Database Marketing

There was a time that personalization was more of an aspiration than a reality. Most retailers didn't have the data, business processes or tools to deliver a personalized shopping experience. Personalization was largely site-based and, in its simplest form, leveraged customer demographics and purchase history to inform the next purchase. In earlier stages, personalization was…

Digital technology is being put to use in brick-and-mortar stores to create a more seamless experience for customers and improve a company’s ability to effectively market to them.

Everyone knows big data. Everyone talks about big data. But you, as the e-commerce hero in this story, know that big data can be intimidating. It probably lives in various formats in multiple places across the organization, and trying to find meaningful pieces of intelligence seems virtually impossible. Rather than trying to solve the big data problem all at once, you know the real weapon at your disposal is rich data, or more precisely, product data.

 NAPCO Media, a leading B-to-B media company, announced today that Nathan Safran has joined the company as director of research. (NAPCO Media is the parent company of Total Retail.) Safran, who will lead the newly created NAPCO Research team, began his career as a Forrester Research analyst and joins NAPCO from Blue Nile Research, where…

Marketers are aspirational people and "DMP" is the latest buzzword threatening single customer view’s long-standing reputation as the Holy Grail of marketing. Essentially, a data management platform (DMP) is a tool that stores data from multiple sources, helping marketers identify previously anonymous customer segments so they can target them via the appropriate channel with appropriate…

In October 2015, Seattle-based retail giant REI announced that it would be closing its doors on Black Friday — the biggest shopping day of the year. The company even promised to compensate its 12,000 employees, creating a campaign called #OptOutside. The campaign encouraged companies and shoppers alike to put down their credit cards and head outdoors…

For a while now, retailers have been betting big on bits and bytes as they invest in retail technology. Overall, retailer IT spend was estimated at $60 billion in 2013. Although e-commerce platform spending gets much of the press, it’s only a small portion, $1.2 billion, of the overall retail tech budget. So where's the…

By using analytics and the vast data resources at your disposal, you can predict what your customers are going to do next.

Check out Total Retail's interview with Sameer Hassan, vice president of e-commerce and marketing technology at Williams-Sonoma, from the National Retail Federation's Big Show in New York City this week. Sameer discusses how big data will affect the retailer's marketing strategy in 2016.

Retailers are gearing up for the new year. With all of the world’s bounty just a few clicks or taps away, the competition will be fierce. Use your wits and data to put your best foot forward. Here are five tips to help you get started: 1. You don’t need much data to start targeting: The…