Let’s go with visuals. ViralGains offers video advertising that changes as users move through the buying journey and asks users for feedback about what they’re shown, product interests, and brand sentiment. It’s an interesting if complicated concept. They’ve raised $28.7 million including $13 million last month.
Plenty of surveys, including this one from Euclid, show that retail shoppers ultimately care more about price than experience. But long-term brand relationships are something else. Incentive program provider Blackhawk Network found that consumers rank customer experience, convenience and payment process far above price as reasons they remain loyal how to a brand. How far? Good customer experience was cited by 94% while low price was cited by just 57%.
Surveys are nice but how about some real data on personalization’s value? The folks at ecommerce personalization vendor Qubit analyzed two billion customer journeys and 120 million purchases to find what worked. They found messages that highlight low-stock items, trending products, and time limits were most effective. Product recommendations were less so. But the main news is that messages driven by individual-level behaviors and preferences were three times more effective than non-targeted messages. Fascinating.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.