On Sept. 20, 2021, Apple released its much-anticipated iOS 15 software update. The update included various “privacy protection” features for iPhone users, including "Mail Privacy Protection." This feature prevents companies from seeing whether subscribers opened their emails, and instead reports an open rate of 100 percent for those using the Apple Mail app. As the…
Greg Zakowicz
A pullback on consumer spending, high inflation, and an uncertain holiday season. Toss in paid social’s cost and targeting effectiveness being in a state of perpetual fluctuation and retailers find themselves faced with a myriad of challenges in trying to increase sales and maximize return on investment. To maximize sales and profits, brands need to…
Planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) is already top of mind for many e-commerce brands, and includes the usual channels like email marketing, paid search, paid social, and marketplace ads. But as the cost and effectiveness of channels like paid social continue to fluctuate, brands are continuously searching for ways to maximize return…
The COVID-fueled e-commerce party couldn’t last forever. Businesses knew that it was only a matter of time before consumers reverted to their pre-pandemic shopping habits of mixing online and in-person shopping. That time appears to be upon us. A recently released Mastercard SpendingPulse report showed a year-over-year (YoY) retail sales increase of 7.2 percent in…
Retailers are constantly looking to improve the customer shopping experience. For e-commerce brands, it may mean implementing live chat, improving site speed, using 3D product images, and offering free returns. However, the shopping journey isn’t isolated to technical website details and store policies; it also applies to marketing. With email marketing, brands tend to look…
Consumer expectations and shopping habits are constantly evolving. How brands adapt to the constant evolution, from logistics and staffing to marketing strategy and tactics, ultimately determines whether they stay relevant in consumers’ eyes and their business continues to grow. We’re witnessing another evolution in purchasing behavior, ushering in a new breed of consumers — the…
Email marketers at e-commerce brands use traditional reporting data such as open, click, and conversion rates to measure email campaign performance. But what happens when you suddenly take away one of those long-established data points? Buckle up because we’re about to find out. Apple’s announcement of its upcoming iOS 15 update, which is expected this…
The holidays are here and e-commerce marketers are mapping out how to cope with the increased demand and competition this year will bring. To compound the seasonal rush, e-commerce continues to accelerate, and businesses are trying to plan ahead to jump-start their 2021 e-commerce sales. As they do, retailers are looking toward omnichannel strategies for…
Relevant, personalized and timely transactional emails are virtually impossible to overhype as they can generate five times more revenue than nontransactional messages. Even though these messages are some of the most highly read emails sent by retailers, because they're so common improving them is often an afterthought. However, their value shouldn't be overlooked, as each…
Consumers have high expectations. They expect a personalized, enjoyable shopping experience across all channels at all times. This has put a lot of pressure on retailers. Even though e-commerce continues to flex its muscles, a recent study showed that 97 percent of consumers still find a need to visit stores. But have retailers over-rotated to…
It's no secret that for most retailers, the holiday season is the biggest opportunity for growth of the year. As summarized in part one of this two-part series, the biggest driver of this growth is through email marketing. Part one of this series explains how to visually engage with subscribers, how to use promotions to…
This year's holiday e-commerce sales are expected to grow by as much as 22 percent, reaching a staggering $134 billion. For most retailers, this season presents the biggest growth opportunity of the year. One of the primary avenues of potential growth is email marketing. It was reported that nearly 25 percent of 2017 Cyber Monday…
Some in the retail industry believe that millennials have contributed to the decline of brick-and-mortar stores. These young digital natives are constantly tethered to devices and buy products online at the expense of physical stores, or so goes popular belief. That’s a myth, according to our recent survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers. We…
The holiday season — the busiest, most lucrative time of year for retailers — has passed, but that doesn’t mean the opportunity to drive revenue and garner good will among your customers is over. Even though e-commerce sales continue to grow year-over-year, particularly during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, online retailers are looking for new…
The retail industry is undergoing major changes. This year, many retailers have filed for bankruptcy or shuttered their locations outright, leaving the future of businesses like PayLess Shoes and The Limited uncertain. But while some industry observers will see this difficult period as the end of days, savvy retailers will see it for what it…
