Commentary

4 digital trends to keep in mind to get 2019 on good footing

Jonathan Cherki, CEO of ContentSquare, explains why retailers and brands must continuously monitor customers' digital happiness. Brands that can leverage behavioral data to shine light on the nuances of their customers'journeys will be able to optimize the experience on the fly.

Photo by iStock.com

February 25, 2019

By Jonathan Cherki, CEO of ContentSquare

Two months into the new year, retailers everywhere are staring at a long list of resolutions and mapping out strategies to implement measures that will help them hit their revenue and targets for 2019.

At the top of the list: improving customer engagement and increasing conversions on their digital platforms.

There is still a telling gap between desktop and mobile conversions, highlighting the fact that consumers are not getting the value they expect from smartphone experiences. And yet mobile traffic continues to grow. In the banking sector, for example, Contentsquare data shows mobile traffic increased by a significant 33 percent between January and December 2018.

So how exactly are brands going to go about optimizing the experience for their omnichannel audience in 2019? While it can be tempting to think of this audience as an invisible mass of shoppers whose goals and experience are shrouded in mystery, digital consumers are in fact communicating their goals and frustrations with every touch, tap, swipe or click.

Digital leaders and experience giants understand this, and are continuously monitoring their customers' digital happiness. Brands that can leverage behavioral data to shine light on the nuances of their customers' journeys will be able to optimize the experience on the fly, and make the most of the digital opportunity.

1. Customer-centricity will make way for customer-obsession

In 2019, consumers will continue to interact with brands via multiple touchpoints, with various end goals, and digital behavior will continue to evolve at the pace of digital innovation.

As disruptors and retail giants like Amazon keep the standards of convenience soaring, brands are dashing to deliver seamless, gratifying experiences that guarantee visitor engagement on every channel. Customized experiences and intent-based personalization have become values of convenience, and the winning brands today have successfully shrunk the gap between what their audience expects and the experience they provide.

It is often stated that UX is the new brand, but what we are seeing in 2019 is that customer-obsession is the new brand. Pure play retailers have understood this better than anyone else, and have mastered the art of making consumers feel simultaneously understood and served. This success is largely based on these brands' determination to collect all data, and remove guesswork from experience development.

This strategy is also serving retention. A Contentsquare survey found that pure play brands had twice as many logged in visitors as click-and-mortars — a segment that also drives healthier engagement and a higher conversion rate across all devices.

2. Brands must ensure the digital happiness of a less forgiving consumer

Brands today are defined by their ability to add value to customers' lives, and help them achieve their digital goals without any hassle. Contentsquare data shows that consumers are unwilling to give brands a second chance if the digital experience leaves a bitter taste the first time round. A good first experience, however, will set a retention rate on the right track.

In the grocery sector, for example, our data shows that for returning desktop visitors, the conversion rate continues to climb until visit #15. The biggest leap occurs between sessions 1 and 2, with an 89 percent increase to the average conversion rate.

Brands have many tools at their disposal to streamline the customer experience online, including a host of emerging technologies to make shopping hassle-free.

3. Experience will be increasingly impacted by new technologies

Voice technology, for example, has made its way into homes and devices everywhere, and consumers have also increased their reliance on other AI-powered convenience, including chatbots and other digital assistants.

The most innovative brands are already using technology to curate the customer experience physically and digitally — displaying product information and inventory on tablets in their brick-and-mortar stores, and using their knowledge of customers to personalize and streamline the experience in-store (cashier-less, app checkout) and online.

So how exactly are brands going to achieve this level of customer-centrism? Easy.

4. More brands will embrace a data-driven culture

As smart analytics continue to drive an increasingly sophisticated approach to experience building more brands will focus on enhancing their data capability in 2019.

Not only will they insist on highly actionable, granular-level insights, they will also want this data in the hands of the entire digital team. Far from a buzzword, data democratization is a must-have for every company that wants to future-proof its digital strategy and keep up with the trailblazers who have already made data part of their DNA.

And it's not just personal data that brands are leveraging. Behavioral analytics today can provide brands with an in-depth understanding of how customers navigate their platforms, enabling targeted optimizations at the segment level. Additionally, aggregated user behavior data is the perfect solution to enhancing customer knowledge without compromising privacy.

In conclusion, brands that can leverage analytics to break down knowledge silos, achieve a deeper understanding of consumers and take customer-obsession to the next level will be best-placed to keep their growth-focused resolutions in 2019.