By Kelly DeRosa, IgnitionOne
In 2016 alone, retailers
lost an eye-watering $4.6 trillion to abandoned
merchandise in online shopping carts. The retail landscape is constantly evolving, and the rise of
digital shopping coupled with the noise of the customer’s cross-channel journey
raises the stakes. Converting customer interest expressed in online channels
into purchase is the agenda of every marketing plan, yet the rate of cart
abandonment still stands at nearly 79% on average. Below are several ways retailers can market more effectively to
engage their customers and reduce cart abandonment.
Effective Remarketing Shouldn’t
Compromise UX
Not all channels are
created equal. Although mobile devices account for over half of all
traffic in e-Commerce,
often the online shopping experience is not optimized for mobile. Smaller
screens, slow load times and interface designs that are difficult to navigate
are contributing factors to higher cart abandonment rates on mobile devices.
Retail marketers need to be conscious of these factors to be able to adapt
their remarketing tactics for maximum impact on each channel.
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For example, retail marketers might use overlays or other triggered
interactions to alert an apparent cart abandoner of an unpurchased item in
their cart as a remarketing tactic on desktop. On mobile, these messages might
prove to be more cumbersome and distracting, and deter customers from seeing
their purchase over the finish line. Marketers should prioritize a seamless
shopping experience and leverage remarketing tactics that enhance the
experience in order to ensure customer satisfaction and build brand loyalty.
Personalizing The Product, Personalizing The Process
Through leveraging big data and analyzing
customer behavior and intent, retailers can better understand shoppers’
motivations — before going to discount. Too often, retailers assume that cart
abandonment is because the price was too high and they rush in with a discount
offer.
In reality, customers often abandon their carts because they aren’t completely
satisfied with the selected item, or because the checkout process isn’t
efficient enough. Retail marketers should utilize product recommendation
engines to provide shoppers with alternative options that might better suit
their needs and preferences. Retailers should also streamline the shopping
experience across digital channels, giving customers the opportunity to
complete purchases through whatever channel they prefer.
When deploying an omnichannel strategy, it’s essential to acknowledge
ever-changing customer preferences. Messaging should be fine-tuned across every
channel through email, social, search and display remarketing to re-engage the
would-be cart abandoner, build brand affinity and overall increase ROI.
Persistence Counts
Frequent and reinforced
messaging is important, but the right messaging is paramount. In display,
frequency capping is the norm, but what might feel like messaging inundation is
not always received as such. Some retailers may find that their conversion
rates actually increase after 10, 15 or 20 impressions.
Shoppers — particularly cart abandoners still weighing a purchase — need
repeated reminders and encouragement to complete a sale. Indeed, 3 out of 4 people notice ad
retargeting and through
repeated exposure, there’s a real opportunity to build and solidify the
brand-consumer relationship.
In the midst of the
so-called “retail apocalypse,” marketers are seeing first-hand the significance
that an omnichannel approach can have in driving results. By leveraging
customer data and integrating machine learning to better predict customer
behavior and preferences, marketers can more effectively engage shoppers with
personalized offerings. Retailers that successfully tackle the phenomenon of
cart abandonment and convert even a small portion of those sales will see all
the difference on the bottom line.
Kelly DeRosa is IgnitionOne’s
Director, Retail Strategy, where she works directly with retailers to identify
strategic priorities in their digital media. DeRosa has been with IgnitionOne
for the past eight years and helped shape the programmatic team. IgnitionOne focuses on intelligent audience creation,
real-time cross-channel scoring and robust optimization. With a global
footprint and hundreds of employees in 10 countries, IgnitionOne is one of the
largest independent marketing technology companies in the world, currently
scoring over 300 million users monthly in 75 countries and powering more than
$60 billion in revenue each year for leading brands including General Motors,
CenturyLink, La Quinta and Acer, as well as advertising agencies such as 360i,
GroupM and Zenith Media.
