Today’s episode is an expert panel discussion from the Commerce Accel Conference. The session was hosted by Ian Leslie, with an expert panel consisting of Stephan Lukac, Joe Cornfield, Michael Ahuja and Lewis Fauset.

We’ve mentioned in various episodes how Creative is one of the main pillars of online marketing. While that is true, there is a lot of other stuff that goes into creating a marketing strategy that delivers. This includes the nitty gritty of each step in the marketing lifecycle. Right from deciding on which channels you’ll focus on and why, to how you collect, manage and ultimately use data, to when you run your ads and at what spend. Decisions on all of these factors can have exponential effects on the success or failure of your marketing efforts.

In this episode, our expert panel discusses how marketing teams can strategize this Q4. You will get to hear about setting the right expectations for the holiday period, building up your marketing efforts till BFCM, CRM best practices and tips on building communities. This is a great episode for marketers and merchants alike.

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Here is a summary of some of the most important points made,

• • Sale events in 2021 have been outpacing 2020 in terms of revenue by almost 75%
  • Try and spread out the sales rather than focusing it over fewer days
  • Anticipating 125% spike in ad spend this BFCM
  • Focusing on building your remarketing pool in the period leading up to BFCM
  • Remarketing pool size has reduced by 40% post iOS 14
  • Having great creative is key to succeeding in the ecosystem
  • Ensure customers get their deliveries quickly

Covered Topics:

On today’s episode, the expert panel discuss,

• Expectations this Q4
• Budgeting Ad Spend
• Frequency of Tweaking Ads
• Impact of iOS 14
• Fundamental Pillars for a great Q4
• Lessons from SMS Marketing
• Recommendations for First Party data
• Processing Data
• Community Building

Timestamp:

• 13:00 – Meet the panel
• 15:00 – Expectations this Q4:
  • Michael:
    • Always try to beat last year
    • Have a hard cut between black friday and cyber monday
    • Labour day 2021 was better than 2020
  • Joe:
    • Had big growth in 2020
    • It could be unreasonable to to expert same levels this year
    • So far events in 2021 have been outpacing 2020 by almost 75%
  • Stephan:
    • October is all about building awareness
    • Sales carry on all through November
    • Try and spread out the sales rather than focusing it over fewer days
    • Following a “daily feature” approach
    • You need to base offers on product diversification and product availability
• 22:20 – Budgeting Ad Spend:
  • Lewis:
    • Budget is elastic
    • Anticipating 125% spike in spend
    • Our cash conversion cycle is easier since we manufacture in the US
    • We can convert orders into products, rather than converting products into orders
  • Michael:
    • Looking to start SMS again
    • Spend is more of less the same
  • Stephan:
    • Focusing on remarketing visitors in the period leading up to
    • BFCM
  • Joe:
    • Budget was less constrained and more goal-oriented than previous years
• 26:00 – Frequency of monitoring Ad spend
  • Michael:
    • It is more daily, adwords can be hourly
    • On certain days of the week you would spend more
  • Joe:
    • Focus is on CRM this year
    • 2 days of the year is hourly
    • Most of the time daily monitoring works
• 27:40 – Impact of iOS 14:
  • Lewis:
    • Have seen a massive impact
    • We haven’t been able able to view the 28-day purchase cycles
    • Having to take more decisions based on gut, more focused on creative as well
    • Focusing hard on CRM
    • Testing Quiz funnels for diversification
    • Probably cost us $3-4 million in topline revenue
  • Stephan:
    • We are very diversified, so effect has been limited
    • Our performance marketing is more last click
    • Remarketing pool size has reduced by 40%
  • Joe:
    • It has been a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs
    • We’ve still been able to acquire customers consistently using paid social
    • Having great creative is key to succeeding in the ecosystem
• 35:15 – Fundamental Pillars for a great Q4:
  • Michael:
    • Very specific target marketing using push notification, SMS, Email
    • Making sure people get their deliveries quickly
    • Closely monitoring price of competitors and adjusting accordingly
    • Message only those people who are buying rather than blasting the message to everyone
    • Make sure you don’t upset customers with your marketing
  • Stephan:
    • Leveraging partnerships for creating awareness
    • Finding balance in the paid social efforts to drive acquisition
    • Leaning on the CRM, emails lists with appropriate segments
• 38:40 – Lessons from SMS Marketing:
  • Michael:
    • SMS was more reactive to begin with
    • We had a 3000% ROI on SMS marketing
    • Now we are trying to replicate SMS through push notification
  • Stephan:
    • SMS is a great way to reach customers
    • It is ideal for building the urgency factor
  • Joe:
    • SMS accounts for 80-90% of revenue even though the list size is 10% of email list
    • It is 8-10 times more effective for conversion
  • Lewis:
    • Our products are more aspirational and customers are more hesitant to share their Phone numbers
• 45:30 – Recommendations for First Party data:
  • Stephan:
    • It is all about segmentation
    • Create the most accurate persona
  • Joe:
    • Collecting emails and phone numbers has been a focus all year
    • CRM is the north star of first party data
  • Lewis:
    • “Emails acquired through a quiz are twice as likely to open”
  • Michael:
    • Segmentation is key
• 50:20 – Processing Data
  • Stephan:
    • LTV model looks at frequency, recency and value of purchase
    • Assign ranks based on these attributes
    • This data can then be queried to find the sweet spot customers
    • Send highly personalised campaigns to the best /VIP customers
    • Encourage these top customers to share on social and share that content
• 52:30 – Community Building:
  • Michael:
    • Have ran contests for user-generated content
    • Photo contests, video contests
    • Customers really enjoy these contests
    • We even had people tattooing the brand name
  • Lewis:
    • We document design process and post on YouTube
    • Have best engagement on that channels
    • Once people see the full process, they feel more connected with that product and designer

Takeaways:

• Message only those people who are buying rather than blasting the message to everyone
• SMS is 8-10 times more effective than email for conversion
• Emails acquired through a quiz are twice as likely to open
• Tag customers in a CRM basis frequency, recency and value of purchase

Links:

• Stephan Lukac on LinkedIn
• Joe Cornfield on LinkedIn

Tweetable Quotes:

“CRM is the north star of first party data.”

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SPONSORS:

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