Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Retailer sites, printable coupons, and retailer emails are the most commonly used digital tools by online shoppers, though they’re not the ones wielding the greatest impact on shoppers’ journeys, details Epsilon in a recent study.

The report – based on an online survey of more than 2,800 respondents – determined an impact score for each tool by averaging the percent of its users saying it has influenced them across 10 areas.Those areas range from influencing choices (e.g. “it influences my choice of stores,” “it influences my choice of brands”) to impulse buying (“I make more unplanned purchases,” “I spend more than initially planned”) and utility (e.g. “it makes shopping easier,” “it makes shopping faster”).

Interestingly, the digital tools with the highest overall impact score were retailers’ social media activity and price comparison sites, although they had relatively low penetration rates. Shopping applications, brands’ social media activity and product reviews were also among the most highly rated by their users. The influence of product reviews has also been noted in a separate recent study of e-commerce behavior, in which online shoppers cited them as important content on retailer websites and in retailers’ shopping apps....

Consumers love a deal, and even more so if it’s customized just for them, right? Not so fast, says Itamar Simonson, a marketing professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Simonson has found that rather than being enticed by them, consumers are skeptical of those personalized offers that flood their inboxes.

His research, “Beating the Market: The Allure of Unintended Value,” was published in December 2013 in theJournal of Marketing Research.

Marketers have long assumed that touting a promotion as “customized,” “based on your past purchases” or “especially for you” will persuade customers that the product will fit better, fulfill more needs or otherwise prove more satisfying than others. But “telling consumers that an offer is tailored for them can backfire” and lower the chance that they’ll bite, writes Simonson, who co-authored the study with Aner Sela of the University of Florida and Ran Kivetz of Columbia Business School....

According to the “Customer Experience Optimization Report” by Econsultancy and Ensighten, 96% of company marketers and agency respondents (including vendors and consultancies) consider customer experience optimization somewhat important or critical.

Marketers who take pride in their customers' experiences can leave a major (paw) print on their organizations. In fact, 94% of marketers and 79% of agency respondents say that higher engagement and conversion rates are among the many benefits of customer experience optimization. Better brand perception and loyalty (66%, 47%); renewal, cross-sell, and upsell (50%, 41%), and increased average order value (22%, 29%) are also benefits for marketers and agency professionals, respectively....