Your customers aren’t in the best mindset right now.
2022 was an intense, hard, settling year. Maybe the best thing that happened to all of us is that we could travel freely and get rid of the pandemic.
Only to face the consequences of the 2020-2022 stream of events: global inflation, a spike in ALL costs, and an impending recession.
All occurring at the same time.
People are overburdened by this climate. And their need to be heard and understood.
Your best bet this year is leaning into empathy and authenticity – becoming customer-centric and treating your consumers as humans, not as cash-flows is a must.
At the same time, you’d be insane not to fully embrace using your customer data to double down on personalisation.
What else should you do, if you want not only to survive 2023, but come out of it stronger?
We asked 30+ experts and an one AI entity about their 2023 predictions, this year’s top marketing trends, Customer Value Optimization, and best-practices to create a stronger healthier business.
Enough about the past.
Let’s see what experts like Denis Strum, Dennis Yu, William Harris and 30+ more, predict for the future!
(stick around until the end, where we get to see AI’s predictions for this year.)
What are the main things that we’ll see in 2023 in eCommerce?
With advancements in technology and changes in consumer behavior, eCommerce is set to get wild in 2023!
While it seems like the keyword for 2023 is #online, things aren’t that easy. Let’s shine a light on the main changes, challenges, and opportunities that arise after the tectonic shift we’ve seen over the last couple of years.
Frank Feather – CEO, QAIMETA Strategist @QUAIMETA
In 2023, recession or not, eCommerce will continue to gain market share over offline, brick and mortar sales.
This will continue each and every year until eCommerce utterly dominates retail sales.
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Waldo van Niekerk – Sales Manager | Senior Digital Strategist @Zyber
The main thing we will see in eComm in 2023 is brands continuing their investments in bridging the gap between their online and offline experiences.
eComm is Retail and Retail is eComm.
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Juliana Jackson – Digital Analytics Architect @Media.Monks
The whole world is moving towards adapting how companies market to their customers by having a privacy focused approach.
People are becoming increasingly weary and distrustful of companies tracking absolutely everything about their behavior.
We will see a full shift towards first party data finally.
We will see more brands being forced to work with less observable data for their advertising campaign, less control over channel.
First party data will be finally center stage. However it will be a very tough adoption to a privacy focused, trust based, transparent and ethical marketing strategy from eCommerce brands.
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Nathan Lomax – Co-Founder @Quickfire Digital
Arguably the biggest – although perhaps not necessarily the most exciting – thing we’ll see is a more measured, scalable approach to growth.
We’ve seen some big names go under this year – in some cases going too fast to try to take advantage of the overhyped ‘new normal’ consumer approach to buying – and some harsh lessons have been learned.
And with the cost of living crisis continuing into 2023, I think we’ll generally see eCommerce businesses take a pragmatic approach and scale at a sensible pace.
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Derric Hayne – CEO & Co-Founder @Ecommerce Tech
I see a few big emerging trends that are set to take off in 2023.
First and foremost, we may now be at the tipping point where AI becomes good enough in 2023 to make a lot more decisions for us than before.
And if your AI isn’t making the decisions itself, it will at least be more predictive in guiding you toward what you should be doing.
Secondly, I see a big trend between Live Selling and Social Selling that will transfer the “ultimate goal” from being “let’s get them back to our website” to “let them buy wherever they are.”
This means merchants are likely to be selling on more channels than ever before.
And thirdly, on the flip side of “selling on more channels,” I believe we’ll see a trend where more and more storefronts will be selling partner (vendor/supplier) products.
It will be easier than ever to add a complementary product to your store and increase average order value.
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George Kapernaros – Owner @ YOCTO
I see 3 major forces driving change in 2023 that are closely interconnected.
- First, inflation is likely to necessitate heavy cost-cutting measures.
- Secondly, increasing privacy regulations are likely to a result in yet another decline in paid media performance.
- And thirdly, AI will enable content production in a scale never seen before.
Given these factors, brands will likely be forced to do more with fewer resources, so they acquire and retain harder to target customers, who’re less willing to spend.
It’s not a pretty picture. The big opportunity appears to be in mastering how to collect and use zero-party data, then deploying cost-effective, AI-powered content.
Personally, I welcome the coming challenges and since I’ve spent an enormous amount of time thinking of how to leverage both zero-party data and AI, I’m cautiously optimistic about all of YOCTO’s merchant brands.
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Andy Crestodina – Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer @Orbit Media Solutions
More video guiding visitors to product detail pages …and more video on the PDPs themselves.
As consumer behavior becomes more centered around short clips, marketers and brands will adapt by injecting this format into the experience of their audience.
A lot of the short form video in social will be co-created with influencers (one of the most effective strategies in marketing) but the video on the websites will be created by the brands themselves.
Of course, this is especially relevant to certain eCommerce categories (it all starts with B2C fashion and lifestyle) but will gradually appear in all kinds of ecommerce.
You will see it everywhere.
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Dennis Yu – CTO @BlitzMetrics
Social discovery in TikTok takes off in a huge way – meaning more influencer deals, better structured around common goals, and ad dollars behind them.
Now individuals can be like media channels instead of just our affiliates.
So look out for better tracking systems and more integration of social selling features on Facebook and TikTok.
People like to think that Facebook is dead, but we’ll see massive growth as they revamp advertising within WhatsApp and Instagram.
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Matt Edmundson -CEO @Aurion Media
Live shopping, AI cleverness but also a more personal service from smaller brands.
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Jono Alderson – Head of SEO @Yoast BV
Google continues to blur the lines between organic results, Shopping, Merchant Center and Discover.
Users increasingly able to complete entire research and purchase journeys in the search results; raising interesting questions about the role of eCommerce websites, product listing pages, and content strategies.
Behind the scenes, there are even bigger changes happening.
We’re seeing Google (and Facebook) rely more and more on schema.org / structured data as a primary truth for information about products, pricing, and availability. That reduces the need to build, maintain or integrate (often expensive) feeds and database systems, and enables your website to feed third party systems directly.
This potentially represents a shift where your website’s most important audience is increasingly bots, which harvest information about your inventory and offers.
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Mark Irvine – Director of Paid Media @SearchLab
A change in messaging.
The last few years between a pandemic and ever shifting supply chains – any sense of normalcy was worth a premium. Available, on time, and in stock were the values your brand could highlight and champion with your ads. eCommerce brands that could deliver those values soared throughout the past 30 months.
As economic conditions shift, with growing inflation and a looming recession – consumers needs are shifting.
There’s no longer increased demand and far fewer shortages of supplies. Instead, consumers are economically motivated.
Some brands can champion their market with offers of lower prices but those who can’t – especially luxury brands – will need to be creative with their messaging in 2023.
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William Harris – Founder | CEO @Elumynt
There will be a bigger push into emerging ad channels like TikTok and Reddit by bigger brands so prepare for more competition and better ad creatives.
But the main thing I’m excited about (even if it’s still quite early) is MR (Mixed Reality).
VR and AR are still in their infancy, and feel more like novelties, but the savvy brands are already developing their understanding of the inevitable metaverse and how to drive awareness and performance in a 360 3D world.
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Miroslav Varga – MarTech Specialist @Escape Digital Agency
It is always difficult to predict the future. But the year 2023 is not the future, already belongs to the present.
With the imminent arrival of GA4, which will require time for adaptation and elimination of children’s diseases, I am sure that in retail, a deep change will begin within smaller retailers as well, which we have already noticed in larger ones.
The increasing and stricter ban on user tracking have inevitably led to a lack of data. To fill this void, attempts will be made to increase the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence. O
penAI is a good example of a tool that will help in filling the gap by introducing more storytelling and writing more compelling Ad content.
In parallel, human behaviour (behavioural economics) will be researched to ‘attention-hack’ the user, not only with statistical tools but with an increasingly powerful use of Game Theory.
In earlier research, it was established that buying is not rational, but an emotional or impulsively motivated event. Exceptional efforts will continue here, which will try to include neglected methods and platforms (TikTok, biometric monitoring, attention hacking, etc.). Web store content will be adjusted accordingly.
Very interesting are the results of the research by Ph.D. Margalit Liraz, where the conversion funnel was investigated. The purchase of very expensive products for personal use was better when there was not too much text next to the image of the product.
It was thought that the lack of experience we have when buying in a physical store (salesperson product descriptions, product texture, smell, sound, color, etc.) in eCommerce should be compensated with detailed product descriptions.
Her research has shown that too much text leads to rationalisation of the purchase process and consequently the purchase is delayed or never happens. More expensive things were sold at a shop that only had an image, without a detailed description (the dresses in question were of the order of several thousand to several tens of thousands of €).
I think that 2023 will be the year when behavioural science along with Game Theory enters the mainstream of online sales for small and medium-sized retailers.
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Lisa Popovici – Co-Founder @Stealth
One trend in the ecommerce space that I am excited about is the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the customer experience.
AI can be used to improve various aspects of the customer journey, such as by providing personalized recommendations, triaging customer service inquiries, and analyzing customer feedback to identify areas for improvement.
Another important thing is the expansion of global eCommerce.
The industry is expected to continue to grow and expand globally, with more businesses entering the market and consumers in emerging economies increasing their online shopping activity.
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Dan Nistor – Managing Partner & Head of Business Development @Vevol Media
In my opinion and for what I can see from our clients, it is expected that there will be a continued focus on personalisation and creating a personalised experience for customers.
This includes the use of customer (first-party) data to create targeted marketing campaigns and the use of personalized recommendations to drive sales, as well as the use of quizzes and surveys on platforms.
Secondly, social commerce is going to be a major factor in terms of how we are going to shop online.
If until now this was considered more of a friction – 2023 is the year where more platforms will offer a seamless experience and compete with major players like Shopify or Amazon.
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Omar Lovert – CEO & Owner @Polaris Growth
These are a couple of things I think we’ll see:
- The rise of new marketing channels through messaging platforms like whatsapp
- More layoffs and cutbacks by brands, possible bankruptcies and acquisitions/mergers of these brands
- More restrictions on tracking due to new iOS updates
- AI will start playing a role
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Chloë Thomas – Podcast Host and Author @Commerce MasterPlan
Obviously the economy is going to be… interesting! And we’re still dealing with increased competition between stores, and across all the marketing platforms.
I think this is going to lead to:
- Diversification of marketing channels
We’ve not going to see brands thriving by focusing on just one channel, rather the winners will be those who create a powerful marketing channel mix.
- Diversification of advertising channels
Over the last 18 months the changes have been huge at both Facebook and Google, making it harder to achieve a great ROI.
Plus, I’ve seen more examples of brands succeeding on new advertising platforms than ever before, so it’s time to take a step back and reconsider where you should be deploying your advertising spend.
I’d take a look at TikTok, Spotify, Podcasts, and offline channels too.
I believe we’re also going to see a shift from ‘sustainability’ being a USP to being a hygiene factor for customers. So every brand is (hopefully) going to have to start heading in that direction, and explaining to their customers what they’re doing.
The good news is that most actions a brand can take to become more sustainable will also reduce your costs – so it’s a win across the board.
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Matt Janaway – CEO @Marketing Labs
AI will be huge.
ChatGPT has exploded, and marketers worldwide will be finding ways to use it to make their jobs easier.
I can see many eCommerce businesses going too far with it and doing things like automating product and category descriptions.
I can’t see this being helpful for their medium and long-term performance – it poses too many risks.
However, if used correctly to help strategise, brief, plan and organise, AI will be a powerful tool for eCommerce businesses.
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Negar Mokhtarnia – Director of Product @Pet Circle
As the COVID boom slows and we are entering an era of inflation, customers will reduce their spending on non essential expenses.
With higher cost of capital most eCommerces will struggle with the choice of whether to increase their prices or cut costs to break even.
Increasing prices will endanger the their customer loyalty and market share overall, but this may be the only choice for eCommerces that have low frequency (one time purchases) and slow inventory turn over.
To cut costs they will start by cutting Advertising and wider marketing budgets, reduce CS and fulfilment head count and even lower their foot print by reducing stock holding and number of SKUs that they range.
eCommerces with strong loyalty and relationship with customers will weather the storm and come out even stronger.
The Customer Lifetime Value will be the driving formula for business decisions, rather than CPAs (Cost per Acquisition).
This will include all types of decisions including internal resource allocation decisions such as budgeting, inventory levels, even staffing to external decisions such as VC evaluations. eCommerces with strong CLV will continue to grow and consolidate their market share in this environment where those that relied on new customers will suffer as CPAs rise and their Marketing budgets shrink.
AI will make a meaningful leap in its use in Martech and eCommerce tech stacks optimising many areas of the business including; Personalization, Lead generation, Customer Service, Predictive analytics, content generation and even fraud detection.
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Ann Stanely – Founder & CEO of Anicca Digital
As markets stabilize following the fluctuations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis, eCommerce teams will continue to face tighter margins.
To help manage these challenges, they may turn to AI technologies like ChatGPT to assist with tasks such as writing product descriptions, and creating AI-generated images and videos. These tools can help e-commerce teams work more efficiently and effectively, even when resources are stretched thin.
Brands will need to prioritize data and privacy in the coming months and years. The transition to GA4 in June, followed by the retirement of Universal Analytics, may catch some marketers off-guard and leave them with inadequate data and reporting dashboards.
Savvy brands, are already looking to use their own first-party data to gain a competitive advantage, particularly as ad platforms become increasingly automated and lack detailed data such as search term reports.
This is especially important as automated campaigns like Performance Max continue to grow in popularity.
As ad platforms become more automated and AI takes on more tasks, the role of digital agencies will have to adapt.
Rather than focusing solely on campaign delivery, which is likely to become even more automated, agencies will need to evolve into trusted advisors and consultants who can help navigate the rapid evolution of technology and provide strategic advice on channel selection and integration, data automation, and creative messaging and storytelling.
In order to stay relevant and valuable to their clients, digital agencies will need to embrace change and focus on providing value through their expertise and guidance.
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Tam Sood – Founder @TAM Collective
Brands will need to focus on ways to build a deeper connection with customers.
The golden days of Facebook/Google ad arbitrage are behind us.
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Lukasz Zelezny – Director, Co-Owner – SEO Expert and ConsultantDirector @SEO.London
There will be a lot more of AI usage. And not only to write a content.
AI can be used now to translate content which means ecommerces can reach wider audience. Languages like Indonesian, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, are now available in DeepL and DeepL API. Integration is simple and efficient. Cost saving tremendous.
Aside from that, GPT3 can write nice product description from provided product categories.
This is an another way to use AI and that will be more and more popular in 2023.
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Will Laurenson – Conversion Rate Optimisation Consultant @Customers Who Click
I think there’s going to be a bigger focus on the customer experience across the industry.
It’s getting harder and more expensive to stand out with ads, so brands are finally going to make the shift towards a consumer focused journey
They will startcreating great and engaging customer experiences to convert and retain customers better.
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Denis Strum – Executive Director | Digital Marketing @Infracommerce
- Technology and AI
The advancement of technology and the creation of several digital platforms have expanded the possibilities of internet sales. An example of this are the launches of shopping tools on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
Faced with these changes, it is always necessary to be aware of the arrival of new tools for social networks, ways to automate processes through artificial intelligence chatbots, among other resources available on the market.
The various shopping tools, made available by social networks, are already in common use among companies. In addition to continuing to be a good option for the digital market, live purchases will gain even more momentum in 2023, becoming one of the main trends on platforms.
In China, for example, live trading is expected to reach $4.92 billion next year. The trend also caught the attention of 20% of American buyers, who said they purchased products through lives on social networks.
Companies should also be aware of advertising content on connected TV, i.e., serving ads on streaming platforms such as YouTube, Roku and Hulu. According to a report by the sports shoe brand Hoka, the strategy generated a 68% increase in website visits.
Also, with all the hustle and bustle of the end of the year 2022 and the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI), check out chatgpt (if you haven’t heard of it, hurry up because it’s way overdue), with different solutions now available to deal with the eCommerce business daily operations to make them more targeted.
For example, you can use AI chatbots that automatically resolve customer queries. This will help you manage 24/7 customer service.
Likewise, you can also plan your marketing campaigns effectively by keeping in mind the questions asked by customers as they help you decide your target audience.
- More mature audience:
The growing advances in the number of new online shoppers and the maturity of this public in online shopping, will make it essential for any brand that pays attention to
a) speed of delivery
b) delivery service and
c) customer service
Don’t forget that although AI is important for costs, it does not replace the role of people talking to people.
- Analytics is no longer universal:
It’s time for you to modernize the way you analyze data.
Digital journeys are increasingly complex.
Thinking that your customer saw an ad online and then downloaded your app and bought it is already a reality for many.
Those who use Google Analytics already know that it will change a lot this year. Anticipate and learn how to better segment your audience via events.
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Jason “RetailGeek” Goldberg – Chief Commerce Strategy Officer @Publicis
After a brief slow-down of eCommerce growth in 2022, we’re going to return to near pre-pandemic growth levels.
I think we’ll settle around twice as fast as brick and mortar growth rates.
That being said the bulk of growth will be coming from less mature categories such as grocery and automotive vs highly penetrated categories like electronics and apparel.
The real challenge will be addressing the lower margins inherent in many eCommerce sales, and addressing the profitability challenges.
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Peter Gardner – CVO & Co-founder @Blend Commerce
In 2023, eCommerce companies will be using AI and other advanced technologies to revolutionize the way they connect with customers. They’ll be using these tools to boost customer retention and lifetime value, making shopping experiences more personalised and tailored to each individual customer.
Some examples of how AI could be used include:
– Implementing chatbots and virtual assistants to provide top-notch customer service
– Personalising website content and recommendations based on the viewer’s characteristics and preferences
– Using AI to improve product search and recommendation engines for a more personalised shopping experience
– Analysing customer data with AI to predict future buying behaviour
– Leveraging AI to detect fraudulent activity and prevent chargebacks
– Optimising pricing and inventory management decisions with the help of AI
In addition to AI, we can also expect to see the rise of exciting technologies like AR and VR, which will make shopping more interactive and immersive.
Social commerce will continue to grow, as people turn to social media platforms to shop.
And sustainability will remain a key focus, as companies work to reduce their environmental impact and offer eco-friendly options to customers.
Get ready for a whole new world of eCommerce in 2023!
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Shep Hyken – Chief Amazement Officer | Customer Experience Expert @Shepard Presentations, LLC
We’ll see an easier and more convenient way to shop.
Websites will be more intuitive.
The shopping carts will remember the customer’s information.
Better personalization for suggestions and upsells.
These have been the improvements in the past several years, and they will just get better.
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Josh Tay – Head of Marketing Strategy @Path Digital Solutions
More brands will start turning to email, expecting cash to come flowing in all the time without doing any extra work or making the effort to tailor the customer journey.
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Tim Kilroy – Performance Agency Growth @Tim Kilroy – Agency Growth Coaching
We will see diversification of traffic models – namely paid ads won’t be the only driver of growth.
We will see increased emphasis on community (both pre & post-purchase) and of eCommerce brands increasing their utility.
One example might be brand not just selling skin care, but also providing education around product use, ancillary health benefits, and how other strategies like healthy eating impact skin health.
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Jon MacDonald – President | Founder @The Good
- Lots of acquisitions and mergers.
While money is no longer cheap, we’re still seeing several private equity firms sitting on cash, and there is still a healthy market for private investors looking to add complimentary products to their portfolios.
- Marketing budget cuts.
With a rush back to retail, and eCommerce no longer growing at its COVID pace, CFOs will see ad spend as a budget line item capable of being right sized.
- Partnership ecosystem support teams being shut down.
Layoffs will come to marketing/sales channels that are hard to prove a ROI.
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Johann van Tonder – CEO @AWA Digital
- We expect the rise in mobile commerce to accelerate in 2023.
Social shopping is almost a natural extension of that trend.
TikTok Live Shopping has been described as QVC for the mobile generation.
Live in-app shopping exploded in China and is likely coming to a small screen near you.
- AI potential
Whether reports of a marriage between Bing and ChatGPT are true or not, the conversational chatbot has the potential to shake up the way consumers search for information – and products – online.
At this stage we can only speculate about the knock on effects to SEO and implications for eCommerce, but my money is on this space being disrupted in 2023.
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Adam Pearce – CEO @Blend Commerce
Brands can’t afford to pay for expensive, irrelevant traffic.
More focus on tools and processes that focus on extracting more sales from existing customers and acquiring more efficiently for the win.
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Brandon Amoroso – Founder | CEO @Electriq
A shift towards investment in physical storefronts.
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Massimo Arrigoni – CEO @BEE
More attention to the environment: for example, slower shipping methods with reduced environmental impact when an order is not urgent.
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Ben Fitzpatrick – Chief Strategy Officer @Webprofits
- Peak Google
2023 will be see Google peak as an advertising platform and the start of its decline over the coming years.
The rise of consumer-facing ChatBots and other search tools will start to show people the value they could get from an alternative search service, and how little Google has innovated its core product over the past decade.
While Google will maintain as a key player across eCommerce marketing, it will face the same challenges Facebook and other social networks are navigating as consumers find more value from other products.
- Brand Brand Brand
Businesses who integrate brand into performance marketing will find ways to break through an increasingly saturated digital ecosystem.
While there are still a few tactical ways to drive growth in isolation, what has always been true across marketing will take precedence in eCommerce performance marketing in 2023: Brand is the single factor which has the biggest impact on cost per acquisition, conversion rates, click-through-rates, customer lifetime value, the ability to scale and so many more factors in growth.
This will also make breaking into established eCommerce categories even more difficult than in previous years
- Talk to Customers
Performance marketers will be required to talk to and learn from customers to succeed in 2023.
The days of basic personas or direct-response approach have passed.
To succeed, performance marketers need to double down on finding deep consumer insights which drive their products, messaging, offers, targeting, creative and other elements of their marketing.
- Customer Value Optimisation (CVO)
2023 will see businesses who don’t invest in CVO losing market share while their costs increase prohibitively.
Every ecommerce business should already be rethinking their entire approach to marketing with CVO at the centre of their approach.
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Jason Chappel – Head of Client Strategy @Blend
We will see brands fighting to retain customers, whilst taking their eye off the acquisition ball.
This will open up opportunities for those who have clearly defined their ideal customer profiles to cash in and steal market share from their competitors.
Brands will focus much more heavily on personalisation. This will be key if they are going to win in the battle for retention.
SEO will start to make more of a resurgence as brands look to build long term growth rather than rely on the immediate hit they have been getting from paid acquisition channels due to the rising associated costs.
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Kunle Campbell– Co-Founder @Octillion
AI and conversational commerce will continue to meet the growing demand for personalized, real-time customer service.
Customers expect to be able to interact with eCommerce brands in the same way they interact with friends and family on messaging apps, and they want to be able to do so on their own terms, whether that’s through text, voice, or video.
With tech like OpenAI and the ability to for continuous connection to your eCommerce data infrastructure, AI in about to usher in a near human-like experience.
DTC out, Channel agnostic shopping in:
Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) limitations became apparent in 2022.
This year may see a shift into a new approach called Connect-to-Consumer (CTC).
CTC is an approach that takes many pathways to reach customers simultaneously. This includes using various platforms to connect with customers, social media, Web3, online shopping and high street stores.
The brands that will succeed in 2023 will be those that focus on building authentic connections with their customers through all these avenues and experiment with new ways to engage them.
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Greg Zakowicz – Senior eCommerce Expert @Omnisend
2023 promises to be a wild year. Here are a few things I see transpiring this year.
- A reduction of deep discounts.
As the economy maneuvers its way through high inflation, a possible short-term recession, and increased marketing costs across channels, each discount means less profit.
- SMS as a marketing channel.
Expect SMS to play a major role as a top-tier marketing channel for DTC brands.
Brands sent 62% more SMS in 2022 than in 2021, proving customers are increasingly preferring this marketing channel.
- Change in returns.
This final one is more of a gut prediction based on recent personal purchases, but I get the sense brands, counterintuitive to an earlier prediction, will make returns less customer-friendly.
The overall expense incurred to process and handle returns may finally reach a breaking point.
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Jeremy Epperson – Chief Growth Officer @ConversionAdvocates
The vast majority of businesses will continue to not prioritize business intelligence, market and customer research, and experimentation.
These are the most powerful levers to help grow through a recession.
Unfortunately new trends, best practices, guessing and opinions, and magic bullets are the primary methods for decision making.
What used to be a luxury is now table stakes. Focus on the executing the fundamentals in 2023 or you are choosing to suppress your growth rate.
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Mór Mester – Head Of Content Marketing @ EmailVendorSelection
Inflation poses a risk to the growth of eCommerce. Many companies are already starting to cut costs and increase prices. And unfortunately, many will have significant layoffs.
On a more positive note, we’ll see more experiments with chat and chatbots.
The recent developments and spread of ChatGPT will make more companies try chatbots to increase statisfaction and sales.
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Jordie van Rijn – Independent Email Marketing & Marketing Automation Consultant @MailMonday
I am pretty excited about the new opportunities that AI text and AI image generation present in 2023.
The promise we started to take seriously, I think, 5 years ago is now quickly becoming a reality. It is evolving so fast(!).
It is a get on board or get left behind the scenario.
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Valentin Radu – CEO & Founder @Omniconvert & @TheCVO Academy
Well, it looks like we’ll see a few interesting things:
- Slowdown in consumption due to inflation
People are more reluctant to spend money than they’ve been over the last years.
- DTC will have a hard time being profitable
Big retailers that have invested into eCommerce will be more open to spend in acquisition that will lead to DTC companies having a hard time being profitable.
- Shift in DTC brands
Some serious (and smart) DTC companies will open brick-and-mortar stores, some will vanish, some will get eaten by larger players.
What should eCommerce & retail brands focus on in 2023?
In the final months of 2022 it was all about staying ahead of game. Now, as a new year emerges, it’s time to look at what eCommerce & retail brands should do to stay in the game.
Nay, win that game!
Here’s where you should focus your efforts, according to our experts.
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Frank Feather – CEO, QAIMETA Strategist @QUAIMETA
Retail brands must digitize to the extent possible.
Not to do so will be suicidal for all except bargain-hunter retailers.
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Waldo van Niekerk – Sales Manager | Senior Digital Strategist @Zyber
Place equal importance on all sales channels and make it as seamless as possible for their customers to buy.
No matter where and when.
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Juliana Jackson – Digital Analytics Architect @Media.Monks
Purpose.
- Collect data with purpose.
- Track user behaviour with purpose.
- Market with purpose.
The constant regulatory changes and technology in measurement marketing should encourage eCommerce brands to rethink their measurement strategy and aim to build relationships based on trust and transparency with their customers.
I also think old playbooks for eCommerce growth are played out.
Companies need to rethink their approach and build upon improving customer experience and their products. The competition is absolutely insane and it’s time for more focus on building a better product and delivering a better experience to their users.
That will not be related to their techstack, the money invested or their agencies. Its about their mindset that needs to evolve.
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Nathan Lomax – Co-Founder @Quickfire Digital
On the web development side of things, we’d have one clear recommendation: if you’re not on Shopify, then get on there quick.
We regularly take on new clients wanting to move from their existing platform, largely because they see the results coming out of merchants operating on Shopify.
There are still thousands of sub-standard eComm websites out there – and there’s no real reason for them to exist.
With the emergence of Shopify 2.0, the integration between Shopify POS and your online store, improved internationalisation, and an increasing number of key partnerships – including Google, TikTok and Facebook – it just has to be Shopify in 2023.
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Derric Hayne – CEO & Co-Founder @Ecommerce Tech
You need to be thinking about the tools you’re using to monitor and manage your store.
How can you get more transparency into your data, take actions faster, and use everything at your disposal to increase conversion rate and retention?
The Commerce Enablement landscape is fast-growing and the merchants that don’t stay on top will be left behind.
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George Kapernaros – Owner @ YOCTO
I would suggest 3 areas of focus.
First, aggressively optimizing their cost structure, similar to what you’d expert from a Private Equity firm.
This includes streamlining operations, reducing unnecessary headcount, renegotiating contracts with suppliers, and reallocating resources to higher-margin offerings.
Second, hiring people who show evidence of innovative thinking.
To be blunt, you don’t want to hire people who’re waiting for downstream info on how to use disruptive tech like AI to reach them. You want to hire people who’re already experimenting with it.
Lastly, brands should focus on CRM & retention marketing.
Even a small increase in the % of subscribers who become one-time customers and the % of one-time customers who become repeat customers can add up to significant, and, importantly, cost-effective wins.
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Andy Crestodina – Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer @Orbit Media Solutions
Collaboration with influencers on video.
Think of webinars but faster and used everywhere: in social streams and on product pages, in content marketing and in ads.
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Dennis Yu – CTO @BlitzMetrics
Build the infrastructure to turn your customers into your marketing channels – with teams of VAs that are an extension of customer service departments to collect feedback and turn it into ads.
This process is called the Content Factory, which no agency or network can build for us.
Thus, move all marketing functions in-house, away from inefficient and expensive agencies.
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Matt Edmundson -CEO @Aurion Media
Connecting with their Customer Base.
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Jono Alderson – Head of SEO @Yoast BV
eCommerce brands face three huge challenges.
Firstly, in a world where eCommerce websites must feed product information to Google and other external systems, brands must learn to think about their websites as live databases of product information.
That’ll require architectural thinking and change, where most brands today store product data in disparate systems.
Secondly, in a world where ecCmmerce journeys increasingly happen ‘elsewhere’ – in Google, in social networking apps, and through integrated systems – brands will need to find ways to make their websites and digital content do more than ‘just sell’.
Audiences must have a reason and incentive to visit a website, beyond just transacting. Brands will need to rediscover the art of storytelling, and of purpose.
Lastly, products, services and propositions in almost all sectors will become increasingly commoditized.
The cost of entry to competing will continue to lower, and the ability to compete effectively on traditional USPs like price, positioning, proximity and availability will decrease.
If somebody else can sell it slightly faster, cheaper, or closer than you, then you’re in a race to the bottom that nobody other than Google will win.
Brands will need to work out the value they add beyond just fulfilling a transaction, otherwise they won’t survive.
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Mark Irvine – Director of Paid Media @SearchLab
Differentiation.
This means defining your brand, audience, and competitors.
A lot of brands are going to approach this year the same way their approach every year and accept the same mediocre results.
Instead, review your offers and values that you highlight to customers – how are they different from other brands?
If your customers are going to see your product alongside 10 others on the Google SERP or on Amazon – why would should they choose yours?
Price may be a key factor – but if that’s not where you can compete, how can you justify that to your customers in under 30 characters?
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William Harris – Founder | CEO @Elumynt
Differentiation.
eCommerce is crossing more and more into the mainstream and as a result, bigger brands are putting bigger budgets into their ecommerce advertising.
You can’t get away with having mediocre ad creative, a generic “influencer UGC” post, or a “muddy” brand positioning.
You need to step up your game and begin working more with professionals that understand how to effectively communicate your brand.
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Miroslav Varga – MarTech Specialist @Escape Digital Agency
A long time ago, A. Einstein stated that doing things the same old way, but expecting different outcomes is the best way to end up in a mental institution.
In the near past, we had a pandemic, lockdowns, restricted movement during the closure, new types of vaccines, inflation, energy cost rise, lack of cheap energy sources, crazy Leaders (ok crazy leaders are not the specialty of our times), and War in Europe. Not to mention the possibility of a nuclear cataclysm.
And all of this is out of your reach!
But some business owners expect business will be as usual. They expect to have the same outcome if they do the same old things as in the past. NO WAY!
New circumstances demand a new approach and a complete shift in understanding your business and surroundings.
You can’t do the same old things because your surroundings changed significantly. Now it’s not only your task to improve your own business but you should take much more care in the things you actually can influence.
Among them are customer care and customer retention very high on the list.
For example, delivery and courier services are seen by the user as a part of the eCommerce business. Take care that your clients are happy with your delivery. You can’t separate the delivery from your brand (delivery at convenient times should be a must-have).
I believe that the number of showrooms will increase.
Also, much more personalised human customer care will be part of the winning strategy. As more AI solutions are out there, people will search for more human contact (but it should not be an outsourced service but an in-house person).
Executive summary:
Personalize and individualize your business and people will never churn from you, even if you are more expensive than your competition.
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Lisa Popovici – Co-Founder @Stealth
eCommerce is evolving and it’s influenced by factors such as changing consumer preferences, technological advancements, and market trends.
Because of that, companies should focus more on employee satisfaction, an increase in customer expectations for basic customer service, more personalized experiences for individual customers, and the potential for brands to make the mistake of cutting expenses in the wrong areas.
Companies should also be prepared for disruptions and challenges, as the global economy and various industries continue to experience uncertainty and change.
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Dan Nistor – Managing Partner & Head of Business Development @Vevol Media
I think that in 2023, eCommerce and retail brands should focus more on loyalty programs and influencer marketing to drive sales and build brand loyalty.
With the high costs of PPC and social media advertising, these strategies can be more cost-effective.
Also, with the current economic challenges and inflation, it is important for businesses to maximize CLV by encouraging repeat business rather than focusing on growth.
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Omar Lovert – CEO & Owner @Polaris Growth
I see 3 important things retail brands should focus on in 2023:
First, brands should be focussing more on profits and with it Lifetime value with everything they do.
Secondly, this I believe will change every business that applies this, to become more customer centric.
Talk to your customers, interview them, understand what drives and motivates them, what words they use and what’s causing bad experiences for them. This will help to create better messaging that resonates better, better onboarding, better products and a better customer experience.
Lastly, have an deep understanding of what drives profits in your business, which products, which customer groups and double down on that.
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Chloë Thomas – Podcast Host and Author @Commerce MasterPlan
Finding the marketing that recruits the right customers (i.e. those who’ll buy again).
That means perfecting:
– your marketing channel selection
– your marketing messages
– your promotions
– your products
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Matt Janaway – CEO @Marketing Labs
Multi-channel attribution needs to be a focus.
With the challenges that the cookieless world provides, more focus on how social media platforms are using personal data, and the move to Google Analytics 4, it’s more important than ever to focus on each and every step of a customer’s journey.
There’s also a strong trend towards businesses that take sustainability seriously.
Online retailers will need to determine how best they can reduce their environmental impact in order to align their business to consumers’ expectations.
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Negar Mokhtarnia – Director of Product @Pet Circle
Brands should focus on increasing (or maintaining) their revenue through enhancing customer loyalty and increasing the share of wallet of their existing customers.
They should centralize and use the customer data to form a complete understanding of their customers and foresee potential changes in behaviour. This model of customers will allow them to identify areas to increase share of wallet, optimize inventory, enhance pricing and promotion strategy and budget their cash runway.
Additionally, the focus on customer experience will be the strongest lever to maintain customer loyalty and must be protected against cost cutting. Best brands should work on improving the value they provide to their existing customers rather than extravagant acquisition campaigns.
Lastly, they need to understand that the needs and expectations of customers may be changing faster than ever and they will need to stay attuned to ensure their future success.
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Ann Stanely – Founder & CEO of Anicca Digital
To effectively engage with customers at all touchpoints, eCommerce and retail brands should develop an integrated approach using multi-channel and omni-channel marketing techniques, such as:
- Utilizing consistent creative assets across all campaigns and channels
- Integrating data from e-commerce, CRM, and marketing automation systems into ad platforms and analytics tools
- Implementing both channel-specific and cross-channel strategies
- Targeting the same audience through sequential or remarketing campaigns, or other audience-linking techniques
While many brands and their agencies are (or should be) proficient at creating integrated campaigns, they may lack the necessary data integration and automation skills to fully capitalize on these strategies.
There are several data-driven techniques that can be used to increase the effectiveness of an integrated marketing strategy.
These techniques include:
- Using server-side tracking solutions (like Google Tag Manager) to accurately track conversions and overcome cookie and privacy issues.
- Utilising first-party customer data from an integrated CRM or e-commerce platform to feed algorithms of teh ad platforms with encrypted data about converters.
This can be done using Enhanced conversions in Google Ads or the Facebook Conversion API (CAPI) to improve the accuracy of conversion-based bidding.
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Tam Sood – Founder @TAM Collective
Retention.
It is impossible to build a sustainable brand without focus on increasing LTV.
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Lukasz Zelezny – Director, Co-Owner – SEO Expert and ConsultantDirector @SEO.London
As every year, on client experience.
So once they can reach wider audience, they need to make sure that shop design, payment gates, shipping and more answers these vital needs from customers around the globe.
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Will Laurenson – Conversion Rate Optimisation Consultant @Customers Who Click
Customer feedback and optimisation are going to be absolutely essential for eCommerce brands in 2023. If you’re not gathering feedback and using it to optimise every part of your business, you’re going to fall behind.
If you’re not optimising your ads, product, customer experience, email marketing, customer service, website, and your packaging, you’re leaving money on the table and falling behind your competitors.
Brands that are constantly gathering feedback and optimising are also far more effective at adapting to changes in the market or adopting new technologies and channels.
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Denis Strum – Executive Director | Digital Marketing @Infracommerce
There are a few key areas that eCommerce and retail brands may want to focus on in order to stay competitive:
- Personalization
Customers expect a personalized shopping experience, and eCommerce and retail brands should use data and technology to deliver this. This can include personalized product recommendations, personalized email campaigns, and personalized in-store experiences.
- Omnichannel presence
Consumers expect to be able to shop with a brand in a variety of ways, including online, in-store, and through mobile apps. Brands that are able to provide a seamless experience across all channels are likely to see an advantage.
- Customer experience
Customer experience is a top priority for eCommerce and retail brands in 2023. Brands should focus on delivering a seamless and convenient shopping experience across all channels, including online, in-store, and via mobile.
- Sustainability
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental and social impact of the products they buy. Retailers should focus on sustainability, including reducing their own environmental impact and offering sustainable product options to consumers.
- Innovation
Retailers should stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and trends in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. This could include adopting new payment technologies, using AR/VR for product demonstrations, or implementing chatbots for customer service.
- Security
With the increase in online shopping, it’s important for eCommerce and retail brands to prioritize security and protect their customers’ personal and financial information.
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Jason “RetailGeek” Goldberg – Chief Commerce Strategy Officer @Publicis
Brands and retailers need to shift their focus from revenue growth to profitability.
Often that will mean investments in infrastructure and increased efficiency versus customer acquisition.
Most businesses would do well to shift their attention from prospects to existing customers.
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Peter Gardner – CVO & Co-founder @Blend Commerce
To succeed in 2023, eCommerce businesses and retail brands should focus on the following:
- Personalisation
Make shopping personal for your customers by using AI and other tools to provide a personalised experience. This could include using chatbots and virtual assistants to offer personalised customer service, tailoring website content and recommendations to individual customers, and optimising product search and recommendation engines for a more personalised shopping experience.
- Customer retention
Keep your customers coming back by focusing on customer retention and improving the customer lifetime value. Use AI to predict future buying behaviour and chatbots and virtual assistants to build trust and loyalty.
- Sustainability
Show your customers that you care about the environment by using eco-friendly materials and packaging and offering carbon-neutral shipping options. This will give you an advantage over competitors.
- Adoption of new technologies
Stay ahead of the game by using new technologies like AR, VR, and social commerce to provide a more immersive and interactive shopping experience and reach new customers.
- Data-driven decision making
Use data and analytics to make informed business decisions and optimise operations. This could include using AI to analyse customer data, optimise pricing and inventory management, and detect fraudulent activity.
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Shep Hyken – Chief Amazement Officer | Customer Experience Expert @Shepard Presentations, LLC
Create the most convenient shopping experience possible.
For example, don’t make first-time customers fill out extra pieces of information that aren’t necessary for the initial sale.
You’ll get more information about your customers as you build a relationship with them. In addition, find more ways to hyper-personalize the experience.
Use the information you know about your customer the right way, and they will reward you with more business, high ratings, and word-of-mouth referrals.
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Josh Tay – Head of Marketing Strategy @Path Digital Solutions
Produce more enablement content and distribute it in their emails.
Both pre and post purchase.
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Tim Kilroy – Performance Agency Growth @Tim Kilroy – Agency Growth Coaching
More connection and relevance to their pre & post purchase tribe. Namely, how can we add more value and more connection.
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Jon MacDonald – President | Founder @The Good
Optimizing their sites to convert more visitors into buyers.
With ad budgets likely getting cut, and inflation impacting most line items (especially in the US), optimizing the pages where brands are spending to drive traffic can provide much needed relief.
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Johann van Tonder – CEO @AWA Digital
Understand the shifts in consumer behaviour at a macro level, but also in your specific target market. Three things:
– Be on top of high level trends like social shopping and the impact of ChatGPT on web search
– Talk to your customers to get a sense of any potential shifts in behaviour so you can respond timeously and appropriately
– Follow a “test and learn” approach with emerging channels so you can act on real data, not assumptions.
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Adam Pearce – CEO @Blend Commerce
Find out which customers are most valuable, speak to them and use what they say to better take care of other customers, as well as guiding how you acquire customers.
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Brandon Amoroso – Founder | CEO @Electriq
Building community through in-person activations and pop-up events.
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Massimo Arrigoni – CEO @BEE
Respond to their customers’ heightened environmental concerns by providing more information about the origin of the products being sold in terms of environmental impact, fair trading & labor practices, etc.
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Ben Fitzpatrick – Chief Strategy Officer @Webprofits
Diversified channels, brand-centric, consumers insights, CVO.
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Jason Chappel – Head of Client Strategy @Blend
Brands should focus on going back to basics.
Strip back all of the vanity metrics and complex strategies and focus on getting the fundamentals right.
These need to be defining your ideal customer profile (this pays dividends for acquisition, conversion and retention), making sure that they understand their unit economics completely in order to make sure that they are budgeting correctly.
Lastly, brands NEED to know their true CLV.
Whether they are looking to be more profitable, gain market share, or consolidate their position, knowing their CLV give them the keys to unlock these decisions.
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Kunle Campbell– Co-Founder @Octillion
CX, gross and net margins, brand story and more efficient data analysis.
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Greg Zakowicz – Senior eCommerce Expert @Omnisend
Value and differentiators.
As brands shift away from constant deep discounting, they should more actively promote their customer value-adds and competitive differentiators.
These include friendly shipping and return policies, showcasing customer testimonials to reinforce customer service, company ethos, and products, loyalty programs, and using product reviews to guide consumers toward a purchase.
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Jeremy Epperson – Chief Growth Officer @ConversionAdvocates
Market research will become more important than ever with the rapidly changing dynamics in the marketplace.
Customer behavior and preferences are going to change in profound ways. Understanding those changes in real time will be an actionable competitive advantage that most of your competitors will not execute against.
Zero party data is necessary, but few are bought into the concept and less know how to do it.
Collecting more qualitative data pre-purchase on specific attributes that you can use for optimization is a big growth lever.
Iteratively testing across the customer journey with those insights could increase your growth rate by 9-14% in 2023.
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Mór Mester – Head Of Content Marketing @ EmailVendorSelection
Economic obstacles and tighter privacy regulations challenge online retailers on a budget.
This will result in many eCommerce stores turning to owned channels like content, email, and SMS marketing.
Some will continue to run ads but plan their long-term marketing strategy to be resilient. And owned channels are perfect for that.
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Jordie van Rijn – Independent Email Marketing & Marketing Automation Consultant @MailMonday
Although not the MAIN thing, every hour that you as a marketer invest into growing your knowledge, and this year specifically AI knowledge is well spent.
Making it specific and actionable in my expertise of email marketing, AI can help write attractively for scalable big numbers of email and products.
Help with ideation, transform boring text into compelling copy with help of copywriting formulas and just write that stupidly hard to write intro for your weekly email.
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Valentin Radu – CEO & Founder @Omniconvert & @TheCVO Academy
To make the ends cut profitably, more and more companies must transition to a customer-centric approach – back to fundamentals – nail your unit economics and move the ones that matter instead of acquiring the wrong customers that never come back.
Customer experience, marketing and merchandising must be orchestrated based on insights from real customers.
This needs data hygiene, better data governance and moving away from chaotic reporting.
That means internal alignment and decision makers that get data and what it truly means to be customer-centric.
What’s your favourite tactic to increase the CLV in eCommerce & Retail?
Did you spot the lait-motive of all answers?
Customer, customer-centricity, talking to customers, getting more value from your customer.
It seems like the customer isn’t just the King in 2023. It’s an Imperator, dictating the way eCommerce works. Everything else (tech, channels, strategies) come to serve the customer better.
As it should be!
Now, let’s see what our experts have to say about Customer Lifetime Value.
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Frank Feather – CEO, QAIMETA Strategist @QUAIMETA
CLV will be enhanced by delivering a consistently “wow” customer experience.
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Waldo van Niekerk – Sales Manager | Senior Digital Strategist @Zyber
Get to know your customers and do everything possible to provide a seamless online-offline experience.
Remove as much friction as you can through personalization and communicate to your customers in a way that is normal to them.
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Juliana Jackson – Digital Analytics Architect @Media.Monks
1.Qualitative research + quantitative analysis
2. Build hypotheses for new experiments with my learnings
3. Implement experiments, learn and optimize.
Alternatively I love a good personalization for high valued customers.
For instance, discovering their buying habits, their product preferences, and mix that with some sweet deals for those customers 🙂
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Nathan Lomax – Co-Founder @Quickfire Digital
It’s difficult to pick just one, but I’d go with implementing cross-sells across selected steps of the buying journey – including pre- and post-purchase.
The key here to continually increase CLV is to provide real value; not just look at one-off purchases to raise AOV.
That means using data and automation, where applicable, to provide related product recommendations, for example packs of batteries for gadgets and toys, matching clothing items, complementary cosmetic products.
Think ‘how can we help’ rather than simply ‘what else can we sell’.
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George Kapernaros – Owner @ YOCTO
A simple survey to your churned customers can often reveal fantastic insights on how to improve your product offerings and disconnects between your marketing and the reality of the shopping experience you provide.
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Andy Crestodina – Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer @Orbit Media Solutions
Content marketing that drives email list growth.
It still wins every single day.
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Dennis Yu – CTO @BlitzMetrics
Send out frequent personalized gifts and messages, which increases CLV when we have a big sale.
The nurturing in-between keeps the relationship stronger than marketing only when we have a sale.
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Matt Edmundson – CEO @Aurion Media
I use Omniconvert 😉 [great choice, Matt!]
For me, it’s all about understanding the value of different segments and providing value and marketing for each segment.
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Jono Alderson – Head of SEO @Yoast BV
Win hearts and minds. Run campaigns that are KPI’d on brand preference and recall.
Allocate marketing budget to engaging with your existing customer base.
Surprise and delight your users.
Go above and beyond at every touch point.
Actively invest in making customers want to remain customers.
Make them love you so much that you remove them from the addressable market.
Or just compete on price, until someone else can inevitably sell it cheaper than you.
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William Harris – Founder | CEO @Elumynt
My favorite tactic to increase CLV in eCommerce is focusing more on creating relationships with customers instead of just transactions.
I still see most brands advertising to their customers with Facebook DPAs and other ads that are simply asking them to “buy more”. While that’s effective in the short run, if you evaluate based on short-sighted metrics, it’s a lot less effective at establishing TRUE, sustainable lifetime value which is what a lot of the “disrupters” are starting to see.
Instead, figure out how you “romance” your customers.
Engage with them, advertise exciting things (not just performance driven things), create amazing experiences for them, and most of all… be reliable!
Lifetime value is best-found when people begin to realize years later that your product really IS as good as you marketed it to be.
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Miroslav Varga – MarTech Specialist @Escape Digital Agency
I use this old and very underused technique – The MBA (Market basket analysis). After analysing the sales basket, there are 3 more or less universal rules to describe your customers:
1. People buy product A and after that, they buy product B.
Some product B sales happen only after buying product A. For example, buyers of car roof racks (product A) sooner or later search and buy winter/summer tires (product B).
So I use product A buyers to offer them product B. Usually, this approach has a very high success rate (over 85%)
2. People almost always buy product A and product B together.
This usually happens with furniture – kitchen tables and chairs, bathroom tubs, and tiles.
If the competition for advertising product A is high (eg. for chairs) and for product B is low (eg. tables), I invest much more budget in advertising product B.
If the customer looks for product B, there is a high probability they will also buy Product A.
Therefore I avoid competing in toxic, high-demanding, and expensive surroundings.
3. If People buy product A and Product B, almost always they purchase Product C.
For example, if people book an apartment and buy an airplane ticket, usually they book a taxi or rent a car.
The best thing is to offer to people that purchased product A and product B, but forget about product C, to buy product C. The success rate is immense.
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Lisa Popovici – Co-Founder @Stealth
Personalization and customisation.
Consumers expect a highly personalized shopping experience, and eCommerce businesses will need to use data and machine learning to provide personalized recommendations and offers to individual customers.
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Dan Nistor – Managing Partner & Head of Business Development @Vevol Media
LOYALTY.
Treat loyalty with loyalty.
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Omar Lovert – CEO & Owner @Polaris Growth
It just doesn’t make sense to start with a tactic, that is unless there’s just nothing done yet.
Tactics should follow strategy and strategy should be aligned with the goals of a company.
My favorite approach is to do the research first, understand the customers first, understand the problems that negatively impact CLV and only then choose the tactics to apply.
But, If there are no automated Klaviyo emails configured yet or the website is a mess I’d choose to start there, it’s all about effort vs impact.
But from the CVO methodology my favorite part of research is doing the qualitative insights, talking to customers.
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Chloë Thomas – Podcast Host and Author @Commerce MasterPlan
Improving the messaging.
From perfecting the offer to attract the RIGHT customers at the right price, through to understanding the customers ‘why’ and bringing that emotion into the copy.
It’s hard work, and not as easy to track as an audience tweak – but it pays off.
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Matt Janaway – CEO @Marketing Labs
There’s not often a silver bullet, but the best tactic to increase CLV, in my opinion, is a combination of unbelievable customer service levels alongside a rewarding loyalty program to encourage repeat orders.
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Negar Mokhtarnia – Director of Product @Pet Circle
Customer Engagement Growth through personalized recommendations.
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Ann Stanely – Founder & CEO of Anicca Digital
A sequential marketing campaign using low-cost video ads on platforms like Meta, YouTube, and LinkedIn (for B2B brands) can help increase customer lifetime value (CLV).
1) Start by targeting custom audiences based on your existing customers or website visitors, or create lookalike audiences for prospecting.
2) Next, create an audience of interested prospects who have watched at least half of the video.
3) Finally, use these “warm” audiences to show a second ad as part of a conversion campaign on the same platform, or in the case of YouTube, in a linked Google Ads campaign. This can help drive conversions and increase CLV.
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Lukasz Zelezny – Director, Co-Owner – SEO Expert and ConsultantDirector @SEO.London
Customer loyalty programs.
Offering rewards, discounts, and other perks to loyal customers can help to increase their CLV by encouraging them to continue doing business with your company.
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Will Laurenson – Conversion Rate Optimisation Consultant @Customers Who Click
Reaching out to customers post purchase with a ‘personal’ touch has worked really well for my clients.
It could be a plain text email asking them if everything is ok with their purchase, or a handwritten postcard a few days later.
With every brand ive worked with, these personal, almost 1 to 1 approaches have always worked well.
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Jason “RetailGeek” Goldberg – Chief Commerce Strategy Officer @Publicis
Increase sales to existing customers, by offering them products that others in their cohort have purchased and had a good outcome with.
This is especially effective when combined with social proof (ratings and reviews) from that same cohort.
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Peter Gardner – CVO & Co-founder @Blend Commerce
Well, my favourite tactic for increasing the Customer Lifetime Value in eCommerce and retail is probably something that might surprise you.
It’s not about using flashy sales techniques or sneaky tricks to boost conversion rates or average order values. No, my favourite tactic is much simpler than that: it’s all about good old-fashioned customer care and customer service.
You see, I believe that the key to building long-term customer loyalty and maximising the CLV is to focus on providing an excellent customer experience. This means being transparent and honest with customers, offering high-quality products and services, and being responsive to customer needs and concerns.
Of course, this might not be the “sexiest” or most glamorous approach to increasing the CLV.
But in my opinion, it’s the most effective and sustainable way to do so.
After all, there’s no substitute for genuine customer satisfaction and loyalty. And as anyone who’s ever experienced buyers remorse can tell you, using slightly shady tactics to increase conversion rates and AOV will only lead to disappointment in the long run.
So there you have it, my favourite tactic for increasing the CLV in eCommerce and retail: customer care and customer service, plain and simple.
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Josh Tay – Head of Marketing Strategy @Path Digital Solutions
Look at cohorts to determine average time between orders, especially between order 1 and 2.
Increase email frequency during that period.
Prime customers with content emails on product use cases to get them using the product more, before introducing new products.
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Tim Kilroy – Performance Agency Growth @Tim Kilroy – Agency Growth Coaching
Caring
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Jon MacDonald – President | Founder @The Good
A/B testing rewards programs that are similar to Restoration Hardware’s in the US – a yearly fee gets the consumer benefits when they purchase in the future (free shipping, etc).
This creates loyalty and increases CLTV!
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Johann van Tonder – CEO @AWA Digital
Understand your portfolio of customers from a profitability perspective. Identify the top 20% and adjust acquisition campaigns to hunt for more like them.
Calculate the impact of first-time buyer discounts on CLTV.
How do they compare in terms of AOV, repurchase rates and future purchase behaviour?
For example, we’ve often seen that discount customers tend to only buy marked down products.
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Adam Pearce – CEO @Blend Commerce
Jobs To Be Done is the most under used and poorly executed way to drive up CLV.
If you care about the long term health of your brand, its time to get it done.
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Brandon Amoroso – Founder | CEO @Electriq
Transition your transactional emails and SMS from Shopify into Klaviyo.
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Massimo Arrigoni – CEO @BEE
Creating a human connection with the customer by providing more details about who we are as a company and what we stand for.
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Jason Chappel – Head of Client Strategy @Blend
My favourite tactic has to be helping brands identify their ideal customer profiles.
This is the gift that keeps on giving due to the fact that it enhances the brand’s performance across acquisition, conversion and retention.
Not only that, as brands start to see greater success with this you can continue niching down or separating out profiles, delivering differentiated and personalised experiences for each and every customer.
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Kunle Campbell– Co-Founder @Octillion
Empathy.
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Jordie van Rijn – Independent Email Marketing & Marketing Automation Consultant @MailMonday
Dumb small sales optimizations always do well in my book.
Like highlighting the option to buy 2 or 3 products at once during checkout instead of just one. Or testing different discount percentages during welcome and onboarding.
Those directly add to the margins – you’re welcome.
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Valentin Radu – CEO & Founder @Omniconvert & @TheCVO Academy
Provide undeniable value to the right customers.
And, of coruse, to be able to do this, you must know what value means, and which are your right customers.
To achieve this, you have to nail CVO – Customer Value Optimization: customer research, RFM customer segmentation, customer journey mapping. All of these leads to internal alignment.
What You Should Know about CHAT GPT’s 2023 eCommerce Predictions
What are the main things that we’ll see in 2023 in eCommerce?
In 2023, eCommerce will be all about holographic shopping assistants, drone deliveries, and virtual reality fitting rooms. Imagine trying on clothes in your living room without ever having to leave your couch!
But watch out for those delivery drones, they might just drop your new outfit on your neighbor’s roof by mistake.
And don’t be surprised if your holographic shopping assistant starts cracking jokes while you’re browsing for the perfect pair of shoes. It’s the future of retail, folks, and it’s going to be a wild ride.
What should eCommerce & Retail brand focus on in 2023?
In 2023, eCommerce and retail brands should focus on developing teleportation technology for their customers.
Imagine being able to teleport to your favorite store from the comfort of your own home. No more waiting in line, fighting for parking spots, or dealing with crowds! But beware, there might be a slight chance of materializing inside a fitting room with someone already trying on clothes.
Or even worse, in the middle of the store’s stock room.
Retail brands should also invest in mind-reading technology, so they can anticipate customers’ needs and desires before they even know they want them. And let’s not forget about the importance of having a good sense of humor, as customers will be looking for fun and entertaining shopping experiences.
What’s your favourite tactic to increase the CLV in eCommerce & retail?
My favorite tactic to increase the CLV in eCommerce and retail is to have a magical unicorn as a customer service representative.
Not only will customers be enchanted by the mythical creature, but the unicorn’s ability to read minds will allow them to provide personalized and efficient service. Plus, who doesn’t love a good unicorn?
Another strategy would be to introduce a loyalty program that rewards customers with a golden ticket, similar to Willy Wonka’s famous chocolate factory. These tickets can be used to enter into a drawing for a grand prize, such as a trip to a secret land of sweets or a year’s supply of free shopping.
Lastly, I would recommend casting a spell to make all the products irresistible to customers, they will not be able to resist buying them.
Getting to work – Conclusions
So, there we have it.
It seems like in the Global Calendar of eComm & Retail, it’s The Year of the Customer: caring, providing value, switching from short-term gains, to long-term relationships.
The era of customer-centricity is basically warning you: ready or not, here I come.
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