《Monetate:2018假日指南(英文版)(17页).pdf》由会员分享,可在线阅读,更多相关《Monetate:2018假日指南(英文版)(17页).pdf(17页珍藏版)》请在三个皮匠报告上搜索。
1、Peak Trading Guide 2018 TOC 3 Introduction 4 Maximising Ecommerce Performance: Whats at Stake? 4 Annual revenue goals 4 Overall performanceeven beyond digital 5 Opportunity for customer base growth 5 Cultivating customer loyalty 6 Foundations: Set a Baseline and Measure Continuously 7 Peak Trading O
2、ptimisation Strategies 7 Select strategic offerings 9 Optimise your touchpoints for peak trading 11 Differentiate experiences for new vs. returning visitors 14 Keep up with your users in real time 15 What to do when things arent going as planned 16 Ready to take action? 3 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUI
3、DE 2018 Introduction There is more revenue riding on peak trading season than any other time of year: that means that the pressure is on as brands craft their strategies for delivering the best possible shopping experience. Its a task that comes with several unique challenges after all, the end of t
4、he year means more than just an increase in customer volume. It also brings heightened competition, an influx of unpredictable new visitors, and shifts in shopper behaviour and intent. And the stakes are high. Luckily, there is plenty that brands can do to prepare. Marketers rely on personalisation
5、year-round to captivate audiences through superior customer experiences, but its arguably even more indispensable during peak trading as audience expectations soar and companies battle for their attention. Whats more, previous research by Monetate1 showed that a whopping 88% of ecommerce shoppers du
6、ring this period are new visitors who have not previously purchased with the brandwhich makes it a huge opportunity to impress a fresh audience, but a difficult one to nail. Personalisation methods like serving customised experiences by referral channel, device type, and geolocation are an essential
7、 tool, and theyre just the tip of the iceberg of what marketers can do to win over new audiences and charm even loyal customers all over again. To help marketers navigate the final quarter of 2018, the Monetate labs team studied billions of transactions from four years of peak trading data and uncov
8、ered significant trends that shape ecommerce over the course of the season. In this guide youll find the insights that will help you predict and monitor performance, coupled with guiding principles and actionable personalisation tips that will generate the strong business results that you need to me
9、etor even exceedyour 2018 goals. Try pairing your gift finder tool or holiday gift center with callouts for your USPs (such as free delivery and returns) and other special offers. 1 Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly, Q4 2016: Holiday Insights 4 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Maximising Ecommerce Perf
10、ormance: Whats at Stake? Annual revenue goals Businesses have come to rely on the fourth quarter boost to meet their revenue goals for the year, and ecommerce certainly plays a significant role in performance for any brand with a digital presence. This year eMarketer expects ecommerce to climb 15.3%
11、 during peak trading, even while total retail sales growth will slow slightly to 3.8%.2 An optimised ecommerce customer experience will help ensure that your numbers hit the marks you need to make 2018 a good year, or even a great one. Overall performanceeven beyond digital The importance of getting
12、 the digital experience right extends far beyond online orders alone. In 2018, there is no such thing as an isolated channel anymore: customers have gone fully multi- channel, and your website, your app, your in-store experience, and every other touchpoint all inform their impression of your brand.
13、This means that customer experience in each touchpoint has the potential to influence the performance of other channels, in addition to overall performance: FierceRetail reports 80% of shoppers compare prices online before shopping in-store,3 and according to the NRF, 33% of shoppers said the abilit
14、y to shop online and pick up in-store convinced them to make a purchase. Many brands measure channel performance by conversion rate alone, but doing so obscures the full picturethe moment of transaction itself offers only limited insight into the customer journey, which may have included touches acr
15、oss a variety of sessions and channels leading up to purchase. All this only underscores the growing consensus that a truly customer-centric approach means adapting to new expectations for real-time, omnichannel customer experiencesmore than ever during peak trading, when customer behaviours are esp
16、ecially erratic. 2 eMarketer Holiday Shopping Preview 2018 3 FierceRetail, 80% of Shoppers Compare Prices Online Before Shopping in Stores 4 NRF, 2017 Holiday Planning Playbook 5 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Opportunity for customer base growth The success of your peak trading personalisation
17、efforts carry important implications for the rest of the year, as well. As a high point for new customer acquisition, the season contains a paradox: Black Friday through New Years brings the promise of hordes of new visitors, but, as we explored in our Q4 2016 Ecommerce Quarterly Report, those newly
18、-acquired customers are notoriously difficult to retain once the season has passed. In fact, our research revealed that only 1% of customers who were acquired during peak trading were present on the same site the following year.5 Nevertheless, seasonal ecommerce prepresents a great opportunity to cu
19、ltivate a new audience of potential loyal customers, as long as you can make the kind of impression that entices them to return after January 1st. Cultivating customer loyalty Its not all about the new visitors: loyal customers are the force that sustain your business, and investing in them always p
20、ays off. Repeat purchasers consistently outperform shopper averages in conversion rate, AOV, and other critical KPIs, but the differences tend to be even more pronounced during peak tradingwhich makes it an excellent time to offer an especially warm welcome to those shoppers who already know and tru
21、st your brand. They will be looking for any reason to simplify their errand list by consolidating their purchases, and you can encourage them to do so by offering them a smooth and tailored customer experience that makes it easy to find what theyre looking for and strengthens their affinity for the
22、brand. While you have their attention, you can promote your customer loyalty programme and offer incentives for future purchases to help convert returning shoppers into repeat customers, ensuring that they will continue to return long after the season is over. Whether focusing on short-term revenue
23、alone, or taking a longer view of customer retention and the enduring success of the brand, its clear that end-of-year performance (and specifically ecommerce personalisation) can have significant impact. Keep reading to learn what brands can do to get the best possible results for peak trading 2018
24、, and set yourself up for a strong 2019 in the process. Product badging and other promotional text dont have to be graphically complicated to be effective: using a coordinated colour against a simple site design can highlight countdown to end of sale, discount offers, and gift guide in a clean visua
25、l style. 5 Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly, Q4 2016: Holiday Insights 6 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Foundations: Set a Baseline and Measure Continuously A brands peak trading success starts long before the November and December shopping rush. In fact, NRF reports that more than half of shoppers
26、start researching potential purchases in October or earlier.6 Smart marketers know their shopper profiles and look at early buying spikes as leading indicators for overall peak trading performance. The lab at Monetate studied a set of shopping data from the last four years: the analysis uncovered im
27、portant correlations between the digital transaction performance for Black Friday, Cyber Week and the rest of the period. For the purposes of this study, peak trading includes all transactions in November and December (not including Black Friday or Cyber Week). Black Friday is defined as the day aft
28、er Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is the Monday following Black Friday. Cyber Week is the Saturday after Black Friday through the Friday after Cyber Monday. You wont be surprised to learn that Black Friday sales are an early predictor of overall peak trading performance. However, Cyber Week sales are to
29、o. In fact, Cyber Week performance is more highly correlated with overall sales for the period than Black Friday alone, and serves as the best measurement to judge if midseason course corrections are warranted. Furthermore, we uncovered that 67% of companies that dont hit their multi-year Black Frid
30、ay average will fail to hit their multi-year average for peak trading overall. This fact is important to keep in mind as you continually evaluate early season performance. Next, brands need to understand what business looks like in terms of distribution of sales across these different holiday period
31、s. Its also worth noting that those companies that peak on Black Friday (typically brands with a lot of brick-and-mortar locations) tend to repeat that pattern year after year. The same is true for those that peak during Cyber Week, or those that have more generally dispersed transaction patterns. U
32、nderstanding your standard distribution allows you to take appropriate corrective action. For example, if a brand usually peaks on Black Friday and missed their goal for that day, dramatic action might be required. Whereas, a company that usually has even distribution of sales might need to take sma
33、ller corrective manoeuvres. Studying your own year-after-year patterns and comparing them to the correlations mapped here will help you learn from early shopping signals and stay agile as the season progresses. If you do need to correct course, the tips that follow may provide the boost you need to
34、get back on track for optimal performance. Remind your customers of the importance of planning ahead so they can avoid stress and disappointment closer to the holiday. 6 NRF, 2017 Holiday Planning Playbook 7 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Peak Trading Optimisation Strategies Once you have your b
35、aseline and key indicators of success established, follow these suggested methods for optimising every aspect of your customer experience. Select strategic offerings Use these principles to guide you as you craft your promotions and unique offers. Make sure that your promotions dont conflict with on
36、e another, and avoid overwhelming customers with a bevy of contingent offers: instead, design a careful selection of offers that will set your brand apart from the competition, and communicate them clearly. Avoid discount dependence: The most common mistake retailers make is being too dependent on a
37、 single shopping driver (like assuming “seasonal shopping” means “bargain hunting”). While discounts are a critical element of many customers shopping strategies, overdependence on discounting does more than reduce margins, it can actually turn off segments of the shopping community. This may be par
38、ticularly true during the gift giving season when shoppers are buying for others, and not for their day to day needs. The good news is that personalisation methods reduce dependence on discounts by drawing customers in through other means: use discounts in moderation and leverage the other tools at
39、your disposal to win customers over. A windowpane gif alternates between two images to call attention to a Cyber Monday promotion. 8 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Embrace the moment: Flash sales and countdown times may no longer be new, but they still work. Leverage a flash sale to move invento
40、ry or to create a sense of urgency. Reward your best customers (or email subscribers, dormant customers, etc.) by providing them access to a gated flash sale with exclusive pricing. Encourage additional sales with countdown timers by prominently displaying how much time is left in your site-wide sal
41、e or how much time a shopper has left to buy for guaranteed holiday delivery. Deliver happiness: Delivery speed is one of the top five factors shoppers use to decide where to spend their money. Separate yourself from the pack by calling out holiday delivery deadlines clearly and prominently. Make su
42、re any delivery estimates you provide include a buffer for order processing and handling timelines and account for spike of orders. Err on the side of over-communication on your FAQ and support pages to ensure customer happiness. Try placing a countdown clock on the checkout page to let shoppers kno
43、w how much longer they have to get delivery by the holiday.Reminding customers that there are limited quantities available for a promotion can help create urgency. 9 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Optimise your touchpoints for peak trading Many year-round personalisation best practices still app
44、ly to the end of the year, but some should be reevaluated in the context of the season. Changes in audience, intent, and behavioural patterns mean that you will need to make adjustments to your routine testing, targeting, and individualisation tactics to ensure that they take advantageand avoid the
45、pitfallsof this periods particularities. Get a head start: Test the most important parts of your shopping experience (checkout process, product detail page, etc.) early in the season so you can roll them out (or roll them back) by early November. Minimise distractions: Peak trading shoppers are noto
46、riously busy, distracted, and impatient. With that in mind, you should make it as easy as possible to accomplish what they came for. Reduce visual noise wherever you can, highlight top items, and make the checkout process as seamless and easy as possible. This will help set you apart from the compet
47、ition. Make wish lists easy to build: 63% of consumers want to utilise wish lists or gift registries.7 Make it easy for busy shoppers with long gift giving lists to collect “wishes” in one place. Maximise mobility: The average time-on-site for mobile users is 510% less than the time on site for desk
48、top users. Mobile users multitask, and they move fast. Many mobile users even use their devices to research and do price comparisons while in-store. Speed things up by ensuring the site is mobile optimised. CTAs should be clear, with appropriately sized buttons (read: bigger than you think). Pop-ups
49、 and interrupters should be kept to a minimum. Create urgency by calling attention to limited time offers; build anticipation with “coming soon” messaging that will draw customers back to your site later. 7 NRF, 2017 Holiday Planning Playbook 10 | Monetate PEAK TRADING GUIDE 2018 Dont forget to highlight locations: Just because they are shopping online doesnt mean they dont want to visit a sto