This is where the principles of responsible marketing come into play. Customers need to trust your brand will treat their data with respect, and crucially, won’t sell it on to third parties. Big players in the digital world such as Apple and Google have taken steps to enhance user privacy and security. Apple’s iOS 17 introduced a new privacy feature called link-tracking protection, which has altered the way marketers use customer data. Google has also announced its plans to phase out third-party cookies by 2024.

With data privacy such a hot topic for consumers, how can you adjust your email marketing to meet this need? Enter preference centers.

What is a preference center?

A preference center is an online portal where your customers can manage their communication preferences. This may include updating their email address, opting in or out of various communication channels (e.g., email, SMS, push notifications), and letting you know how often they’d like to be contacted. 

You may have heard us talking about human-to-human marketing, this is because we need to remember there’s a person on the other side of our communications, and the easiest way to find out what they want, and therefore will respond to, is to ask them. It’s that simple.

Benefits of preference centers

Preference centers are essential tools for providing personalized experiences to your customers, which significantly contribute to the growth of your marketing. Let’s explore some key advantages of implementing preference centers in your marketing strategy.

Enhanced customer engagement and retention

By allowing customers to choose their preferred communication methods and tailor the content they receive, you can improve customer satisfaction levels and boost engagement. Customers feel more in control and valued as their unique needs are being catered to, which increases the likelihood of retention and brand loyalty.

Better quality customer data

Using preference centers, you can collect accurate zero-party data about preferences which will enhance your understanding of the customer. The ability to segment customers based on their preferences can lead to more success in targeting demographics with customized marketing efforts.

Improved deliverability and open rates

Customers who opt-in to receive content from you through their preferred channels are more likely to open and engage with those messages. Consequently, you can expect improved email open rates and better deliverability with fewer spam-related issues.

Reduced unsubscribe rates

Many customers unsubscribe from email lists for several reasons, including receiving too many emails or irrelevant content. A preference center allows customers to change their subscription without completely opting out, reducing overall unsubscribe rates.

Greater compliance with data protection regulations

Preference centers help you to comply with data protection regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) more easily. They provide greater control to customers over their data and clarify consent, ensuring that your marketing strategy adheres to legal requirements.

What makes a good preference center?

Like a one-to-one with thousands of subscribers, a good preference center shows that you’re a brand that cares about your customers’ experience. You want to get to know them so that you can take that data and work to ensure their experience is a positive one.

Most unsubscribes are due to email frequency or irrelevant content. By allowing your subscribers to determine this themselves you can be sure to drastically reduce your unsubscribes. When implementing a preference center, be sure to show it to consumers at the point of sign up, and have it visible in your emails. Allowing subscribers to reduce and tailor the emails they receive from you will cut down on those blanket unsubscribes.

By discovering what your customers want, you can easily tailor your marketing efforts to meet their needs. The more you meet their needs, the more likely they are to convert. And the more they convert, the healthier your bottom line is.

What should a preference center allow subscribers to do?

• Share the frequency they are most comfortable with e.g. daily, weekly, or monthly
• Inform brands about areas of interest such as departments, e.g. dresses and knitwear
• Identify the channel they prefer to hear from brands on, e.g. email, SMS, or WhatsApp

A smart preference center is a massive data-gathering tool. So, while you’re letting customers tailor their experience, don’t forget to collect the data you need to create personalized email perfection.

How to utilize your customer’s preferences

Once you have this valuable insight into your customers’ preferences, utilize what you know to segment your content. There’s no point asking people what they’re interested in, only to ignore it. Utilize segmentation to make this easier. Segments allow you to create segments of people in your database based on criteria you choose, in this case, their preferences.

You can then easily create content that responds to these preferences and split your content sends accordingly. You can also use dynamic content to show customers who have expressed an interest in dresses and show others who have expressed an interest in knitwear different blocks in your email.

4 preference center best practices with examples

Preference centers offer a variety of opportunities for data collection, whether it’s during newsletter sign-up, in welcome emails, or as part of account set-up. These email preference examples and best practices will inspire creative ways to incorporate preference centers into your marketing strategy.

1. Offer incentives during sign-up

Sports nutrition brand, Science in Sport, starts its preference collection simply. Using a sign-up incentive, it makes it clear that shoppers will benefit right from the beginning of this relationship. The brand also uses the opportunity to gather its first preference from customers. By asking “What is your preferred sport?”, the brand can use this information to send products specifically associated with running, cycling, or triathlons.

You don’t always need to collect every piece of information immediately. By gradually collecting customer information in the same way as Science in Sport, you don’t risk overwhelming your audience and potentially ruining their experience.

2. Empower subscribers to control their content

Spotify, on the other hand, allows customers to control the content they receive on an account level.

Once an account has successfully been created, customers can choose what they hear about. For each topic, listeners can also choose whether these communications come in the form of an email or a push notification. By diversifying its marketing channels, Spotify is increasing its chances of successfully engaging customers.

3. Enhance personalization in your email preference center

To ensure customers don’t miss their chance to build customer experience, MATCHESFASHION uses its welcome program to push preferences to be submitted.

This preference center not only outlines what each newsletter covers but also states the day that it’ll land in customers’ inboxes. This helps build anticipation for the latest announcements and product launches. It also allows shoppers to follow their favorite fashion designers. This information can then be used to deliver personalized edits every Monday and Friday as part of the ‘WOMENSWEAR JUST IN’ subscription.

MATCHESFASHION also goes on to confirm whether customers would be interested in receiving marketing via phone and post, as well as membership to its loyalty program.

The overall result: endless opportunities for shoppers to personalize their experience.

4. Retain customers with triggered popovers

Don’t miss a single chance to let customers tell you what they want. J. Crew doesn’t.

When customers click ‘unsubscribe’ in email, J. Crew gives shoppers a final opportunity to tailor its communications. This offers a chance to save the relationship. Customers can either choose to adjust the frequency of their emails or specify the products they would rather hear about.

It’s what you do with the data that counts

The secret to successful marketing is all about the quality of the data you have. The better the data you have, the better the experience you can build with your customers. By creating intelligent, personalized journeys for customers and putting the customer first, you’re creating an engaged fanbase, dedicated to your brand.

In this blog, we’ll explore the top five platform changes that have made the most significant impact on marketers like yourself across the globe. We’ll also discuss how they provide you with the tools to elevate and enhance your marketing in 2024 and beyond.

1. Revolutionizing marketing with WinstonAI

WinstonAI, Dotdigital’s cutting-edge marketing intelligence engine, has been a game-changer for marketers in 2023. We launched it in May and have been adding new functionality throughout the year. WinstonAI provides you with usable AI-driven insights, letting you make data-driven decisions and optimize your campaigns in seconds.

By integrating generative AI into Dotdigital, we’ve made it accessible in your day-to-day work by providing you with personalized inspiration when creating email and SMS campaigns, that will save you a whole heap of time and keep you focused.

It offers tips on improving email tone, identifying areas that need more detail, and highlights opportunities to make your campaigns even more engaging. WinstonAI can even help you create better subject lines and increase open rates, by providing three alternative suggestions based on data from your most recent 25 email sends to figure out what’s most appealing to your audience.

WinstonAI also includes grammar and spell check, streamlining the campaign creation process. This feature, built into the campaign builder, scans content across email, SMS, surveys, and pages and forms, identifying errors and offering suggestions. By reducing time spent proofing campaigns, you can focus on being more creative and strategic.

Another innovative feature of WinstonAI is the one-click email to SMS conversion which helps you adhere to the 160-character limit for SMS. It analyzes text and provides a shortened version of your email campaign. This allows you to easily convert content to SMS, aligning the copy and keeping the core message front and center. This cross-channel approach is essential for driving engagement and delivering seamless experiences.

The latest release in November included the ability to ask WinstonAI to rewrite messages based on tone, shortening or expanding text, rephrasing, and including emojis. This helps you tailor your message and tone to your audience, ultimately improving campaign performance.

WinstonAI is seamlessly integrated into the Dotdigital platform making it an indispensable tool for busy marketers as we move swiftly into 2024.

2. Streamlining data management with unified contact data

In today’s data-filled world, marketers are always on the lookout for ways to bring everything together to better understand their customers and deliver the most personalized experience possible. That’s why we rolled out unified contact data in September this year, which helps you combine all your customer data into one spot so you can create more joined up and relevant experiences for your customers.

Unified contact data makes life easier by bringing all data together into a single record, offering a comprehensive 360-degree view of each customer. With all your contact data in one place, you’ll save time and effort, waving goodbye to manual data syncs or juggling multiple variations of customer data.

With a complete view of customer data, you can create seamless cross-channel experiences, engaging customers on their preferred channels and ensuring a consistent brand presence throughout their journey.

Let’s dive into some key use cases of unified contact data:

• Engage with your customers on their preferred channel: unified contact data helps you pinpoint your customers’ preferred channel (whether this is email, SMS, or another channel), so you can reach out to them in the most effective way possible.
• Ensure your customers get a tailored experience: with unified contact data, you can ensure automations you create in the program builder cater to your customer’s preferences, which could be email, SMS, or a combination of both.
• Create segments that include both email and SMS engagement data: unified contact data allows you to create segments that take into account both email and SMS engagement data, giving you a more accurate picture of your customers’ behavior.

As your business grows and evolves, your customer data sources will grow with it. Unified contact data ensures that Dotdigital remains a future-proof platform, capable of adapting to the changing needs of you and your organization. By providing a single source of truth for contact data, we’ve enabled you to build deeper connections with your audience and deliver campaigns that resonate on a personal level.

3. Expanding communication channels with SMS and MMS

With its high engagement rates, SMS is an indispensable part of a successful cross-channel marketing strategy.

On top of our already extensive SMS offering, this year, we’ve added even more functionality that will help you get even more out of engaging with your customers on SMS. We’ve added advanced revenue attribution for SMS, which will give you valuable insights into campaign performance by tracking both direct and assisted campaign revenue. This comprehensive understanding of each customer’s journey and individual campaign impact is crucial for optimizing campaigns and planning future marketing efforts.

We’ve also added the ability to capture SMS opt in during the checkout process to allow you to capitalize on mobile shopping habits. By offering your customers the option to provide their mobile numbers during checkout, you can acquire more opted-in contacts to send them tailored mobile offers, discounts, and keep customers informed throughout the entire purchase process. This leads to higher customer satisfaction and stronger brand loyalty.

In addition, we’ve introduced advanced personalization which allows you to create highly targeted and personalized SMS content using liquid, a flexible and dynamic markup language. This results in better engagement, improved conversion rates, and a more seamless customer experience.

For North American audiences, we’ve introduced MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). MMS enables you to send visual messages, such as images and gifs, to your customers and is proven to enhance mobile engagement and conversions by 41%.

The importance of SMS and MMS in marketing can‘t be overstated. As mobile devices continue to dominate the way consumers shop, marketers must embrace these channels to stay connected with their customers and deliver personalized and engaging messages.

Dotdigital’s latest functionalities and improvements in SMS and MMS offer you the tools you need to elevate your marketing strategies and drive success well into the future.

4. Enhancing customer experiences through UI, UX, and API improvements

Throughout 2023, we introduced significant visual enhancements to the Dotdigital platform aimed at saving you time and making your life easier. These improvements were driven by your feedback and designed to streamline the platform, making it more efficient and user-friendly.

Our updated navigation offers you a more seamless experience, with all channels now consolidated under one campaign section and a new audience area for managing contacts, segments, personas, and more. The analytics section has been revamped for easier access to reporting, while the new connect area caters to all your data requirements.

Additionally, campaign management tools have been improved to simplify day-to-day tasks, such as campaign replies, sign-off processes, and campaign tags management. These changes enable you to save time and focus on creating engaging campaigns.

One of our customers’ favorite features we’ve introduced is the campaign heat maps, which provides a visual representation of email engagement. By using a traffic light system to indicate click rates, you can optimize your email content placement to maximize engagement. This valuable insight helps you to refine your emails and drive better future results.

The acquisition of Fresh Relevance in September further enhanced the platform’s capabilities, and to support our joint customers, we developed the ability to switch between accounts seamlessly. This integration streamlines the user experience and promotes efficient workflows.

These enhancements to our platform are important for you to adapt to the ever-changing marketing landscape. By providing a more efficient, user-friendly platform, we’re empowering you to create more effective campaigns and drive better results, both now and in the future.

5. Strengthening integrations and partnerships

Having data together in one place is one of the most important priorities for marketers. When all your data is in one spot, it can be easily combined to create powerful and actionable insights that you wouldn’t have had if your data were siloed. That’s why, this year we’ve continued to add more integrations into our platform to let you connect as easily as possible, so you can have far more ‘aha’ moments.

In September, we introduced our new Connect area so you can easily manage your data and integrations in one convenient location, ensuring you’re set up for success. The Connect area houses all of your data including insight and commerce data and lets you connect digital marketing channels, and a vast array of integrations, including both self-serve and verified partner-built ones.

Over the past year, we’ve added more than 30 in-house integrations including eStar, Marketplacer, Commercetools, Gorgias, and Netsuite Oracle, bringing the total number of integrations to over 150.

This year, we also introduced the ability to create more engaging and personalized campaigns through the use of branded dynamic app blocks. These new blocks are available as drag and drop in EasyEditor and allow you to easily incorporate third-party content into your emails and landing pages without any coding required.

This not only helps you get more out of their existing martech stack but also reduces unsubscribe rates from your customers, as they’ll receive more relevant and personalized content.

These top 5 release elements from 2023 are just the tip of the iceberg of what was released to Dotdigital customers in February, May, September, and November. These advancements empower you to elevate your marketing strategies and achieve better results in 2024 and beyond.

To make the most of these innovations and enhance your marketing efforts, log in to your Dotdigital account and explore the new features today. Alternatively, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager to see how you can enhance your marketing in 2024 and beyond.

If you’re not a Dotdigital customer yet, you can discover how Dotdigital’s cutting-edge marketing technology can transform your business. Request a demo and experience the power of Dotdigital’s platform for yourself.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, has emphasized that this update shows that Apple is committed to keeping users in the driver’s seat when it comes to their data. This is great news for user privacy. However, you may have some questions regarding how your data usage may change.

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at how iOS 17’s link tracking protection works, assess its impact on marketing strategies, and give tips on how you can adapt to these privacy-focused changes.

Apple’s iOS 17 link tracking protection update

Link tracking protection limits the use of cookies and tracking of user behavior across Apple’s Mail app, Messages, and Safari’s Private Browsing mode.

Link tracking protection removes user-identifiable tracking parameters that are used in URLs. These parameters, also known as tracking parameters or UTM parameters, are special codes added to the end of URLs. 

They are generally used to track various aspects of a user’s interaction with a digital marketing campaign, such as the source of traffic, the medium through which users arrive, and specific campaign details.

By removing these parameters, link tracking protection makes it harder for companies to track your online behavior. Therefore, it significantly enhances your privacy. 

As an example, a campaign tracking URL on Dotdigital might look like this: 

How does link tracking protection affect marketers

You’ve likely been utilizing data to create successful campaigns for some time. However, with the introduction of Apple’s link tracking protection, these techniques now face notable limitations. To gain a better understanding of how to adjust your marketing strategies, let’s explore the impact of iOS 17’s link tracking protection on marketers and how to adjust to these changes.

Third-party cookies and retargeting

Third-party cookies are commonly used to monitor user activity across different websites, capture preferences, behaviors, and interests. However, with the introduction of iOS 17’s link tracking protection, these cookies are prevented from functioning properly, making it harder for you to create targeted ads based on user activity.

Also, retargeting campaigns, which depend on third-party cookies to show ads to users who have previously interacted with your website, are also affected by iOS 17’s link tracking protection. This reduction in trackable user data can reduce your ability to deliver retargeting ads, ultimately impacting the conversion rates.

To overcome this challenge, you should focus on collecting and utilizing zero and first-party data. You can use tools such as preference centers, surveys, and on-site behavior tracking to gather valuable user data. This data can then be used to create better-targeted campaigns that are more likely to resonate with users.

Opt-in tracking requirements

Apple’s recent update highlights the significance of obtaining user consent for tracking. It has made it mandatory for apps to seek the user’s permission before tracking them. This change implies that you cannot presume user participation in tracking. Consequently, this limits your data collection opportunities which can make it more difficult to track users and measure your campaign performance.

To adapt to this new requirement, you need to prioritize opt-in tracking. Make sure that your users understand the value of tracking and the benefits it provides to enhance their customer experience. By doing so, you can increase the likelihood of users opting in and consenting to tracking.

Difficulty in conversion attribution

Conversion attribution can be a big challenge in marketing. It’s important to accurately identify which marketing campaigns and channels are driving results. But with iOS 17 limiting tracking abilities, you may find it more difficult to measure marketing metrics like ROI. 

To overcome this challenge, you should prioritize developing a marketing attribution model that considers various data sources and takes into account alternative metrics such as engagement and customer loyalty to gauge campaign success.

An attribution model is a framework that helps you understand how different touchpoints in a customer journey contribute to a sale or conversion. By analyzing data from multiple sources such as social media, email marketing, and website analytics, you can create a more accurate picture of how customers interact with your brand and what drives them to make a purchase.

In addition to traditional metrics such as clicks and conversions, you should also consider alternative metrics such as engagement and customer loyalty. Engagement metrics such as time spent on the site, shares, and comments can provide insights into how customers are interacting with your brand and what content resonates with them.

Similarly, customer loyalty metrics such as repeat purchases, referrals, and customer lifetime value can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of a marketing campaign on your brand’s bottom line.

Preparing for a privacy-centric future

Apple’s iOS 17 link tracking protection sets a precedent for a future where data privacy takes center stage. This change serves as a reminder that data-driven strategies must adjust to accommodate growing concerns about privacy and data protection.

As technology continues to revolutionize the marketing industry, you must stay ahead of the curve and adapt to the changing landscape. By shifting your focus to first-party data collection and adopting privacy-focused and responsible marketing practices, you can effectively navigate the challenges of iOS 17 and beyond.

Here are some examples of how you can get started with our plugin.

Classic sign-up widget

With our new “Dotdigital Signup Form” block, you can use the block editor to position a simple sign-up form wherever your theme permits – in a widget area alongside your content, or on any page or post. Use custom CSS to seamlessly align with your site design.

By default, we’ll reload the same page on submit – but you can have it redirect to a different page, or even a completely different website, if you prefer. With our very latest version, you can now opt to submit the form via AJAX, so users see a success message directly below the form, right after clicking ‘Subscribe’. 

Capture more detail

Your use case may require capturing more information. Our lists and data fields come into play here, providing added flexibility to construct many different types of form. 

Embed a survey

As an alternative to using the plugin configuration, you can now embed any of your Dotdigital surveys, landing pages and forms into your WordPress layouts using the block editor. With this approach, all the form fields are arranged and designed in Dotdigital – you simply select the form you want from a select element, inside a block.

Of course, with form options in Dotdigital, you can route sign-ups into specific lists in your account, or enroll contacts into a program.

Capture mobile numbers in a popover form

Dotdigital surveys, landing pages and forms can be set as popovers, with an option panel to tune the presentation of the modal on your website. Again, use the WordPress block editor to create timely promotions in seconds.

This is just a small selection of examples of what you can achieve with our Dotdigital for WordPress plugin. All of us in the engineering team here at Dotdigital are excited to see many more uses on your websites in the months to come.

Learn more about how to install and use Dotdigital for WordPress in our support documentation.

In other exciting news, we are thrilled to announce the acquisition of our long-term partner, Fresh Relevance. With this move, we are able to provide you with the best CXDP experience, empowering you to consistently deliver customer experiences that go beyond expectations. Read more about it here.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started.

Save time and do more with WinstonAI

WinstonAI, Dotdigital’s marketing intelligence engine, has continued to grow and evolve. From send time optimization and product recommendations, to generative AI assistance, WinstonAI is on hand to make your work life easier. And with this release we’re adding even more features to our generative AI capabilities, helping you streamline your campaign creation process.

Grammar and spell check

What is it?

Built into the campaign builder, WinstonAI will scan your campaign content and provide a spelling and grammar check across email, SMS, surveys, and pages and forms. This will let you know of any errors found and offer suggestions, leaving you in control to adopt as you see fit.

WinstonAI is powered by GPT and our partnership with Microsoft ensures that all data is always secure.

Why is it important?

WinstonAI grammar and spell check allows you to save time, so you can focus on the more creative and important elements of your campaign.

• Reduce time spent proofing campaigns
• Streamline sign-off processes
• Communicate with confidence
• Reduce typos and grammar errors
• Keep standards high and maintain brand reputation
• Spend more time focusing on creative and strategic elements of your campaign

How to get started

Our grammar and spell checker, powered by WinstonAI is now available within the campaign builder. To note, if you don’t want to utilize WinstonAI, there is a toggle option to disable WinstonAI suggestions, so you always have complete control.

SMS in one-click

What is it?

This new WinstonAI feature enables you to easily convert email campaigns into SMS messages with just one click. WinstonAI will do all of the hard work for you and suggest an SMS campaign with copy that is aligned with the message of your email campaign.

Why is it important?

A cross-channel approach is key, and SMS adds a lot of value to your marketing mix. With incredible engagement rates, 60% of SMS are read within 1-5 minutes, and the ability to cut through the noise of a busy inbox, SMS campaigns should be a part of your marketing strategy.

This new feature means you can focus on the message first, and the channel second. Creating SMS has never been this easy, allowing you to increase your reach in no time at all

• Save time and drive far more engagement with just one click
• Deliver cross-channel experiences in seconds
• Focus on creating your message first, and channel second

How to get started

When you’ve finished writing your email in our campaign builder, simply click on the WinstonAI icon and select “convert to SMS”. You’ll then find the suggested SMS campaign in the SMS editor and all that’s left to do is hit send. If you’re not sending SMS yet, start by setting up a free trial in your account.

Shorten SMS

What is it?

Ever written the perfect SMS campaign only to realise that you’ve gone over the character limit? WinstonAI can now analyze your text and provide a shortened version that is suitable for mobile messaging while retaining the essentials of your original content.

Why is it important?

Adhering to the 160-character count limit for SMS texts is crucial to avoid sending multiple consecutive messages and impacting your billing. The WinstonAI shorten SMS feature simplifies the task of condensing lengthy messages, without losing their core meaning. You will also receive the character count of the shortened message.

How to get started

You’ll find the WinstonAI Shorten SMS tool in the SMS campaign editor. Simply click on the WinstonAI icon and select “shorten message” to receive your alternative text.

Elevate your strategy with enhanced SMS

SMS is a great tool to have in your cross-channel strategy. It lands in the palm of your customers’ hand and gets the message across in rapid time. This release we’re launching a host of improvements to your SMS experience. This includes making SMS campaign creation easier, offering improved SMS number capture, and delivering detailed new reporting.

Advanced revenue attribution for SMS

What is it?

Get more insight into campaign performance with our new advanced revenue attribution for SMS. By tracking both direct and assisted campaign revenue, you can now easily identify how different touchpoints are performing throughout the customer journey. This is already available for email and now we’ve added the capability to SMS to ensure you can effectively report on campaign performance across both channels.

Why is it important?

Customer journeys are anything but linear and each touchpoint deserves recognition. ROI is a crucial metric for any business so reliable, detailed reporting is key. A comprehensive understanding of the marketing journey and every individual campaign’s impact is invaluable for managing budgets, future campaign planning, and campaign optimization.

How to get started

Find out more about our revenue attribution models in the help center. To benefit from assisted revenue attribution you must be on a CXDP or Amplify package.

Commerce SMS capture

What is it?

Consumers are shopping on mobile devices more than ever before, so we’re making it easier for our ecommerce partners to maximize every conversion opportunity. Merchants using Magento, Shopware, Shopify, or WooCommerce can now capture SMS numbers as part of the check-out process. Shopify merchants are also able to offer an SMS-only checkout to their customers.

Why is it important?

Embrace the mobile shopping trend by integrating SMS capture at checkout and letting consumers decide how they want to be contacted, keeping your brand connected to the pulse of the customer.

• Acquire more marketing contacts that are opted-in to receiving SMS.
• SMS checkout allows customers to complete their purchases faster.
• Send tailored mobile offers and discounts via SMS.
• Send order updates directly via text messages keeping shoppers informed throughout the whole purchase process, leading to higher satisfaction.

How to get started

You must be a merchant using either Shopify, Magento, Shopware, or WooCommerce and SMS. Head to the help center and search for your ecommerce platform to find out more.

Think bigger with extensive integrations

Our integrations allow you to bring your whole customer journey together and share data every step of the way to better inform your marketing strategy. We know how important fast, accurate data flows are, so we made our API even better.

New integrations area in Dotdigital

What is it?

In our new integrations area you will find a comprehensive directory of all of Dotdigital’s tech integrations, including Dotdigital-built, verified partner and app extensions such as Facebook and Google ads. The integrations area is categorized and has search and filtering functionality, plus each integration will have a profile with a description along with instructions on how to install.

Why is it important?

A core part of our offering as a CXDP is our ability to connect with your entire marketing stack. You can now easily find the integrations you need to create a seamless customer experience that delivers conversions and improves ROI.

• One centralized database for improved visibility and connectivity.
• Have the confidence that the integration you’re reviewing is either Dotdigital built or verified, making choosing new tech easier.
• Discover the steps needed to self-install, or how to get in touch with our partners.

How to get started

You can visit the new integrations area from your Dotdigital account. Not a customer? You can also check out our integrations in the partner directory here.

API V3 and improved rate limits

What is it?

Our all-new API offers a top-of-class CXDP experience. Whether you’re wanting to push data into Dotdigital or send it back to other systems, this new API is changing the game. We’ve also enabled higher rate limits for our existing APIs.

Built with the latest RESTful technology, with service versioning embedded from the start, our family of APIs allow you to:

• Integrate quickly with any other system
• Make up to 6,000 calls per minute so data will always be up to date
• Read data in 30ms – that’s five times faster than you can blink

Why is it important?

These new services are the first of a new batch that will be focused on ensuring our customers and partners can integrate even more seamlessly with Dotdigital. This enables you to freely exchange data which in turn drives incredible customer journeys using our communications and automation capabilities.

• Our CXDP allows high-speed data access without burdensome rate limits.
• Sync insight data as you can now retrieve all modified records since your last call.
• Contacts can be identified using any identifier for improved visibility.
• Consolidate many API calls into one by optionally including other contact related data when getting your contact details.

How to get started

Visit the Dotdigital Developer hub for all information relating to our APIs.

The new Dotdigital is now available to all customers

We’ve spent the last few years re-building Dotdigital from the ground up to be able to offer you the functionality of a powerful data platform, paired with our customer experience and marketing automation tools. In short, Dotdigital is now a CXDP.

What is it?

We’ve kept all the things you already love about Dotdigital, and amplified them. Built on our core values of sustainability, privacy, and security, we are continuing to grow the platform to support your business in even more areas.

Dotdigital’s data platform functionality combines email and SMS data to create a unified, single source of truth for your contacts. Unified contacts allows you to bring your data into one place, enabling you to build a deeper connection with your audience.

Why is it important?

Unified contacts, gives you more insights than ever before – all in one place. You now have more ways to identify customers, so you can match up associated data with identifiers including (email, mobile number, and unique contact ID).

A joined-up customer data platform allows you to create an engaging, cohesive customer journey. In today’s market, going beyond the expected is key for brands who want to stand out, be memorable, and offer an exceptional experience.

• Engage with your customers on their preferred channels for optimal engagement and an improved customer experience.
• Deliver a seamless cross-channel experience with multiple touchpoints across the customer journey.
• Gain a 360° view of your contacts to better understand them enabling you to market directly to their interests.
• Deliver campaigns that engage at scale with hyper-personalization techniques and tools that appeal to your audience.

How to get started

We’ve done all the work, unified contacts is now a part of your Dotdigital account from today.

Other key updates

New look and feel: homepage and better UI

You’ll notice a new, refreshed homepage now featuring key performance metrics and personalized recommendations to help you identify key opportunities and effectively manage your to-do list. We’ve also upgraded our navigation and redesigned the SMS editor, making the platform easier and more intuitive to use.

A Dotdigital PWA

We’ve developed our own progressive web app (PWA) for the Dotdigital platform. This app makes it easier for you to access the Dotdigital platform. Simply pin the new app to your task bar at the bottom of your screen for instant, easy access. Head to the help center to find out more.

Shopware multi-store support

Shopware merchants can now connect multiple storefronts to one Dotdigital account in order to communicate with customers more effectively. Having a multi-store setup connected to one back end store can save time and admin work, this is especially valuable for ecommerce merchants that serve multiple countries.

App blocks for partners

The new partner app blocks enable to partners to build their own blocks for customers to use in the EasyEditor. This gives you more control and flexibility over what layouts you use in your campaigns. Plus, automatically matching campaign style functionality saves you time by removing the need to manually adjust the style via the code.

SMS regulations for Singapore

In order to send SMS in Singapore, marketing providers need to be able to block incorrectly formatted sender IDs, as these are considered a risk for illegitimate messages. Our latest update supports this change – get in touch with your Customer Success representative to enable the change in your account.

At Dotdigital we know it’s hard to keep up with the sending rules and regulations of different countries. We keep on top of it for you so that you can continue to send SMS in 220+ countries across the globe confidently.

Improved login experience

We’re increasing the login inactivity window from 2 hours to 3 days. So you can go away for a long lunch or even a long weekend, without being logged out of the platform.

Join the webinar

Why is storytelling important?

Brand storytelling is important in marketing because it helps you connect with your target audience on a deeper and more emotional level. Our brains are wired to remember stories over simple facts. Stories help us retain information and create close, personal bonds. The benefits of integrating this into your marketing are obvious. 

Data can come to life through storytelling. By telling personal and emotional stories, you can capture and retain your audience’s attention. This makes your brand more relatable and memorable, setting you apart from your competitors. Successful brand storytelling can not only increase awareness and brand loyalty but also boost sales and business growth. 

Understand what customers need

Long before talk of customer-centricity started ringing out across the marketing world, the customer was essential to company success. After all, businesses would be nothing without customers to connect with. Despite this, there are still some brands out there that don’t put the customer at the center of everything they do. Instead, they focus on their ideas and assumptions about their target market without ever really getting to know them. Warning: these businesses won’t last long. 

For brands looking to grow, disregarding the customers’ needs can be irrevocably damaging. Especially in today’s market, customers are more than happy to jump ship and realign their loyalties to a brand that is willing to meet their needs and fulfill their expectations. That’s why you need to ensure you’re always learning about your customers. Understanding their goals and needs will help you engage them with your brand.

Discovering customer needs through data

Crafting a compelling brand story begins with discovering what your customers truly desire. That’s why it’s essential to collect customer data and use it in the right way. There are several effective methods to uncover these insights:

Polls, surveys and interviews

Direct conversations with customers will provide you with the richest data. You can explore the decision-making process: – What drove them to convert? – Why did they choose your brand over competitors? – Was there a specific element of the experience or your website that stood out? – How did they discover you? – What are their interests? What are they passionate about? 

By collecting this information, you will get to know your audience like never before. You can discover what is important to them and build this into your brand story. For example, if they’re passionate about supporting international development, you can introduce a new initiative supporting business programs in the developing world. Ultimately, displaying this commitment and aligning your brand values to match your audiences’ will lead to stronger, loyal relationships and rapid growth.

Monitor interactions

Interactions and customer interactivity with your brand will only grow in importance. Following Apple’s iOS 15 software, it will be interactions, not opens that help you understand customer intent. By tracking customer interactions, you can learn a great deal about the average customer’s journey toward conversion. The emails they interact with, the links they click, and the pages they visit all tell you something about what they’re trying to achieve with your brand. 

You can identify where customers’ interests lie, focusing your product or service development on what will drive engagement and growth. You can also identify moments that generate engagement or where customers drop out of the funnel. This will give you greater insight into what your audience is trying to achieve and how they want to do it.

Feedback and reviews

Customers should feel at the center of your brand story. This includes feeling like their opinion and feedback are valued. You should not only be encouraging feedback and reviews but also monitoring them to identify trends. Are customers raving about your fantastic customer service? Are they disappointed about the lack of shipping options?

By using feedback and reviews to identify these trends, you can improve your customer offering and demonstrate your commitment to a customer-centric approach. Including customers in the day-to-day running of your business gives them to chance to get fully invested in your brand. 

Customers love a brand that listens to them and values their input. By reinforcing and demonstrating this in your brand messaging, you’re helping to create more trust and strong bonds with your brand. Section on reviews also being great marketing material when positive. Use these at various touchpoints across the customer journey. From social media to checkout. Social proof is invaluable.

Customer loyalty is the ultimate goal

As a marketer, your ultimate objective is to enhance customer loyalty and retention. To achieve this, you can create a brand story that is based on customer data. Showing that you understand the needs of your customers fosters satisfaction and exceeds their expectations. This customer-centric approach positions your brand for long-term success and growth.

Discover how Dotdigital help you create unforgettable brand narratives that resonate with your audience by reading our best practice guide.

What is a single customer view?

A single customer view (SCV)  is essential to gaining a complete and organized overview of the information your company has on your clients. By consolidating all customer data into a centralized location, businesses can easily access a comprehensive overview of their customers, their preferences, interests, and purchasing behaviors. This allows brands to create personalized campaigns and engage with their customers on a deeper level.

What is Distil.ai

Distil.ai is a customer data platform that allows marketers (that’s you!) to pull all your data from all your tools and all your channels together into a single customer view. 

That’s right, Distil.ai unlocks that single customer view that remains elusive for too many businesses —unified, holistic data. Everything that you know about your customers across all your channels and devices, across all your internal systems – all in one place, ready to be activated. 

Now that all your data is in one place and right at your fingertips, Distil.ai lets you make it available to any of your customer touchpoints. Then, you can push it into a powerful customer engagement platform like Dotdigital, transforming your data into smart marketing campaigns your customers will love.

How does Distil.ai work?

Here’s how Distil.ai works: So, you’ve got your customer insights locked, loaded, and in the right format for your tool or channel. It’s time to create the kinds of bespoke customer experiences that delight your audiences and drive revenue and ROI. But… how?

How do you get from all that first-party data (the live information you hold about your customers) to solid-gold marketing genius? For starters, you create that single customer view we talked about using a customer data platform like Distil.ai.

Your new and existing contacts expect (often demand) only the most relevant content to be delivered to them. Analyzing and segmenting your data in the right way keeps people engaged with your brand, saving you countless unsubscribed.

The benefits of single customer view

The single customer view (SCV) offers many benefits for companies aiming to leverage customer data effectively. Here are some key advantages of SCV:

View engaged subscribers

SCV allows you to gain a comprehensive view of each customer’s interactions and engagement with your brand. This helps you identify your active subscribers and who’s at risk of subscribing to better understand their behavior. You can then nurture your engaged subscribers along the buying cycle while curating tailored content designed to win back lapsing contacts. 

Personalize your channels

Personalizing channels for your customers is crucial, and SCV plays a key role in achieving this. By discovering your contact’s preferred channels, you can engage with them more effectively, whether it’s through email, SMS, social media, your website, or any other platform. 

Engagement levels can differ across channels, but with SCV, you can identify the most effective channels for acquiring new customers and those that your regulars prefer. This allows you to concentrate your efforts and deliver the right message to the right person, on the right channel.

Offer targeted product recommendations

Having a single customer view is key to creating personalized product recommendations that match each customer’s needs and interests. With a single customer view, businesses can spot patterns and connections. 

You’ll also have the ability to establish a deeper connection with your customers and foster long-term loyalty by consistently delivering products and offers that resonate with their tastes and preferences.

Create customer segments

With an SCV, companies can segment their customer base based on various factors such as age, gender, geo-location, purchase history, browsing behavior, and more. By examining the data, businesses can uncover insights and trends that help them understand which customers belong to each segment. 

Using a single customer view to create segments enables targeted marketing campaigns. By analyzing individual preferences, spending habits, and frequency of visits, businesses can reduce dwell time, deliver personalized and relevant messages, and maximize sales and ROI.

Leverage the single customer view

By adopting the SCV approach and utilizing platforms like Distil.ai you can greatly improve your customer engagement, boost your revenue, and cultivate lasting customer loyalty in today’s ever-changing and competitive data environment.

What is a martech stack?

A martech stack is simply the name given to the collection of marketing technology or software used by a business to support and enhance its marketing efforts. Even if you’re not familiar with the term, you likely already have one.

Forrester found that martech stacks now account for over 20% of the total marketing budget, and 56% of businesses planned to increase their allocated budget to spend on martech. Plus, a huge 82% of marketers said they plan to change their martech stack in 2022. There is a lot of growth in this area because marketing technology is constantly evolving, and martech frees up marketers’ time, and we all know that time is money.

The importance of a martech stack

The importance of a martech stack cannot be overstated in today’s digital age. With the proliferation of marketing channels and the vast amount of customer data available, a martech stack is essential for businesses looking to gain a competitive edge in the market.

By leveraging customer data from various sources, such as CRM systems, social media platforms, and email marketing campaigns, a well-designed martech stack can help automate and streamline marketing processes, improve customer targeting and engagement, and increase marketing ROI. By integrating various marketing tools and technologies, businesses can achieve a holistic view of their marketing efforts and gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences.

A martech stack also enables businesses to stay agile and adapt quickly to changing market conditions. As customer expectations and preferences evolve, businesses must be able to respond in real-time to deliver personalized experiences and relevant content. A martech stack can help businesses achieve this by providing the necessary tools and technologies to analyze and act on customer data.

How to build a martech stack

Curating your marketing stack isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. There are no rules and no expectations. It’s as simple as looking at what you need, both as a business and as a team, and going from there. Do you have an SEO specialist on your team, or do you need an all-in-one solution to automate your processes? Once you’ve got an idea of the areas you need support for or simply want to enhance, you need to look at your budget.

38% of marketers cited budget as a barrier to building a martech stack. However, a martech stack optimized for a marketing team’s needs is going to be worth the investment. Once you’ve figured out your priorities and your budget, you can start researching which options will work for you. There is no set number of technologies you should have in your stack.

What does a martech stack look like?

Still unsure of exactly what a martech stack is? Let’s provide some examples. For SEO, we use Semrush for social media scheduling and reporting. Then, for marketing automation, we use Dotdigital (duh), and for CRM, we use Microsoft Dynamics. 

That’s just a fraction of our complete martech stack; we simply use technology that works for us, and you should do the same. No business and marketing team will be the same, so it’s highly unlikely any martech stack should be the same.

We have previously had other technologies in our stack too, ones that we’ve since changed to a new offering or simply no longer need, and we’ll likely add new ones in the future too. A martech stack is simply a name for the collective technologies and software your marketing team uses, it’s not a strict parameter, and it can be fluid.

So, how can tech integrations improve your marketing?

Dotdigital is an example of how technology can improve your marketing. Our platform unifies data, which in turn raises insights ready to empower hyper-personalized marketing messages, automated depending on customer behavior. Pretty impressive, right?

The martech industry is vast, with 9,932 martech solutions available. This means you’re highly likely to find what you’re looking for, no matter your industry or need. Dotdigital works with lots of different technologies to strengthen your marketing throughout the customer journey.

Some examples include:

• Customer service platforms like Zendesk to keep records of all interactions in one place
• CRM platforms to support sales team integrations and remove silos
• Ecommerce integrations to improve understanding of customer behavior
• Enhanced personalization through platforms like Movable Ink

If you have any questions about what’s possible, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Put into practice

For an example of how one of Dotdigital’s integrations can help, let’s look at Reviews.io. You can set up an automation program that sends customers an email asking them to review your brand on Reviews.io once they’ve completed a purchase. 

You can also have an automation set up to send a follow-up email based on the review they leave. Three stars or under? Nurture campaign. Four or five stars? Thanks for your review. Have you checked out this similar product? You get the idea.

The journey is seamless back and forth. You’re prompting customers from your communication platform, letting them provide a review on the review platform, and then following up on your communications platform. This is a great example of two technologies that offer different services working together to bridge the gap—exactly what a good martech stack is all about.

But wait, there’s more. You can also use the social proof editor within Reviews.io to create a graphic and have that automatically appear in your Dotdigital image library. That extra hit of social proof ready and waiting in your image library to add to your welcome campaigns can make all the difference to your conversion rates. 

And the best part? No one on the team had to spend time looking for good reviews, creating an image, and manually uploading it to Dotdigital. The result is stronger marketing campaigns, as well as more time on your hands.

Working together

As soon as you’ve identified the technology you need, make sure it works together. As we’ve just explored, your martech stack is there to support you and make your day-to-day run smoother. You don’t want to be bogged down in manual tasks to share data from one platform to the next.

When your technology works together, it’s going to be more effective overall. Knowledge is power right? If system B knows what a customer has done on system A, it can better market to them based on this and let systems C, D, E, and F know too. 

Of course, it won’t be this linear in reality, as your customers’ journeys aren’t linear. Your stack will be a collection of tech platforms that work in different areas as and when they’re required, in no particular order.

The point remains that your tech platforms communicating with each other is key. Data-driven marketing is imperative for success. The technology is there to strengthen your customers’ journey, so being aware of what happens throughout that is crucial. Think of your stack more like a web, with each piece of technology or software able to connect with each other. 

You need to ensure that multiple systems are integrated to transform a wealth of customer data into reliable, contextual, and timely insights and make that information easily accessible to other platforms that can take action on those insights.

Choosing technology partners based on their integration capabilities with your existing technology is imperative to building a marketing stack you can rely on. This will in turn improve your customer journey, and as we all know, a positive customer experience leads to higher rates of customer loyalty.

How can Dotdigital improve your martech stack?

With 46% of marketers citing the complexity of integrating the technologies as their top barrier to creating a martech stack, we understand it can feel daunting. We know that your time is valuable, so we offer both out-of-the-box integrations so you can get started straight away and a bespoke solution if your stack requires a bit more tailoring. (Our developers always love a new challenge).

Our marketing automation software is the best in the biz thanks to data unification, cross-channel functionality, and leading marketing automation. And while our platform does a lot, it can’t do everything.

Dotdigital is designed to work with the best of the best in other areas too, such as ecommerce, social media, review platforms, and so on, so that you can create a truly joined-up stack. Our integration hub is a great place to start exploring, as it explains how you can integrate Dotdigital with other marketing software.

Embrace technology

Marketing is a broad discipline, and there’s a lot to keep track of. As consumers have largely moved online, the tactics and tools used to engage with customers have become more and more technology-based. 

Back in the day, print advertising and direct mail were huge channels, these days, social media ads and email marketing are more common. Even billboards, which used to be printed out and pasted on by someone climbing up a ladder with a bucket and brush, are now digital screens that can be updated at the touch of a button.

The point is, technology is undeniably a huge part of marketing, and it’s only going to continue to grow. It can be hard to know where to start, what’s going to be worth your investment, and how to make it all work together. 

However, if you start by looking at what you need, researching what’s available, and curating a stack tailored to your business, it’s going to benefit both your marketing output itself and your team’s productivity.

Customer engagement models like RFM enable marketers to segment audiences in more sophisticated ways. Using insights such as the recency, frequency, and monetary value of past purchases (RFM) enables you to identify customers who have the highest potential. But how do you know whether these shoppers are truly engaged? 

What is eRFM?

To determine whether a customer is truly engaged with your marketing efforts, you need to measure their engagement and interaction with your brand. That’s where eRFM comes in.  

Businesses use eRFM as a segmentation framework to categorize customers based on their previous behaviors and actions. To effectively use eRFM to segment customers, businesses need to collect and analyze customer data across the four metrics: engagement, recency, frequency, and monetary value.

eRFM: the future of segmentation

eRFM is the next level of RFM. As well as measuring the recency, frequency, and monetary value of past purchases, our customer modeling tool also looks at engagements like email opens and online activity. This means that you can segment customers based on their recent interactions with your brand, as well as their past purchase behavior.  

Each RFM persona receives an engagement score, so you can identify customers who are primed for conversion, and those who need to be re-engaged. By using eRFM, you can tailor your marketing campaigns, provide personalized experiences and boost customer retention.

Daily data syncing means that your segments will always remain up-to-date. As customer behaviors change, so will your segments. Identifying key moments in the customer journey is now easier than ever, you’ll never miss an opportunity to convert customers again.

Creating eRFM segments

RFM modeling creates seven personas that can be made into audience segments:

1. Non-customers: potential customers who have subscribed to your newsletter but haven’t made a purchase.  
2. Inactive: customers who have not made a purchase in a long time.  
3. Need nurturing: customers who are about to fall into the ‘inactive’ segment. 
4. High value: customers who have spent a lot with you, but have not shopped recently. 
5. Recent: shoppers who have been actively purchasing from you. 
6. Loyal: customers who shop with you frequently.  
7. Champions: shoppers who frequently spend a lot of money with your brand.  

With the addition of engagement insights, these personas are broken down further into four categories: 

1. Lightly engaged  
2. Engaged 
3. Highly engaged 
4. Most engaged  

This gives you a total of 28 audience groups to choose from when building your segments.  

How to use eRFM segments

With 28 segments to build, the possibilities are endless. Each customer can receive highly personalized and relevant messages depending on the journey stage they’re on. 

Here are just a couple of ways you can add eRFM segments into your day-to-day marketing automation strategy.  

1. Greet new website visitors

Making a good first impression on new customers is essential for growth. A strong pipeline of potential customers can guarantee your business’s future revenue. With more consumers shopping online than ever before, you must identify those yet to make a purchase so you can target them accordingly.  

Traditional RFM modeling doesn’t account for prospective customers expressing interest in your brand. eRFM allows you to target new subscribers who are browsing your website for the first time. You can identify these non-customers and enroll them in welcome or nurture programs to highlight your brand’s USPs.  

2. Discover critical first purchase intent

We know that shoppers today browse multiple bands before they’re ready to make a purchase. Increased competition online means you’re fighting more and more for their attention.

Using eRFM modeling, online behaviors are tracked, so you can easily identify shoppers who look ready to convert for the first time. Applying this to segment builder means you can deliver relevant and timely content that will help tip them over the edge. This is the perfect time to send readers information about your shipping or returns policy. 

3. Re-engage inactive customers

Inactive customers can be a huge source of opportunity. They’ve previously purchased from you but for whatever reason, you just haven’t seen them in a while. Our eRFM model makes it easy for you to identify inactive customers who are showing signs of re-engaging with your brand.  

You can target this segment with a timely win-back campaign that reminds them of your brand’s values or offers them a discount code on their next purchase. This may be the incentive they need to come back into the fold. 

4. Identify customers with active carts

Customers add items to their baskets for many reasons, but one thing is for sure: they’re considering purchasing these products. Maximize these clear signs of intent by acting quickly to close the sale.  

When your eRFM model surfaces customers with an active cart, you should be retargeting these shoppers with personalized product recommendations or exclusive offers. Product recommendations are proven to increase average order value, so are crucial for customers at this stage in their journey.  

5. Drive repeat purchases from existing customers

Retaining existing customers is 5x cheaper than acquiring new ones. To really tap into brand-new revenue opportunities, eRFM can surface customers showing signs of making a second purchase.  

You can use this clear intent to purchase to highlight unique aspects of your customer experience, such as your loyalty program. Collecting points per purchase or unlocking special rewards can drive shoppers to return time and time again.  

6. Maintain loyal customer engagement

Your most loyal customers are typically very low maintenance. You’ve already done the hard work showing them why you should be their go-to brand. They trust you and because of that, they’re happy to be advocates for your brand. But what do you do when their engagement starts to wane? 

By creating a segment based on this eRFM persona, you can enroll these shoppers in a customer care automation program to keep engagement levels high. This is the perfect segment to target with requests to complete focus group surveys.

As well as maintaining engagement, you can create a stronger relationship because these customers will feel directly connected to your brand. 

Adding eRFM to your segmentation strategy

eRFM segments are based on customer behaviors. For those marketers out there struggling to implement an effective segmentation strategy because of poor customer data, eRFM is the solution you didn’t know you were waiting for.  

eRFM pulls in data hiding in plain sight. There’s no need for extensive data cleansing or laborious preference collection. We use insights from your ecommerce platform to help you discover opportunities waiting to be turned into revenue-generating moments.

As a result, it would be safe to assume that marketing budgets are reflecting this opportunity. Unfortunately, not. Marketing budgets have shrunk as businesses tighten their purse strings. The average share of a company’s revenue that’s spent on marketing declined to just over 6% in 2021. 

What is customer retention?

Customer retention is an important part of any successful business strategy. It involves building and maintaining positive relationships with your existing customers to keep them coming back. 

What is customer acquisition?

Customer acquisition is the process of acquiring new customers for your company. The goal of customer acquisition is to convert your customers into paying customers who will generate revenue for your company.

Customer acquisition or customer retention?

The rise of marketing opportunities online may make it feel like acquiring new customers and growing your marketing database is the answer to business growth. If there are more customers online looking to discover new brands, then you have a better chance of converting them, right? Not necessarily.  

While the acquisition is still a big priority for a lot of brands, competition is rife. You’re not the only brand to see the revenue opportunities offered by the new increased activity online. Brands like Google, Facebook, and TikTok want to keep users on their channels and clicking on revenue-generating paid ads rather than surfacing new brands organically.  

That means big brands with bigger budgets are the ones succeeding in converting customers. 

It’s also important to note that customer acquisition can be more costly and time-consuming than customer retention – so it’s good to focus on both strategies simultaneously.

The benefits of customer retention

Investing in customer retention is a smart move for any company looking to achieve long-term growth and success. Improving your customer retention has many benefits: 

Reduces rising customer acquisition costs

Research carried out by Profitwell found that customer acquisition costs (CAC) had increased by 60% in the half-decade from 2014 to 2019.  

During the recent pandemic, when online demand for goods first surged, ecommerce giants like Amazon and supermarkets ramped up their tactics, investing massively in paid search and delivery fulfillment. With 74% of online searches starting on Amazon nowadays, it’s been made nearly impossible for brands to compete with these industry leaders for new customer acquisitions.  

Lowers churn rate

When customers leave because they’re unhappy with their experience, it costs businesses money each time they lose one — not only because they have less revenue coming in but also because they have to spend money on marketing campaigns aimed at acquiring new leads (which usually don’t work as well as retaining existing ones).

How to improve customer retention

To retain customers, marketers need to shift their focus from acquisition to retention. The most effective way to do this is by using customer data. Customer data can be used for personalization, improving customer experience, and making data-driven decisions.

Harness your customer data to segment

Your data literally holds all the answers. Want to set your marketing team’s KPIs clearly? Check out your data. Want to know what products or services to develop? Your data will tell you. Want to know which customers are of the highest value? The answer is in your data.  

You can calculate your customer lifetime value (CLV) to help you increase sales and profit as well as boost customer loyalty. It can help identify segments that will generate the most revenue over time, enabling you to justify spending on your marketing campaigns. 

Thankfully, improved data capture, understanding of the importance of first-party data, and better access to predictive analytics tools mean that CLV can be forecast with greater accuracy.  

A great example of this is Dotdigital’s RFM customer modeling tool. By pulling in customer data from across your marketing stack, it intuitively groups customers based on the recency, frequency, and monetary value of their interactions with you. You can then build segments to target high-value and loyal customers or even customers who need nurturing.  

The end goal is to never let a customer go after you have invested in their initial acquisition.  

Whether through CLV, RFM, lead scoring, or NPS, you need to harness your customer data to target the right customer with the right message at the most optimal stage of their journey.  

Personalize your marketing for memorable experiences

Personalization is about more than addressing your email subscribers by their first names. Truly personalized messages and content take user behavior as they interact across your digital touchpoints into account, as do user preferences such as specific product recommendations, choices, and interests. 

This ensures that customers are seeing deals, promotions, and content that is relevant to them, on the channels, and at the frequency, they want to see it.  

Recent research found that customers are 80% more likely to make repeat purchases when brands create personalized experiences. These experiences can be anything from relevant product recommendations, to location-based updates. Overall, personalized communication on your website or in your email marketing campaigns can increase brand loyalty —particularly among millennials—by around 28%.  

Personalized experiences help you nurture your customer relationship by being useful, informative, and relevant to their specific stage in the journey. This will keep customers returning to your brand time and time again, leading to higher retention rates.

The long-term value of customer retention

Marketers must understand the long-term value of customer retention. Nurturing your existing customers is just as vital to your business’ success as acquiring new ones. Not only is it cost-effective, but the likelihood of converting an existing customer is 60–70%, whereas you only have a 5-20% chance of converting new prospects. 

The results will not be immediate, unlike measuring the growth of your marketing list. You need to ask yourself how you can improve the customer experience to keep customers coming back and turning into brand advocates. 

Calculating and tracking CLV and customer behavior will help you identify high-value segments and where you need to direct your marketing resources. In turn, this will ensure you’re getting a higher ROI for your marketing campaigns. Additionally, ongoing data analysis can help you identify trends and set clear KPIs for your marketing team.

Customers want and value personalized experiences. Using your customer data and intent signals, you can segment and target existing customers with experiences tailored to their needs and desires. With a strong core customer base of loyal customers, you will ultimately see customer acquisition rates improve, as they turn into brand advocates and spread the word about your business.