Digital Commerce 360 ​​survey of 73 online retailers conducted in April and May 2022 reveals digital marketing budgets, tactics employed, their effectiveness, and customer acquisition strategies. rice field. We also cater to the burgeoning social media marketing, including the influencer role. Finally, we also cover the retailer’s ability to analyze data and the technology that underpins all marketing efforts.

Digital marketing budgets vary widely. Affected by the size of the retailer and whether it is digital only or has a store footprint. How long they’ve been selling online could also be a factor, as experiences evolve and digital can assume an ever-changing role. will be

Percentage of overall marketing dedicated to digital

• 1-10%: 16%
• 11-50%: 32%
• >50%: 44%
• none: 8%

Knowing the state of today’s digital budget allows us to pause and reflect on how it has changed over the years. His 66% of a retailer’s digital marketing budget increased in his 2022, while 23% remained unchanged.

Looking ahead, 72% of retailers following a similar growth pattern expect digital ad spend to increase in the next year.

Tactical use of digital marketing is widespread

Let’s take a look at the strategies employed by retailers. Seven-tenths of his retailers are adopting email, search engine and content his marketing along with Facebook as part of their digital marketing strategies. Both Instagram and YouTube have been adopted by 60% of him, while other influencer marketing is endorsed by 58% of his retailers. Mobile is also important. Significant shopping occurs on this channel, at a rate of 60%. Amazon advertising (49%) and non-Amazon marketplace advertising (51%) reflect the growing role of marketplaces in e-commerce.

Spending was divided into those spending 11% or more of their budget on specific tactics. Paid search lags behind this model at 41%, search engine marketing at 38%, and email at 36%.

The most effective marketing strategies are email, paid search, search engines, and content marketing. Socially speaking, Facebook (39%), followed by Instagram (21%), YouTube (2%) and TikTok (18%) reflect the range of achievements retailers are achieving. And from a marketplace perspective, Amazon Ads performed well at 38%. Other marketplace ads are only effective for 26% of those surveyed.

Retailers should always prime their pumps. As such, more than half of retailers spend more than 30% of their marketing budget on customer acquisition. The lucky 29% said he spent 20% or less to acquire a customer. This is a great opportunity to leverage and optimize your best performing tactics to ensure a constant flow of new customers.

Top 3 tactics for acquiring new customers: Paid Search (45%), Search Engines (41%), Content Marketing (34%)

social media advertising

We are now focusing on social media advertising. We wanted to understand how the surveyed retailers worked as a whole. The findings suggest that more than half of retailers use social media advertising to drive sales and build brand awareness.

From a “success” perspective, Facebook delivers ROI to 52% of online retailers. Closely behind are Instagram at 42%, YouTube at 38% and LinkedIn rounding out this group at 32%.

Retailers are taking various steps to optimize their social media. We start by addressing stakeholders when asked how they would describe or rate the effort required to optimize social media marketing for each platform. Many (44%) had one in-house contact, while 21% involved multiple contacts. One in three of her relied on agencies to optimize their social media efforts. Other insights gleaned: 26% find results difficult to quantify, social is forever changing, and her 25% of survey respondents are constantly in catch-up mode. Surprisingly, only 12% said they relied on technology to drive their programs, especially since responses to subsequent questions suggest otherwise.

influencer

No digital marketing survey is complete without talking about influencers. The role of influencers is multifaceted, helping retailers increase brand awareness (40%), drive traffic to their website (30%) and generate sales (26%). It is difficult for some retailers as 25% are concerned that influencer costs are too high. 21% find it interesting, but he doesn’t get the ROI he wants. And there is a fit factor, as 23% found it difficult to find suitable influencers. We understand and spend time understanding if a business should use influencers. If so, how?

Retailers use multiple platforms to support their marketing efforts, starting with analytics and data visualization. Many of the technologies cited have already been deployed and may have multiple roles.

Digging into one specific technology, 28% of retailers plan or plan to deploy AI to power their marketing initiatives.

The dilemma is the mix of retailers’ ability to analyze marketing data and attribution. Looking at the survey results, 61% consider themselves above average (6-10). 39% self-rated their performance as below par and reported below average (1-5). Given the impact it can have on business success, it’s imperative that every retailer gets the training and tools they need.

There are many challenges to achieving marketing power. The ability to effectively analyze efforts topped her list of challenges for 41% of respondents, with 30% citing effectively analyzing data. Even more frustrating for retailers are constant changing rules, diversifying marketing mixes, and profitability. They top the list of marketing challenges. Respondents understand that a mix of tactics is ideal, but it is difficult to determine how best to deploy them. It’s easy to spend money, but it’s often irrelevant to the bottom line. 30% cite the cost of marketing campaigns.

marketing trends

A third of online retailers are still figuring out how best to deal with the exclusion of third-party data.

Another challenge facing retailers is the elimination of third-party data. We can safely say the jury is out. According to our findings, 32% of him marketers are still evaluating how best to address these issues, and 27% have not changed their strategy. This is in contrast to the 21% who said they were adjusting. Others are looking for creative ways to drive signups (26%) and ways to prioritize first-party data (25%).

Retailers are adopting different strategies when it comes to value-based marketing

There is a lot of traction around retailers embracing values, so we tried to understand this trend as well. Retailers’ approaches are divided, with 33% having no strategy. On the positive side, the same number integrate cause-based marketing into their e-commerce experience (33%). 32% use it in their social media efforts and 25% communicate value according to the event. There’s another faction (14%) looking ahead and testing how it resonates, and a final group (11%) actively building for a 2022 rollout. .

As e-commerce slows down, digital marketing budgets can become fluid. It’s more important than ever to hone the right tactics and be able to measure their effectiveness. It’s worth taking advantage of traditional options, including email, as well as ever-evolving social options. Online retailers will employ technology to do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to tweaking and optimizing to optimize the performance of their brands.

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