Sponsored by Sitecore
In recent years, B2C brands have been focusing their efforts on developing digital marketing capabilities, often with an emphasis on providing personalised customer experiences (CX) to ultimately foster trust, develop affinity and deliver recurring revenue.
There has been a rapid increase in the number and variety of marketing technology tools that are available, with chiefmartec.com showing more than 9,000 and growing annually. This has meant for B2C marketers looking to strengthen their CX prowess, choosing the correct, futureproof and scalable marketing technology as part of the wider stack is not always straightforward.
Foreword
Since we began this research project, whispers of macroeconomic disruption have evolved into full-blown predictions of continued inflation, supply chain disruptions, and a near certainty of a global recession.Yet rather than despair, there are plenty of underlying reasons for optimism: buyers that now have new acceptance for digital channels, large consumer savings, and executive leaders who realise that times of disruption often represent times to lean in and innovate.
For those looking to plot a course through this time of uncertainty, it’s well worth remembering the one strategy that has worked in the past will work in the future: knowing your customer and being able to act on those insights better and faster than anyone else in your industry.
Key to all this is real-time personalisation. It changes the way consumers relate to brands and it also has the power to completely transform organisations. As a leader within the digital experience industry, every day we see the incredible results our customers achieve by delivering rich and impactful customer experiences. We are also deeply attuned to the challenges facing B2C marketers today to make this a reality—the pressure to keep up with evolving consumer behavior, the obligations that accompany the transition to first-party data, and the need to leverage value from existing tech stacks.
The insights shared in this report offer a fascinating snapshot of an industry grappling with rapid change. It’s clear that every brand is facing a different CX journey, but with the support and buy-in of their organisations, those that adapt and level up to meet customer demands and expectations will emerge equipped and ready to make exceptional customer experiences a reality and can fearlessly look to the future with optimism.
David Schweer
Vice President, Product Marketing
Sitecore
Research approach and sample
400 interviews were conducted using a 10-minute online survey of senior marketing decision-makers in US and Europe —all currently involved in the selection of marketing technology for their business . Interviews were conducted between March and April 2022.
Background
In recent years, many B2C organisations have been focusing their efforts on creating, building on and maturing their digital marketing capabilities, often with an emphasis on providing personalised customer experiences (CX) to ultimately foster trust, develop affinity and deliver recurring revenue for their brand.
The use of data has been a critical way for B2C organisations to gain richer insights into their customer’s preferences and intent, which can be used to tailor experiences . The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated data-driven marketing efforts to advance their digital presence in response to restrictions on in-person contact.
Although progress has been made by many organisations, challenges remain around defining and collecting the right data, as well as choosing the marketing technology that is needed to deliver excellent digital customer experience.
In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the number and variety of marketing technology tools that are available, with chiefmartec .com showing more than 9,000 and growing annually1 . While this presents an opportunity for B2C marketers to strengthen digital CX strategies, deciding on the right marketing technology for an organisation’s needs is not always straightforward . As the range of digital tools available to marketers continues to expand, understanding and identifying the right technology solution which is set up to deliver against future marketing objectives, has become a more complex task.
B2C brands have been reliant on third-party cookies for years to track web activity, tailor adverts and improve user experience. The discontinuation of support for cookies is driving innovation in marketing technology as brands look to first party data strategies to help them inform their future digital marketing efforts.
Acxiom and its market research partner, B2B International, have explored the challenges faced by B2C marketers across the globe. This report is based on a study comprising 400 online survey responses from senior marketing decision makers working in $250m+ B2C businesses in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States. All respondents were actively involved in the selection of marketing technology for their business.
This research report outlines the current state of B2C marketing and the challenges that marketers face today. It will then consider the roles that marketing technology can play in the journey to delivering real-time personalisation, and how B2C organisations could make better use of the tools available to them in order to fulfill their digital customer experience ambitions. It will conclude by identifying the three Different stages of data driven marketing maturity that brands find themselves on in their journey to delivering CX beyond imagination.
Current state of B2C marketing
ORGANISATIONS ARE PREPARING FOR THE DISCONTINUATION OF SUPPORT FOR THIRD-PARTY COOKIES
While awareness of the upcoming discontinuation of support for third-party cookies is high, there is a lot of variation in how prepared marketers are for the transition . As shown in Figure 1, ONLY A MINORITY (41%) OF B2C ORGANISATIONS SAY THEY ARE VERY WELL INFORMED.
Brands are considering a variety of solutions to help with the transition, typically looking to adopt multiple options, showing that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to tackling the discontinuation of support for third-party cookies. That being said, first party identity management within a CDP DEPLOYMENT IS THE MOST COMMON OPTION CONSIDERED (55%) (SEE FIGURE 2).
As well as looking at implementing new solutions, many B2C organisations are ramping up their efforts to become data-driven more generally and acquire more first-party data as part of their strategies to develop excellent digital CX for the future.