How Data Insights Can Cure Retail’s Holiday Returns Headache

Note: a version of this article originally appeared in Retail Dive. Good news! Shoppers spent so, so much money during the 2018 holiday season — as much as $721 billion (up more than 4 percent year over year), according to the National Retail Federation. Bad news! Shoppers returned so, so much of the stuff they …

How the GDPR Will Revolutionize Retail Marketing

Note: a version of this article originally appeared in Internet Retailer. We’re now several months removed from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) dropping across the European Union — and the Y2K-esque panic accompanying its debut turned out to be more bark than bite. Sure, the first few weeks saw an initial burst of consumer …

5 Tactics to Evolve Marketing from Segmentation to Individualization

“What’s the value of a shopping cart?” This is the question Forrester Principal Analyst Brendan Witcher posed to listeners to kick off the recent Signal-hosted webinar The Age of Individualization: How Identity Is Transforming the Retail Experience. Imagine you’re going grocery shopping and the store doesn’t offer a cart, Witcher explained. As a marketer, you …

Webinar: The Age of Individualization

Increasingly, retailers are focusing on individualization to meet and exceed the expectations of the always-on, omnichannel consumer.  But individualization’s true innovators are using identity resolution technologies as the foundation of their customer engagement strategies, including paid media. This webinar will deliver actionable steps to progress your retail brand’s marketing efforts from segmentation to individualization. Learn …

How Amazon Is Minting a New Generation of Customer Data-Obsessed Companies

Note: A version of this post originally appeared in Forbes. No brand is safe from the awesome power of a superior customer experience. Consumers — particularly young ones — have shown that they will rapidly shift loyalties to brands delivering an overall experience that is more personalized and easier to use, both online and offline. Amazon’s …

3 Tactics for Brand Survival in the Age of the Customer

We are all living in what Forrester Research famously proclaimed “The Age of the Customer.” But some brands are living better than others — for that matter, many are just barely hanging on. The Age of the Customer heralds a decisive, disruptive shift in the balance of marketplace power. Consumers now control relationships with brands, not …

Winning with CX, Part 1: How Top Brands Improve Convenience

There’s no such thing as “convenient enough.” As fast as we learn to swipe instead of type, or tap to pay, we’re already looking for a faster, shinier option — or complaining about why it doesn’t exist yet. Who could possibly keep up with this unending demand for faster, more hassle-free customer experiences? Guess we …

Hey, Marketers! 3 Retailers to Rip Off This Holiday Season

Amidst record numbers of store closings, can you name three retailers (other than Amazon) that are likely to have plenty of inventory and traffic this holiday season? Our surveillance turned up three brands that look ripe for ripping off: Sephora, Home Depot and Best Buy, all of whom competed in categories that showed above-average growth …

How US Retailers Fought Back and Captured Traffic on Prime Day 2017

Note: This post originally appeared on MediaPost. While Amazon is counting its money from its third annual Amazon Prime Day — the e-commerce giant’s midsummer event generated an estimated $1 billion in sales, its biggest single day ever — other U.S. retailers didn’t simply watch from the sidelines. Some counter-attacked, and built momentum that will carry …

Holiday Shoppers: How Brands Can Get Personal with Ad Strategy

Personalization has frequently been cited as a top priority for retailers this year. But in a just-published whitepaper, research firm RSR calls individualization one of two key marketing strategies retailers must adopt to win the upcoming holiday shopping season. Individualization — essentially Personalization 2.0 — is based on robust individual shopper profiles plus dynamic, real-time …