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eCommerce Challenges 2023: Demystifying the competitive eCom landscape

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Gear up to face the challenge with a refreshing approach driven by technology! The eCommerce landscape has hit a massive new high thanks to the pandemic-induced lockdowns years of change occurred in a matter of months – business transformation led to the rise in the digital ecosystem. The rapid rise of digital-first brands is now leading the immense competitive digital marketplaces. During the times when everything seems hunky dory, there are challenges that behest the brands and retailers in the digital ecosystem. Let’s dig a little deep and find out the eCommerce challenges posed in 2023 and ways to move past them. According to a study conducted, by 2040, it is estimated that 95% of purchases will be made online. Thus, this is the perfect time for retailers to confront challenges and seek solutions to edge ahead. With the increasing dependence on online shopping, eCommerce is breaking the door open with enormous opportunities. As there is no rose without its thorns. Here are some challenges with the new opportunities. 1. Targeting the right customer The options for shoppers are immense with a flurry of offers. Pampered by options and impulse buys. It is imperative to target customers at the right place with the right product. So, how do you make sure they pick your product? And how will make sure your product is among the option. Solution: The solution is digital marketing with targeted customers and geographies paired with digital commerce intelligence to boost product discoverability and visibility. Optimize product display pages, and monitor pricing, availability, and other KPIs vis-à-vis competition to reach out to the right customer. 2. Optimizing Customer Experience User experiences or customer experience is one of the major challenges in the digital ecosystem. The shopper looks for a more convenient shopping experience and personalization based on their preferences. Solution: Brands are recognizing the need of optimizing the customer experience for 2023 and beyond. The data-driven business decision could optimize the customer journey at multiple touchpoints. This includes tracking customer sentiments – acknowledging their feedback and concerns. The practice to track positive and negative segments will enhance brand trust and loyalty. For example, let us consider a use case – of an Indian multination brand known for its products like water purifies tracked customer sentiment with mScanIt, Feedback analysis. The brand tracked genuine customers with negative reviews and connected with them to rectify their issues. Such positive initiatives bring a lot of positive value to the brand. 3. Build Brand Trust Loyalty The challenge of building brand trust loyalty is eminent for every brand. The cost of acquiring a new customer is multi-fold higher compared to retaining an existing one. Selling to a current customer is much easier with a 60-70% success rate as compared to a new customer with a 5-20% success rate. The above-stated facts are a testament to the importance of customer retention. So, how can Brands need to build trust and loyalty to retain customers? Solution: There could be multiple ways to customer retention. Providing quality services is of course paramount. The key is staying connected with your current customer and leverage their positive feedback to build trust. Make sure they know about your products, promotions and provide exciting offers to the existing customers. To build trust brands should ensure clarity, accuracy, and transparency in product display page content. 4. Convert visits to purchases! One of the biggest challenges is boosting conversions. Turing the visitors to paying customers. There could be multiple reasons for not converting like pricing, delivery time, and not enough information on the product page. How can a brand make sure once shoppers view the product, they could easily make a purchase? Solution: The answer is quite simple yet complicated – First and foremost understand why your shoppers aren’t converting. What do they seek? Turn to digital commerce intelligence to get actionable insights on multiple KPIs with customized tools to find out what needs to be done to boost product performance on eCommerce platforms. Optimize the shopper’s journey and target the right demographic sentiments. 5. Competition Competitor Analysis How do they stand out from the crowd with so many options available to the customers in your segment? What makes them buy a similar product from a competitor instead of buying from you? Do you know your competitive performance across the platform? Solution: Know your competition! The cut-throat eCommerce market needs brands and retailers to be a step ahead and updated on market changes. The key is to stand out – having a good product is not good enough – your need to tell why you are that good with refined product page content and set the right price and discount in line with trends. Brands need to gear up with solutions like mScanIt, a digital commerce intelligence to set the right content with auto-generated content recommendation, boost the brand share of the shelf based on keywords, optimize SKUs, and track product availability across platforms. Every phase of the customer journey needs to be optimized to stay ahead of competitors. Final Thoughts The growing smartphone penetration and new geographies opening up to online shopping have led to a massive influx of opportunities. To cash in on the opportunities the brands and retailers need to combat challenges at every touchpoint of the customer journey. eCommerce has propelled rapidly in the last few years and conducive conditions of 2023 will push it further. Do not get left behind switch to digital commerce and pave your way through challenges. It’s a year full of exciting and positive changes, but there are still multiple businesses going online or starting digital-first that struggle with the challenges that eCommerce brings. There is no quick fix, but tech-solution are fixes that can help any eCommerce business inch closer to its ideal customers and achieve target sales.

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8 Things to Stop Believing In 2023: A Marketer’s Checklist

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

2023 is coming with a storm of changes in the digital advertising world. Meanwhile, the bots are also ready to upgrade themselves to steal the advertiser’s money. According to the Statista report, the global cost of loss in ad budgets is going to reach $100 bn. in 2023. To ensure the advertisers are also ready with their armor to protect their ad campaigns next year, it is important to let go of a few beliefs that might have led to some mistakes in 2022. We are here with an exclusive marketer’s checklist to help digital advertising to stop believing in things that are pulling back their digital growth. By letting go of these thoughts’ advertisers can be prepared to “Advertise Fearlessly” in 2023. 1. Stop Believing That Programmatic Publisher’s Reports Are 100% One of the biggest disadvantages of programmatic ad is the lack of transparency. In this case, to give a clear picture the publishers provide a report including the ad placements and where the brand’s budget was spent. However, in most cases, the fraudulent publishers provide a skewed report to receive their payments. It is important to not trust the publisher’s report because they don’t know if the placement, they are claiming is true or not. For example, they claim that the ads are running on BBC. But there is still a glimmer of doubt about whether it actually running on BBC or not. Therefore, it is essential for advertisers to resort to validating their ad traffic and not trusting the publisher’s report. By understanding the amount of invalid traffic coming they can make payments based on the clean traffic and partner with confidence. 2. Stop Believing OEM Platforms Are Fraud Free OEM app stores are believed to provide high-quality users and significantly increase the visibility of an app. It also results in being an optimum platform to attract high installs. Due to fewer restrictions, these platforms can also be used by apps removed from Google Play Store to increase their market growth. The OEM app stores receive a security certification and clearance from the mobile manufacturer. However, it doesn’t have the required safety provided by Google Play store apps against potentially harmful apps. The publishers claim OEM traffic is fraud-free, however in reality they provide mixed traffic. When a person purchases a device, the OEM apps are pre-installed in them. In the pre-installed/pre-burned app case, the digital advertiser is paying the handset for those pre-burns. So they have incurred a cost here, and then when the affiliate/OEM partners get those apps opened, the advertiser again pays for the same install. This way, the digital advertising is under the impression that they are getting unique traffic. But the reality is that they are actually paying the customer acquisition cost for the same person twice. Therefore, it is essential for app advertisers to deploy third-party ad traffic validation solutions to safeguard their apps on third-party app stores. With an ad traffic validation suite, the digital advertising can verify the quality of installs and the devices from which it has been installed to ensure the traffic is genuine. 3. Stop Believing That Performance campaigns are fraud free One of the many misconceptions that digital advertising and agencies have is that no fraud happens on performance campaigns as they are targeted campaigns. It is believed that even though media campaigns are prone to ad fraud, performance campaigns cannot be skewed by publishers with invalid traffic. This is because they are paying for performance, and they are getting performance However, over time the bots have become sophisticated and can easily imitate human behavior. The advancement of the bots has reached a level where the events like filling a lead form, making a purchase and other events can also be spoofed. According to our findings, performance campaigns (CPC/CPV/CPL/CPS) attract up to 30-35% of invalid traffic across the industry. Therefore, it is important to do a full-funnel check of the performance campaigns to ensure they are not hampered by invalid traffic. 4. Stop Believing MMP Fraud Protection Is Enough There are a number of MMPs or attribution platforms that claim to detect invalid traffic on ad campaigns. However, this is a conflict of interest. MMPs revenue is generated from the number of attributions. And when the more numbers of fraud they detect on attributed sources, their revenue decreases. This causes a conflict of interest and therefore the real fraud is left undetected. According to mFilterIt findings, we have detected 50-60% fraud on the same ad traffic in which MMP has detected 20% fraud. In this case, the digital advertising is in the shadow that the fraud on their ad campaigns has been detected and prevented. But the reality is that they are still paying for the ad traffic coming from bots. On top of that, the MMPs have limitations in detecting invalid traffic at the impression level and have minimal checks that often miss out on sophisticated fraud patterns. Therefore, it is essential for marketers to partner with an ad traffic validation suite to ensure their ad campaigns are getting clean traffic. Moreover, the marketers must also ensure that their traffic verification partner’s solution is not limited to just detecting invalid sources at the impression level but also at the click stage, re-engagement and referral. 5. Stop Believing keyword blacklisting is enough for brand safety Brand safety is no more a choice, rather it has become a necessity for brands to stay protected in the digital landscape. One of the key reasons brands need a brand safety suite is to ensure their ads are not placed beside violence, hate speech, morbidity, and other derogatory content. Blacklisting certain keywords to ensure the ads are not displayed next to illicit content is one of the common ways to deal with such issues. However, it is not enough to ensure the safety of ads. One of the loopholes of keyword blacklisting is that it assumes that the platform knows the context of the content. It can be relevant for English-focused content,

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Beauty & Personal Care Industry: Trends accelerating BPC eCommerce growth in India

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The astounding rise in the eCommerce segment in Beauty Personal Care (BPC) segment could be credited to the changing lifestyle of the young Indian demographic. The products are not just exclusive segments but daily need products. The Indian beauty and personal care market stands 8th among the top countries in the world with an estimated value of USD 15 billion and growing at a steady rate of approximately 10%. (Based on Euromonitor International Study). The Market is all set to get double by 2030 with skincare products and cosmetics driving growth. The penetration outside metros into Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities has been a major advantage to the Indian BPC market. This provides the Indian BPC e-commerce market with significant headroom to grow and scale up. Lucrative Market with growth opportunities The online BPC market in India expanded significantly in the last few years driven by a steep increase in e-commerce adoption. Across the digital shopping platforms, the beauty personal care segment continues to show accelerated growth post-pandemic. The consistent year-on-year growth over the last 2 years has been the hallmark of the segment. As compared to other emerging segments beauty personal care reported maximum growth with a 143% rise in order volume compared to 2021 along with a rapid rise in order value as well up to 132% in FY22. The emergence of many digital-first brands in the last 2 years has helped the beauty personal Care segment outperform with robust growth. The rising number of “House of Brands” and the flurry of investors hogging on segment potential has been the key factor in its growth. Even the traditional players are leveraging the BPC eCommerce high. eCommerce segment-wise order volume – FY 2021 vs FY 2022 | Source: Unicommerce Report 2022 Technology adoption boosts the BPC e-commerce Segment The adoption of technology has been another factor that led to the rapid rise of the beauty personal Care segment.  The Brands switch to a more personalized customer-centric approach to optimize customer journey at every touch point. The move to improve supply chain and logistics with competitive intelligence has led to rapid strides with technology. Solutions like mScanit ensure that beauty and personal care brands optimize their discoverability, pricing analysis, and track availability across multiple touchpoints. The technology is not just limited to purchase experience monitoring sales and reconciliation but also makes the customer feel valued with a seamless post-purchase experience. Build on Brand Trust and Loyalty In changing eCommerce landscape brands across segments need to build a strong presence online. The goal is to connect with the customer. In the beauty personal care segment customers like to trust the brand they use and seek more of what their trusted brand has to offer building a bond. This ensures conducive customer retention. The Brands need to ensure an elevated shopping experience on their website and in the eCommerce marketplace to develop a connection with consumers. Gen Z and millennials stay quite aware of the options they have and offers available on various channels. This makes having digital commerce of paramount importance. Competitive analytics give brands an added edge over the cut-throat competition. The faith of customers reflects in year-on-year stronger growth on the top brand’s website purchases as compared to marketplaces. The stronger growth above 80% in FY22 on the brand websites is indicative of their potential. Brand Trust and loyalty across platforms leads to astonishing customer retention and positive feedback leads to potential new consumers. The competitive analysis of customer sentiment is key to elevating brand loyalty. eCommerce Watershed Moment Post-Pandemic High Demand in Tier-2 and Tier-3 Cities The hinterland of India is steadily getting attracted to convenient shopping. Beauty and personal care products have been the top pick among Tier-2 and Tier-3 new eCommerce shoppers. The remarkable progress and e-commerce penetration have led the shoppers from these cities to make up the major chunk of market share across e-commerce shopping avenues. Post-pandemic the year-on-year growth has been remarkable in Tier- 2 and Tier- 3 cities while the growth rate and slightly lost pace. E-commerce penetration across Indian cities in 2022 | Source: Unicommerce Report In the post-pandemic era, faster delivery and optimized shopping experience have been the driving factors for eCommerce growth. Internet penetration and rapid growth in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are the driving forces leading to this new demographic towards the e-commerce marketplaces. Final thoughts – Target the right consumer The beauty personal Care industry has a major challenge in terms of reaching out to the right customer. High demand in tier 2 and tier 3 cities has opened the door to a massive range of new customers with varied shopping potential and budget brackets. Brands need to tap into these new geographies with ecommerce competitive analysis paving ways to edge ahead. The end-to-end digital commerce intelligence at every touch point can enhance customer experience and boost sales across the digital ecosystem. mScanIt, a digital commerce intelligence solution provides actionable insights and analytics across multiple KPIs for the brand. Tools like content recommendation help brands go beyond analytics with auto-content generation for product display pages and optimize the content across platforms. In the last few years, new business models and multiple segments have emerged across the eCommerce ecosystem. Brands should keep track of new opportunities opening to target consumers across the digital commerce landscape. Get in touch with our experts for deeper insights. Reach out to learn more.

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ecommerce-intelligence

Think young… Gen Z the future of eCommerce

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Tap on the right demographics sentiment to upswing the conversion rate Change is the only constant. Be it life or shopping behaviour. The different age group has different shopping patterns. The way people in their 20’s shop draws quite a contrast from how people in their 30s shop online. The post-pandemic world has been forced to take rapid strides as does the shopping environment and platforms. We have come a long way from browsing items across the crowded marketplace to browsing the products on your phone across the omnichannel eCommerce landscape. The new generation is driving the new shopping pattern across the eCommerce ecosystem. Even influencing millennials to follow their trait to catch up with the trend empowered with hefty purchase capabilities. Brands need to up with energy-driven restless shoppers pampered with options. Evolve with your shoppers and think young! The turn of a new decade marred with the Coronavirus outbreak has changed the way people shop across the world. Spoilt for choices, just getting a product delivered on time is not enough. Gen Z seeks a seamless, secure and omnichannel eCommerce purchase experience. The competition is more cutthroat than ever. Brands need to be on their toes and optimize every touchpoint of their customer journey. So, what are we waiting for let’s dive deep into what goes behind this change in consumer behaviour, explore the idea and Think Young! Tap on Gen Z Shopping potential – Understand Online Consumer Behaviour A massive wave of evolution has hit online shoppers. The new-generation shoppers are more aware of their options. This evolution in consumer behaviour is a by-product of pandemic lockdowns which brought drastic changes in the eCommerce ecosystem triggering the new age of e-retail on a global scale. What is Consumer Behaviour? In simple terms the process of how consumers make decisions to purchase products on an eCommerce ecosystem. The task is simple – Identify a problem your consumer face while deciding to make a purchase and understand the constantly evolving need and expectations of the consumers. The expectations could be regarding availability, transparency, affordability, or a convenient purchase journey. Brands need to be on their toes and keep track of changing behaviour across platforms, demographics, and a wide range of products. Brands need to be aware of what drives their customers and ensure end-to-end optimization of the eCommerce shopping journey. We can’t generalize the shopping behaviour of the entire generation, as preferences and behaviour could be diverse. How behaviour and consumption patterns have evolved from Gen Y to Gen Z Changing Consumer Behaviour – Think Young for 2023 and Beyond The accelerated pace at which unimaginable changes have happened in the eCommerce marketplaces, what otherwise might have taken a decade happened in days during and post-pandemic. The fact that we are still wondering about it as the curtain draws on 2022 is humongous. Digitization, ordering online, swift delivery and remote working became part of our lives practically overnight. Now, business leaders are moving towards long-term strategic moves, in the new normal scenario and beyond. The challenge is to put the finger on the pulse of evolving consumer sentiment and adapt to data-driven ways to optimize the customer journey. The trends in evolving consumer behaviour are driven by the rapid rise in Gen Z demographics that are more concerned about the convenient shopping experience. The key is to think young tap consumer sentiments and optimize consumer journey at multiple touch points. Shape your strategies to meet consumer expectations and focus on customer journey optimization. The digitally native, mobile-first generation, Gen Z exhibits Search for Convenience and speed Preference for mobile shopping Price sensitivity Choices influenced by social media Omnichannel Shopping If you are looking to reach out to Generation Z or Millennials, do consider the fact that they are well aware of what they need, and the majority of these cohorts already shopped across various eCommerce platforms and have high expectations. Convenience is king. Gen Z and Millennials shoppers bargain for convenience. According to a study, 76% of shoppers vouch for an enhanced shopping experience with convenience being a top priority. Cross-device seamless omnichannel buying experience. Gen Z shoppers do not limit themselves to one shopping avenue. Their buying pattern is all about check-out items when and where they see them in case of tempting impulsive buy. But for focused needs, they check multiple avenues before making a purchase. According to a study, 81% of shoppers are looking for a frictionless, cross-device eCommerce buying experience. According to research, 9 out of 10 shoppers look for seamless and flexible payment options as it speeds up their purchase decisions. To succeed in 2023 and beyond build your visibility across multiple channels and target demographics with competitive intelligence. Invest in creative content and ideally implement media strategy to upscale traffic. Source: Based on McKinsey Gen Z Survey Report Final Thoughts Put your foot on the pedal to keep up with the Gen Z! Do you know what your customer thinks about your product? Are you tracking what they say about it? If you are not, then you are missing out on a lot more than what you think – Rather than shooting in the dark switch to a data-driven digital Intelligence solution to combat new challenges in the new year. Track trends across omnichannel eCommerce to monitor consumer behaviour across platforms. Be there at the right time at the right place with the right price to attract the consumer. Don’t miss out cater to the needs of a rising caravan of new shoppers with mScanIt, ecommerce intelligence solution. Understand what they want and cater to the growing Gen Z demographic. The massive rate of high-speed internet penetration has led to an incredible rise in new shoppers. The tier-1 and tier-2 cities are riding the wave of online shopping over the bustling market rush and Gen Z is leading the way. The new narrative of optimizing the customer journey will shape the eCommerce ecosystem in 2023 and beyond.

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Delivery TAT – Should You Be Careful About It?

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The agile eCommerce businesses in India have always been on the ascending side. The bars heightened with the pandemic-induced rise in online shopping. According to Statista, in 2019 online sales were $42.58 billion. The same study shows that e-retail sales will rise up to $83.75 billion by the end of 2022 and are projected to reach $145.07 billion by 2025. Highly likely, no signs of downfall! The above statistics are quite evidence that Indian eCommerce is robust and booming for its immense potential of enhancing consumer buying experience. It broadened the scope for major brands to aggressively endorse themselves on eCommerce marketplaces to expand their realms. They shook hands with these platforms to capture a larger market share. With customer satisfaction in focus, brands display discounted prices, lucrative offers, and other such deals which, no doubt, help them keep up their reputation. However, delivery turnaround time also has a crucial role to play. They must honor the importance of tracking delivery turnaround time as numerous strategic and profitable decisions can be made based on the analysis. Tracking Delivery Turnaround Time to Stay Competitive Delivery Time Identification for a Particular City and Pin Code Delivery time tracking for a brand is in part tracing how fast a product reaches a specific city and pin code. It is a geo-analysis of the delivery time trend for a brand giving a clear bifurcation as per the locations, cities, and pin codes, where your brand is present. Now, this analysis can open up insights into optimizing the delivery time. Once you have the respective delivery time for different locations, you are at the epicenter of strategizing for reducing delivery time, wherever possible. It can be through the choice of shipment, scaling up the warehousing in an area, or perhaps, leasing new warehouses. Delivery Time Analysis for Brand SKUs and Variants Your SKU performance is contingent on delivery time to a large extent. Delivery time analytics forms the basis of categorizing your SKUs with a higher delivery time, SKUs with an average delivery time, and SKUs with less delivery time. This raises some questions How can I maintain less delivery time for my performing SKUs? What factors can cause a delay in the delivery time of my SKUs? Why is the delivery time for this particular SKU higher? How can reduce the delivery time for my SKUs? Is it even possible to reduce the delivery time for my SKUs? You can actively participate in the supply chain for full visibility of your SKUs. This way you might have possible reasons for higher delivery TAT of your SKUs and work out a plan of action to maintain as well reduce the delivery time, wherever possible. For the SKUs that cannot be delivered before the time span of say 5-7 days keep your customers pre-intimated. Tracking Delivery Time of Your Product Verses Your Competition As mentioned before, the delivery time of your product is one of the determinants of its performance. With delivery time analysis you get a better understanding of the number of days your competition is taking to deliver the product. Also, your competition’s delivery TAT data with respect to different cities and pin codes is also available. You can use these insights to have an edge over your competitor. For Example, you can tap the locations for which the product delivery time of your competition is higher by using faster shipment methods like airways or railways. Expand the warehousing facility to stock products in regions where your competitor is lacking in delivery performance. Delivery TAT Tracking For Best Seller Analysis The role of authorized sellers in eCommerce marketplaces is not limited to supplying goods. Their market expertise can legit expand your consumer base. These sellers specialize in spotting the right audience, promoting your product, and delivering customer satisfaction which translates into larger sales, more profit, and brand recognition. Delivery TAT tracking can, to a great extent, can make your search for the most reliable marketplace seller quick and easy. Is your delivery product delivery time high even when your seller has enough stock available? If yes, you can raise a question on the credibility of your seller and begin searching for authorized sellers. Reducing Delivery TAT – Concluding Thought A brand got delivery TAT analysis done versus its competition on Amazon and Flipkart for a specific month. It basically recorded the percentage delivery TAT in relation to the number of days taken to deliver the product. This data would have been instrumental in creating strategies to streamline the supply chain and eventually, optimizing the delivery time. Now, this brand would have utilized TAT analysis to reduce delivery time because it knows that customer satisfaction is highly dependent on quick delivery, within a day or two maybe. It tactically adapted to the changing customer behaviour in the era of growing eCommerce. The brand might have keenly monitored the entire supply chain process, worked on key problematic areas to ensure seamless and timely delivery. With this brand story, the purpose was to communicate the happy customer base is directly proportionate to lower delivery TAT. With our proprietary eCommerce intelligence solution mScanIt, brands can easily scan their delivery TAT. It performs delivery time analysis for the brand versus its competition and gives actionable insights.

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eCom Pathway to 2023

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A Guide to Maximizing Sales, Improving Efficiency and Optimizing Your Customer Journey Time to switch from classic front foot drive to 360-degree play – The world of eCommerce is changing being proactive about trends and evolving customer experience is key to edge ahead of your competitors. The post-pandemic world is riding on a new high to elevate eCommerce business around the world. The massive rate of high-speed internet penetration has led to incredible rise in new shoppers. The tier- 1 and tier-2 cities are riding the wave of online shopping over the bustling market rush. The new narrative of optimizing customer journey will enlighten pathway for eCommerce ecosystem in 2023 and beyond. Here is your complete guide to maximizing sales, improving efficiency, and optimizing customer journey by hopping on to the trends. Speed up on the right path As per the Brain & Co. report, online shoppers in India have crossed well beyond 180 million and all set to surpass the United States to become second-largest shopper base in coming years. The brands need to latch on the opportunity step up their game to cater the new potential customers, understand their need and stay ahead among the stiff competition in eCommerce ecosystem. This profane growth is backed by strong underlying rudiments: A large consumer base with growing affluence Low data prices prompting – growing Internet and smartphone penetration Low shipment costs to back swift order delivery Brands need to align themselves with consumer need and work towards enhancing customer experience for sustained growth in sales. Indian e-retail market is estimated to grow at more than 25% per annum to scale to $150–$170B by 2027 Source: Statista Make it a smooth ride – Optimize your Customer Journey The Evolution of eCommerce retail in India: Phase 1 (Before 2015) – An Era of cautious early adoption. Limited to typically affluent at metro and tier-1 cities with major categories being mobile and fashion. Phase 2 (2015-2020) – An Era of growth & massification. The expansion of eCommerce retail touched the masses engaging new shoppers across tier-2 cities and a wide new range of categories flooded the eCommerce retail landscape. Phase 3 (2020 and beyond) – An Era of eCommerce Customer Journey Optimization An era of innovation – Time to address the needs of distinct micro-segments, innovate with new business models making business decisions based on data, and differentiate on customer experience. The covid induced lockdown has led to multi-fold expansion of eCommerce industry juxtaposed with innovative affordability constructs like low-cost equated monthly instalments (EMIs), Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), and the scale-up of third-party logistics. In last couple of years, three distinct hallmarks of Phase 3.0 have emerged which mark the advent of new era of change where optimization on every step of customer journey is the way towards the future. Emergence of shopper micro-segments The use of technology to deliver a bespoke product Effort to enhance customer experience In this phase of sustained growth, brands need to cater distinct shopper micro-segments across geographies, incomes, and age groups. Specially during the time when 1 in 3 shoppers is Gen Z, 3 out of 5 shoppers belong to tier-2 or smaller cities, and 1 in 3 shoppers belong to low-to-middle income segments. Every innovation in eCommerce ecosystem caters to distinct customer micro-segments. The current phase is led by tech innovation – data driven AI & ML guiding business decisions and enhancing customer experience. E-Retail market projections | Source: Bain Analysis eCommerce Trends for 2023 – What future hold? The new post pandemic world has set the new world order for eCommerce. The rising inflation around the world, Ukraine-Russia crisis is talking a toll on the global scenario. But still things are looking bright for India and neighbouring South-East Asian region as the eCommerce ecosystem is soaring high on massive internet penetration and influx of new generation shoppers. Let’s cherish the last two-plus years of astronomical eCommerce growth and wonder what 2023 could transpire for online retails and brands in future. The eCommerce habits of the shoppers are set now with higher preference to eCommerce marketplace as compared to brick & mortar stores. The change in shopping habits has prompted expert to predict sales to soar above US$ 8 trillion from now existing US$ 5 trillion by 2026. Keep an eye on changing consumer expectations and preferences to latch on this growth trend. Sustainable growth to be key. Share of new ecommerce to continue growth especially in key categories like beauty, fashion, and grocery as they continue to effectively serve a key need for specific consumer cohorts. Trends that will shape the future in 2023 1. Don’t overlook your shoppers’ experience and omnichannel avenues The fluid omnichannel shopping experiences is way to the future. A major chunk of buyers around 75% use multiple channels before making a purchase and during their customer journey 73% of e-commerce consumers report using various channels. This highlights the desperate need to eliminate friction in customer journey. The shopping is no longer limited to eCommerce marketplace or brand website – social commerce is rising as a new avenue for shoppers where they can buy product as when and where they see it. Brands offering omnichannel shopping experiences will continue to thrive in 2023.2. Can you hear me now? Customer sentiments will drive sales for e-commerce in 2023 Listen to what your customers have to say. The customer sentiments do matter. The right measure will not just ensure customer retention but also build brand trust and help cater to customer needs. Brands need to make rating, reviews, and Q&A assessments their top priority. The record amount of time spent online not only increases shopping spend but also engages customers to provide feedback. Unsurprisingly most customers do especially when their product experience is not satisfactory provide feedback. Switch to Rating & Review Tracker with Time Trend Analysis and Brand-Wise Analysis for your own vis-à-vis competition to ensure the voice of your customer is heard and acted upon. Take the help of

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QSR – Delivering Tempting Prospects

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Your order is on the way!” These words set up a flurry of emotion for those who crave a quick bite. The QSR players need to tap into these dwindling emotions to provide a frictionless customer journey with ease of ordering to on-time delivery ensures higher ratings and review and of course, the food needs to be good to deserve that. But before all of this, your product needs to be picked by the customers. The prospects of growing QSR industry in India and globally are immense. The rise in internet penetration and shift in food ordering habits of new generation consumers. The focus is on optimizing customer journey across the platform. Brands are slowly but steadily shifting to generating the ‘pull’ to the digital-led market – The latest trend suggests the customer-led market is not digital-led as media, and content drive customer needs – telling them what they want based on an assessment of consumer behaviour – creating a smooth path to purchase and frictionless customer experience. The Emergence of QSR Even the dominant brands like McDonald which has been in India since the mid-90s took time to find its feet in the segment, but it paved the way for QSR in India. The Quick Service Restaurant format has led the organized food service industry in India to the upswing. The QSR format is a perfect mix of being lucrative and maintaining decent customer connections which contribute almost 12% of the organized segment. The growing popularity of QSR among urban and sub-urban settings will lead to its projected growth at the rapid rate of 17.27 per cent and worth up to Rs. 827.63* billion by 2025. (*Source: Research and Market projections) International brands have dominated the QSR market in India with a +50% share of revenue on the back of Glocalization of Menu Investments driven rising geographical presence Value focus driven higher sales and customer preference Ability & agility to keeping up with trends Consumer needs based focused marketing efforts Backend integration of technology to ensure quality service A healthy demand outlook for QSR and surge in investments, the industry is expected to witness substantial growth. A large segment of the unorganized market is expected to get streamlined into an organized market with QSR. The Scenario – Know your customer Imagine your customer going to a physical store/restaurant – going through the menu – pondering upon what to order – but the item is unavailable or does not suit the budget bracket or is too pricy for two. Then you offer him some alternative if it suits his needs then you got him but still the pinch of missing out on what he wanted remains and ruins the customer experience. Now imagine knowing about your customer need what are they looking for and your performance across platforms on parameters like – Reach of your service Performance across age bracket Pricing range own vis-à-vis competition Delivery time impact on Ranking and ratings Knowing all that just imaging what your brand could do for not just acquiring new customers but will also help you pinpoint the area to improve and work towards the goal of optimizing customer journey. What future holds for QSR? The internet penetration across geographies and demographics has paved the seamless growth path for the QSR industry. Here are some key scenarios that will shape the future. International QSRs have struck a chord with Indian consumers Value proposition offered by international brands has led to their acceptance among young Indian demographics – The variety of entry-level products, affordable meal upgradation options, and discounted prices on combos & meals has led to a growing loyal customer base. The average Indian consumers’ socializing over food The rise in the ability and willingness of the average Indian consumer to spend on aspirations, experiments and socializing over food along with their stickiness in terms of cost-consciousness will continue to drive them towards fast food brands. Value remains the belly of the market Top brands have not shied away from introducing premium offers to meet customer needs with better indulgence, which aids in increasing ticket size as well as margins. QSR companies expanding beyond their core offerings From pizza to pasta (Domino’s), from burgers to beverages, breakfast, fried chicken, rice bowl, etc. (McDonald’s, Burger King) – The swift beyond core offering and combos with competitive pricing strategy will enhance consumer trials and eventually scale up consumption of these offerings. Rapid Convenience channel Quick delivery, takeaway, and drive-thru are other key driver of growth since it is not just the need of the hour for any QSR brand, but also a significant enabler of the future due to an increase in the frequency of ordering and a growing user base across the country What do brands need to do? The format has transitioned to comfort food across price segments, catering to all income levels or segments benefiting from any downtrading along with addressing the aspirational demand in non-metro areas. The QSR players need to address the growing demand with a strategy guided by data and insights. The top players in the QSR space benefit in a big way with growing industry potential as they have the necessary infrastructure, a healthy balance sheet, and an established convenience channel to cater to evolving consumer demand. Let’s consider the case of brands like Domino’s and Mcdonald’s listed on a platform like Swiggy and Zomato along with their own online apps – what do they need to be more feasible and appealing to the customers? Having an established brand name is not enough. Target demographics and enhance customer experience by optimizing the customer journey on multiple touchpoints Improve product discoverability based on section-level insights – for own vis-à-vis competition on platforms like Swiggy, Zomato Uber eats etc. Track own brand/product performance vis-à-vis competition across the platform, location, and delivery time. Final thoughts The food service industry is running a race against time with every day being a new day and a new challenge. The prospects are unlimited, and quicker services and quality service are

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ad-fraud

3 Best Practices to Get Most Out of Shopping Ads

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

As we sit on the verge of the festive season, online shopping is increasing rapidly. Most users search for products they want to buy over search engines or search modules of eCommerce marketplaces to find gifts and decorations or upgrade their wardrobes. According to a source, 40% of shoppers across the globe used search engines to find a product, whereas 38% and 35% relied on Amazon and other marketplaces, respectively. Therefore, online shopping stores and web browsers have become crucial to the customer journey. Brands understand this and need to market their products across spaces to acquire higher brand awareness and eventually increase their online sales. The benefit of this has also been taken by the owners of the web browsers offering shopping ads to brands. Did you know a study claims that 76.4% of the retail ad expense is spent on Google Shopping Ads, and achieves an aggregate 85.3% click-through-rate? So, e-commerce brands are ensuring that their shopping ads reach the maximum number of people. Achieving this would help acquire higher sales, and revenue through online shopping stores. Moreover, it would generate higher brand awareness, visibility, and a competitive edge in the online retail ecosystem. Unfortunately, a single user comes across 4,000-10,000 ads daily, including search ads. The competition between brands is extremely high, given that a single person comes across more than 400 ads in an hour. Therefore, optimizing shopping ads has become important for digital marketers. Simultaneously, brands must comply with the incorporated ad guidelines. Keeping these thoughts in mind, we have curated a set of best practices. 3 Ways to Optimize Shopping Ads Question Your Keywords We understand that you have selected the keywords based on thorough research, but enhancing visibility begins by re-evaluating the data. Before getting started, check the negative keyword list. Recognizing the appearance of your ads on unwanted keywords is necessary to save the ad budget and reach the target audience simultaneously. For example, let’s consider that you sell ‘gold jewelry,’ but your ads appear under ‘silver jewelry.’ The campaign might elapse the set budget much faster and display results to an audience that may not have an interest in it. However, adding ‘silver’ and ‘silver jewelry’ under the negative keywords will help to diminish such repercussions. Simultaneously, as the sale season is just around the corner, it is necessary to identify the keywords that would show more of your ads to the target audience. Using such keywords on the product page will certainly impact your product results in search ads. However, you should refrain from using words like sale, offer, deal, etc., in the ad. Instead, focus on features, benefits, qualities, etc. Once you figure out the new relevant and negative keyword list, you must make the final evaluation before proceeding to ensure that you don’t miss out on anything. Examine the Product Display Pages Offering the brand name, in the beginning, brings trust to the title. Following it up with quality and features helps impulse buyers make decisions easily and makes it relevant for web browsers. The description should be crisp, include keywords mentioned in the title, and be easy to understand. Here is an example of the description of a product of a shoe brand: Image Source: Neeman If you check the product title and match it with the description, you will see that the word ‘comfortable’ is common and seems to be the focus of the product. Moreover, the description clearly states the material used for manufacturing and qualities like stretchable, all day long, anywhere, and anytime. The best method to keep track of the most used keywords by competitors on shopping ads is conducting daily, weekly, and monthly text analysis. Our eCommerce competitive analysis solution, mScanIt, can help in this assessment. Post analysis, the marketers of your brand can make strategic decisions to boost the ads’ visibility, which would also directly impact the brand’s Share-of-Voice. Setting the Correct Price Price is one of the factors that can boost your page visits. But your brand must ensure that the currency and price are not formatted incorrectly. It can cause drastic repercussions like a high level of undeliverable orders, higher SERP on the web browser, and MAP violations. Tracking the price of competitors on different platforms has also become a necessity as it enables brands to curate better pricing strategies for their products. Earlier, we also mentioned that words like ‘price drop or sale’ should not be included in the description. The reason behind it is that it is already shown by Google, the biggest shopping search engine. While focusing on title, description, and price may prove beneficial in boosting the visibility of shopping ads, marketers should not ignore other factors. These include campaign structure, articulate segregation of ad groups, bid adjustments, etc. Conclusion Selling a product using search ads is challenging, but optimizing the title, price, product page, and keywords can certainly prove beneficial in enhancing visibility. The lower SERP result certainly helps a brand to achieve a better click-through rate, page visits, sales, and conversion rates. Simultaneously, brands must identify the search result trends or changes that can boost the sale of their variants with lower sales volume. The whole practice would help the brand to achieve a higher Share-of-Voice. Many researchers say that page optimization in the eCommerce marketplace can influence the web browser’s SERP. Therefore, the need to identify all the facets of the product listing has become crucial for brands. Connect with us to learn more about scaling your business with Share-of-Voice results on web browsers.

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What is the Impact of Fraud in Retargeting Campaigns?

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

Retargeting is a form of behavioral targeting as it targets people who have already visited a website. It allows you to target the users with relevant ads when they visit other websites. The most successful retargeting creative includes a clear call-to-action and a particular offer that entices users to make a purchase. After a visitor leaves your website without making a purchase, retargeting reminds them about your products and services. Apps, search, and website banner ads all function with retargeting. Retargeting is vital for connecting with customers and growing revenue for today’s serious marketers. Retargeting works by employing “cookies,” which are little pieces of data saved by the browser that track who has seen your ad or visited your website. Marketing teams can then utilize the cookie data to retarget the users with the relevant ads. This is to target the users who have expressed an interest in a specific product or service and, in a way, help you increase the conversions and help in brand promotion/awareness. Retargeting helps you increase online sales by keeping your brand in front of customers’ eyes and attracting “window shoppers” when they’re ready to buy. Your brand gets momentum and reputation every time a customer views your retargeting advertising. The importance of solid branding and recurrent exposure is underlined by the high click-through rates and conversions of retargeting campaigns. Major Impact of Retargeting Fraud Advertisers and marketers are plagued with ad fraud. Retargeting is re-engaging the users who have shown a strong desire to take a down-funnel action. The fraudulent activity is unaffected by the user’s level of engagement, whether it’s through simulated clicks or installs. Imagine if the ads are being served to bots instead of actual users and there is no call-to-action; it has implications as it increases the advertising cost and delivers poor results. The fraudsters sabotage good quality traffic by generating invalid traffic, impacting the marketing budgets. Bots/invalid traffic, in a way, affects the Advertiser’s marketing strategy as it skews the analytics and other metrics that help them make better business decisions. Almost 30-40% of the Advertiser marketing budgets are exhausted due to these bots (non-humans) or invalid bot traffic that never get converted. Advertisers must remove these malicious bots from the retargeting system to improve the ROI. The marketers need to safeguard themselves and ensure that their efforts are spent only on retargeting genuine human prospects rather than harmful bots. Overall, it leads to a loss of advertising revenue, reduced ROIs, and increased lead generation/referral payouts. Furthermore, unprotected retargeting campaigns produce phony high-performance results, inflate keyword bids, deflate ad visibility, and reduce the effectiveness of search ads. ● Keyword Bid Inflation Retargeting campaigns target prospects for boosting sales /conversions. The campaign consists of users captured through cookies, dynamic, or list-based methods. Moreover, it comprises keywords for increasing the ROI by reaching people not enlisted in the campaign but interested in the product/service. However, bidding similar keywords on digital ads can inflate the bid price. Fraudsters infiltrate the retargeting campaigns of brands by becoming prospects. They use bots to add products into the cart and eventually abandon them and leave the website. Advertisers add these bots, displaying human-like behavior to the remarketing list. Moreover, fraudsters even use bots to click brands’ ads and boost impressions, clicks, and visits. So, advertisers think that their retargeting campaigns are delivering high performance. On the other hand, fraudsters use these deliverables to acquire financial gain from advertisers. The high performance of the campaigns also inflates the cost of keywords and diminishes the brand’s advertising budget faster than usual. Advertisers fall for the bots because they are sophisticated bots/undetectable. So, the analytics show the desired results, and advertisers boost their advertising budget. Eventually, the cost of retargeting fraud causes a loss of millions to advertisers and diminishes the retargeting efforts. ● Diminished Visibility Our study reveals that marketers and advertisers use 20-45% of the ad spending on retargeting campaigns. They engage in such activity expecting a higher than 25% return from a usual ad. Unfortunately, the penetration of fraudsters using bots into the remarketing lists displays them as prospects. So, the potential ROI from a retargeting campaign is never achieved by advertisers/marketers. Fraudsters habitually follow the money, and retargeting campaigns seem like a honey pot. Therefore, they continuously engage in ad-stacking, pixel stuffing, cooking stuffing, and other ad frauds to obtain financial gain from retargeting ads. Moreover, retargeting fraud increases the cost of impressions/views on ads. Brands build recall value or obtain mind space through retargeting campaigns. Higher visibility can also increase conversions. Unfortunately, retargeting fraud diminishes visibility and distorts the potential results. Eventually, the effectiveness of retargeting ads is hampered. ● Distorted Search Ad Results Another dramatic side effect of fraud on retargeting campaigns is that it distorts paid search ads. A tracking code is installed on a brand’s website to display custom ads to users on a partner site. The display/video ads are based on the products searched by the user on the brand’s website. The remarketing list consists of commonly searched keywords on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., and the brand’s web pages. Marketers and advertisers believe that setting up a remarketing/retargeting campaign eliminates ad fraud, including prospect users. But fraudsters cannibalize the remarketing list by using sophisticated bots to infiltrate it. So, ad fraud is eliminated through such campaigns is a myth, and only an ad fraud elimination solution can detect & eliminate fraud. Advertisers use sources like Google Ads tag, Google Analytics (GA), App Analytics, Ads Data Hub, etc., available on Google for creating data tags to upload on the website. In addition, they commonly generate prospect user lists by using metatags on the first page of the website. Optionally, they can even detect prospects through the added data tags in the Google Site Kit extension of site builders like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace. Takeaway Most marketers and advertisers spend a significant amount of their advertising budget on remarketing initiatives. Customer Data Management systems and remarketing lists

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brand-protection

Why Creative Compliance Must Be a Necessity Not A Choice For Your Brand?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Protection, Creative Compliance - Ticker /

In the hustle to stand out in the crowd of competitors, brands often miss out on things at the ground level. Where there are many options for consumers in the market, 91% of consumers are inclined towards brands that are authentic to their claims. To bring authenticity and growth on one track, many regulatory bodies are working actively to ensure that the brands are growing while consumer rights remain protected. However, amidst this wave of marketing compliance, a majority of companies ignore checking the compliance of their creatives. Only 29% of the brands claim to evaluate their creatives for a compliance check regularly. Meanwhile, the media agencies and in-house teams still manually process their ad creatives. Due to the endless requirements of brand creative assets, it becomes challenging for the in-house creative teams to stay aligned with the industry and brand compliances for creatives. Manual verification of creatives leads to issues like posting irregular, flawed, and irrelevant creatives across platforms. Furthermore, this may impact the overall brand’s positioning among consumers. The Buzz Is According to the latest report released by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the biggest violator of the advertising code is the education sector followed by healthcare, gaming, personal care, and food & beverages. Further, the advertisement regulatory body also shared that the complaint against ads increased by up to 14% between April and September of this year. In this one year, they have processed 3,340 complaints against 2764 advertisements that were found as potential violators of the ASCI code. In addition to this, the regulatory body added that out of the total complaints received 28% of the violations were committed by the influencers. And about 87% of the advertisements having influencers were to be a violation of the influencer guidelines. Impact Of a Non-Compliant Creative 1. Reputational Damage It takes years for a brand to build a reputation in the eyes of consumers. And a simple thing like a misleading ad creative can ruin this within a few seconds. When a brand makes false claims about its product or service, the consumer believes them. And when they don’t get the claimed benefit, they feel cheated and take action against the brand further ruining its reputation. 2. Legal Issues The repercussions of a false claim or misleading and creative are not limited to just reputational damage. When the consumer’s trust is damaged and they feel cheated, the angry consumers can boycott the brand, spread negative reviews, or worst they can sue the brand for the damages. This will further put the brand in the negative spotlight resulting in hefty litigation costs. 3. Losing Customer’s Trust When brands make false claims or post misleading ads, consumers often perceive them to be deceitful. The negative news related to the brand not just impacts the existing consumers but also the new consumers. This impacts the overall reputation of the brand and ruins the prospects of the business. 4. Loses Revenue The brand has to bear a high cost for a misleading ad. Apart from reputational damage and loss of consumer trust, the brand also has to bear the wastage of ad revenue. Due to the misleading creatives, they are not able to attract the right audience and end up wasting the ad revenue with no return. How can brands avoid these situations? The ASCI has made certain regulations that ensure the brand’s ad creatives are marketing compliant. This means that the creatives must comply with the regulatory requirements set up to protect the marketers and their consumers. However, it is very difficult for the brands to do a manual check for every creative. Hence, they need an advanced solution to ensure the ad creatives are compliant with the ASCI and brand guidelines. mFilterIt’s creative compliance intelligence tool is focused to bring standardization to the ad creatives of the brand across platforms. With the help of AI and ML capabilities, the tool will ensure that all the ad creatives comply with the guidelines set up by the brand and ASCI. In addition to this, the tool can also be used to audit the social media and website of the brand to bring a governance system across the owned and advertising brand assets. The Need Of The Hour Creative compliance is not a choice but a necessity for a brand to ensure that they are represented similarly across all platforms. Along with protecting the brand from trademark and copyright issues, the brands must also keep an active check on their brand assets going on different platforms. It’s time for brands to wake up and indulge in a more consumer-safe and transparent way of advertising.

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