What Last Year’s Retail Trends Mean for 2012

2. Search and email still win. While newer technologies such as mobile and social media may get all the headlines, standbys email and search marketing still produce best. The channels continue to dominate retailers' marketing spend (54 percent of their total marketing budget, on average), and for good reason. According to Forrester's State of Retailing Online 2011 report, more than 50 percent of transactions for hard goods retailers that were marketing driven had search or email as the first or last touchpoint. For soft goods retailers that number was greater than 60 percent.