The Future of Retail Marketing

The future of retail marketing has shifted dramatically over the last year, as the waning significance of third-party cookies has brought on new efforts to retrieve valuable data within the digital advertising world. But what is this new, ‘better data’, and how are retailers using it to their advantage? Trends have shifted toward first-party data being the future of retail experience, and not without good reason.

The Death of Third-Party Cookies

Up until the last year, third-party cookie tracking was still the norm for brands and companies in retrieving useful marketing data on which to capitalize. It was a viable marketing endeavor that tracked consumers using cookies, small blocks of data made by web servers that identify a computer currently in use. The end goal was to serve users with specific “personalized” information, such as targetable ads or saved passwords. For retailers, this came easily, and without the need to focus on building brand loyalty.

What many tech and ad industries eventually learned was the unreliability of these third-party cookies. Retargeted ads were often considerably off-base, and irrelevant products soon flooded consumer experiences. Receiving irrelevant ads as a customer became increasingly off-putting, especially if the brand, product, or service was never interacted with in the first place.

Data Driven Marketing Strategy

E-commerce as a whole is dependent on data as a means to strategize marketing endeavors, and to target customers through useful information in relation to them. However, data at the cost of consumer privacy is not valuable data. If a data driven marketing strategy is to work on both sides of the coin, then there needs to be a greater focus on customer relations. Brands must do the work to get to know their customers, which has been avoidable for too long at the expense of consumer privacy. The driving force of this shift is the use of first-party data.

The Benefits of First-Party Data for Retail

First-party data continues to trend towards becoming the future of retail, and this is driven mainly by the fact it’s simply better data. Most information found in first-party data is directly agreed upon between brand and consumer. What surprised many ad industries and retailers alike was the amount of data they already had at their exposure, only now needing to find ways to utilize it to their advantage.

Simply put, first-party data is achieved through demonstrated interest in a brand or retailer’s services or products. Through instances like on-site traffic, smart receipts and loyalty programs, brands are able to gather important information about their customers without the invasion of their privacy. By accessing this information correctly, this data driven retail strategy of the future brings an increasing number of identity-driven retailers to invest in customer data assets that they own and control.

flexEngage, Your Post-Purchase Marketing Arm

At flexEngage, our goal is to assist in first-party data collection as a means to close the attribution loop. We turn purchase data into meaningful engagement, by providing services that will multiply the number of repeat purchases and extend customer lifetime value. Through products such as smart receipts, tracking updates, and ecomm notifications, we seek to ease the process of engagement, so retailers and brands of all kinds can comfortably engage with their customers. Contact us today to demo any solutions or to answer any questions you may have for your brand or company.