From A/B testing and automation to analytics and attribution
mobovida’s Edwin Choi on digital marketing optimization and innovation
There’s just too much to the field of digital marketing to cover in a single day.
Believe me, we’ve tried.
The 2016 Retail’s Digital Summit held by Shop.org last week kicked off with a day’s worth of sessions specifically aimed at “marketing mavericks.” The Summit’s Digital Marketing Workshop featured more than a dozen speakers covering a range of topics — from attribution tactics, search marketing and email campaigns to balancing left brain and right brain thinking.
Eight by Eight CEO Amy Africa shared customer acquisition tips and Tumi Chief Digital Officer Charlie Cole talked about organizational change. Executives from prAna, mobovida, Chico’s FAS and Toys “R” Us explored best practices in mobile commerce. After that session on mobile, I caught up with mobovida Vice President of Marketing Edwin Choi to get more quick tips for optimizing digital marketing, a couple of favorite marketing hacks and other insights. Here’s what I learned.
Edwin’s favorite marketing hack
Marry up your email database to a service that can fill in customer attributes such as gender and age. Take the winning cohorts’ attributes and port them over to social advertising channels for a high converting campaign.
Analytics and optimization
Automation is key. If you are constantly checking certain metrics, incorporate automated triggers so that you’re always aware and you can react quickly. (You can also save tons of hours of work by automating these redundant inquiries.)
Ensure that everyone is an analytics expert — not just the business intelligence team — so they can pull data and insights themselves with no delays.
Always be testing. It’s the only way you can iterate and improve.
Who’s “killing it” when it comes to online marketing?
Edwin looks to Dollar Shave Club, Grainger and Evo for digital marketing inspiration.
Changes in the field: personalization, attribution and influence
We now can have granular, targeted messages for each customer across all touchpoints: marketing channels, on-site, off-site. Speaking to a customer on a one-to-one basis has never been easier.
Attribution modeling — in a way that matches up to a retailer’s profit and loss statement — remains a huge challenge.
Programmatic display advertising and influencer marketing are likely the next big waves of innovation.
See more from the Summit — on marketing as well as topics like global e-commerce, customer experience, emerging technologies and omnichannel retail — by checking out the official recap:
Make plans to join me next year, September 18–20, 2017, in Los Angeles. If not, you never know what — or who — you’ll miss.
