable process adjustments and the management of solvable documentation tasks, retailers still have strong options to activate their data potential themselves and use it in campaign setups.
This post is first posted at internetworld.de appeared.
