Digital Commerce: Investments And Growing Expectations

An overview of digital commerce from data from Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey reveals that marketers are investing more in digital commerce, a sector in which investments grow in parallel with the expectations and responsibilities of marketing.

The survey found that spending on digital commerce rose from 8% to 11% of the digital marketing budget (the strongest increase in this category), indicating a further expansion of the role of marketing in digital commerce.

Marketing now faces increased pressure to align its efforts and allocate resources to design and develop programs and experiences that maximize business value. But marketing metrics alone are no longer a sufficient measure of this value. Marketers are expected to increase revenue and profit by increasing customer acquisition and conversion. This is why we are increasingly turning to digital commerce: for the ease of linking marketing activities to sales transactions.

Analysis, skills, and tools, it’s not enough to allocate a budget if you don’t implement your strategy.

But more is needed to allocate a budget to digital commerce by continuously updating and re-orienting one’s strategies, tactics, skills, and technologies. Because you must review your budget and implement its strategy, investing step by step in performing channels and practices. And here, we connect to the second point of the survey.

50% of marketers place digital commerce in the top area where marketing expectations have increased, emphasizing the need to tie marketing to the customer’s purchase journey.

With high expectations for digital commerce and lead conversion, there is a need to look more closely at data and analytics. In fact, it is data that acts as a bridge between digital marketing and digital commerce. Data that must be read and interpreted: you must have a complete view of the customer and learn how they interact with the company, when and where, and apply this knowledge to improve the reach and relevance of their marketing.

Analysis, skills, and tools, it’s not enough to allocate a budget if you don’t implement your strategy.

One of the techniques towards which there has been an increase in interest is content personalization, applied to specific (segments of) customers. A winning tactic to attract and engage customers and influence their purchasing decisions.

64% of marketers consider digital commerce the top area for investments in marketing technology, again pointing to the importance of technology connecting marketing to purchasing systems and processes.

Marketers are investing more and more in technologies for direct customer contact to engage and convert. This includes multi-channel campaign management systems and digital commerce platforms, and, at the base, digital marketing platforms and CRM systems for linking data and processes.

In short, considering the impacts, the recommendations are:

Pivot on an approach that focuses primarily on brand building, lead generation, and customer engagement to drive results through transactions and conversions.

Refine data-based marketing skills to determine where customers are in the buying journey, design marketing programs that lead to conversion, and measure the impact of efforts.

Integrate digital commerce into your marketing technology strategy by defining critical skills such as segmentation and conversion analysis, and find suppliers who link marketing to sales channels.

Also Read : How To Build Customer Loyalty With Personalized Programs