Customer Acquisition

There's a belief embedded in retail marketing culture that organic traffic is essentially free. It shows up in merchant budget presentations, agency pitches, and omnichannel strategy decks. The logic seems airtight: search engine optimization (SEO), social media, product review communities, and content marketing cost nothing to place, ergo they cost nothing to run. But “no…

Artificial intelligence is changing where and how buyers discover retail brands. Shoppers who once searched across product pages, marketplaces, reviews and buying guides are increasingly turning to AI-powered search engines and shopping assistants to compare options and narrow decisions. For retailers, that creates a new visibility challenge: the moment of intent is moving into environments…

Retailers entered 2026 bracing for a slowdown, with a clear expectation that younger consumers, particularly Gen Z, would pull back on discretionary spending. So far, however, the reality has been quite different. Rather than tightening their belts, younger consumers are showing a greater willingness to spend than their older counterparts, according to new research surveying…

Retail media networks (RMNs) have emerged as a powerful channel to reach audiences, particularly for brands lacking direct touchpoints with prospective customers. Their proximity to checkout, closed-loop measurement, and shopper data make RMNs highly effective at converting demand and delivering bottom-funnel impact. However, RMN campaigns are often planned, executed and measured in isolation, creating a…

Every day, thousands of people are searching and reading about your company. About your team's expertise. Learning from guides and marketing collateral. These actions have been building trust in your brand. All without ever clicking through to your website. A manager in need of help with chatbot implementation might take their questions to an artificial…

Artificial intelligence in retail, especially agentic AI, first seemed to promise a leap forward in customer experience. In 2026, though, AI is likely to have the most influence on customer behavior. We’re already seeing behavior shift in ways that are pushing retailers to rethink their discovery, partnership, and channel strategies. In this article, we’ll look…

Something strange is happening in e-commerce. Consumer spending is up. Online time is up. Yet traffic to major retail websites is declining. The answer is actually quite simple: shoppers are changing how they research and where they buy. Their starting point, which used to be about discovery, is now where they're making decisions. Many may…

If it feels like customers are harder to win over right now, it’s because they are. Across categories and price points, we are all scrutinizing purchases more carefully, weighing alternatives more thoroughly, and demanding clearer value before we buy. Several forces are converging to create this moment of heightened selectivity. Consumers are more informed than…

Retailers have long allowed customers to trade old devices for credit toward new purchases; it’s a well-established industry practice. And yet, most retailers still don’t treat it as a core sales driver. With consumer interest in trade-ins growing, now is the time for retailers to examine how they structure and market their programs. Currently, there’s…

For years, retailers have understood something simple but powerful: consumers rarely begin their purchase journey on retailer websites. They start with research. Increasingly, that research happens on Reddit. According to the platform, 71 percent of people who discover a brand go on to research it there, while 74 percent say Reddit helps them make faster…