This post was created in partnership with Shopify
Key takeaways:
- First-party data is the best way to map out the modern shopper’s winding path to purchase.
- Thanks to AI, a future of fewer dials and levers doesn’t mean marketers will have less control.
- Despite the fear of being left behind, marketers must resist the urge to adopt new technology for its own sake.
As ecommerce and physical retail converge, the path a customer takes from discovery to purchase has become a complex web of interactions. To help make sense of it all and break through, brands must move beyond siloed channels and build a single, unified view of their customer.
During an ADWEEK House Advertising HQ Group Chat, co-hosted with Shopify, ecommerce leaders explored how to drive growth and efficiency in a landscape that now bridges the offline and online worlds.
(L-R) Vera Bradley’s Alison Hiatt, Shopify’s Andrius BaranauskasCommerce has become three-dimensional chess
Today’s shoppers don’t live in a single channel. They move seamlessly between social feeds, streaming TV, third-party marketplaces, and physical stores. Such fragmentation creates data conflicts for brands trying to manage the customer journey.
“You went from playing checkers to chess to 3D chess,” said Scott Kramer, VP of growth at AS Beauty.
The complexity is felt across the industry, as brands manage countless new ways to reach consumers.
Alison Hiatt, CMO at Vera Bradley, described the feeling of managing a control room where the number of inputs is constantly multiplying. “I think about these dashboards with all these dials, and it’s just filling up with all these different channels and social commerce and this and this and this,” she said.