2023’s eTail West definitely didn’t offer the typical Palm Springs, California weather veterans of this conference were accustomed to, that’s for sure! eTail West has always been popular for brands and vendors alike because, well – who wouldn’t want to escape cold, February weather and be “trapped” in 70-80 degrees of sunshine and desert sand?!
Despite the chilly temperatures (and some potentially icy roads if you were driving in from the Los Angeles area) eTail didn’t disappoint! One of the strongest-attended eTail Wests yet, there were over 1,300+ retail/eCommerce attendees, and over 1,200+ partners and vendors!
And, this was an extra special eTail West, as it was Digioh’s first time attending and sponsoring! Rishi Shah, our CEO, and Ben Valek in Business Development joined myself, Allison Kelly, CRO, in all the fun!
Now, I admit I am an eTail West veteran here and have attended, presented, and networked 8+ times at this conference within the last decade. It was my honor to show Rishi and Ben the ropes – they picked it up easily and together we dove right into the fun and learning going on that you can find all around eTail West!
Our marketing team asked our feet on the street at eTail to recap for our readers some of their takeaways from the conference, so keep reading below!
Let’s start with the fun stuff…I’ll kick us off here. Being the networker and eTail West veteran on the team has its perks, including insights on nearly every exclusive event…
Race to Retention
Digioh sponsored the “Race to Retention,” hosted by our friends at SeaMonster Studios at the fast-paced BMW Drive Experience.
Here, we joined some of the best and brightest partners and marketers in the industry to fast-track the path to success with their retention marketing strategies. Partners like Klaviyo, TapCart, Gorgias, MentionMe, and more all shared their 2023 insights. There were over 100+ brand marketers who attended, and some of us may or may not have gotten a little squeamish on our rides with pro racers in super-fast BMWs!
Check out the video here if you missed it!
Digioh had the opportunity to show our friends from Future Commerce (and my BFF Brian Lange) how brands can “Get In-Quiz-Itive.” Getting “In-Quiz-Itive” means harnessing the power of consumer-consented data and using that data to level up retention marketing AND earn 2X+ conversion rates onsite.
The concept around quizzes is pretty simple, but we often forget the basics of why to use a quiz (beyond just its amazing impacts on data collection, acquisition, and conversion).
Here’s what a quiz can ultimately help you do or solve as a marketer:
1) Answering your questions about your website visitors or customers by SIMPLY ASKING THEM!
2) Solving challenges or creating new opportunities for your business.
Perhaps you’re thinking of launching a new product or service line but aren’t quite sure how it may be received or what potential revenue via sales may be attainable.
If you’re like our customer JAXXON, all you need to do is ask! JAXXON assumed that significant others were the main ones shopping for the man in their life. To test this in their quiz, they asked “Are You Shopping for Yourself or Someone Else?”
Guess what they found out?
- Apparently, men really do shop for themselves most often, comprising over 50% of website visitors who took the quiz! (Side note: I do not know why this is such a big revelation as my husband honestly shops more for himself online than me. SORRY HONEY!)
- However, there was a smaller, yet attractive ~30% of women who were shopping either for themselves or their significant other.
- You can see how simple it was to discover an opportunity and make an important change using a quiz! For JAXXON, it made sense to invest in women’s jewelry to help them diversify their target customer base and drive new revenue!
3) Drive direct, zero-party data around the persona of your customer.
When analyzed, this information helps you better understand customer affinity, intent, and more.
4) And, oh yeah quizzes also…
- Create conversations that act like a concierge on your website
- Increase conversion rates by 2X+
- Help you not be like everyone else that has just another annoying pop-up on your website for EVERY visitor, immediately asking them for something (such as their email) before you’ve given them something.
- Provide immediate value to your website visitors by guiding them further into finding exactly what they are looking for on your website, or answering a question they may have.
What I just touched on above seemed to be the overarching themes top-of-mind for most marketers at eTail West this year.
In fact, there were 3 big themes:
- Cost of advertising spend
- Need for doubling down on retention and loyalty
- Increasing personalization efforts that drive the above
Rishi will share more on these below!
Rishi
eTail West was awesome! In addition to our “Race to Retention” event, we met with many partners, and we heard what people are excited about, struggling with, and searching for a solution for. I’m excited to share some takeaways.
Overall, the number one theme was personalization. Personalization is everything for big brands in the future. My top 8 notes on personalization development are:
1) After you capture a site visitor’s email, ask them what they’re shopping for!
This could be a question in your form after email capture, or as a follow-up later on in the conversation.
2) Post-acquisition personalization is HUGE.
No one wants generic mass emails; they want emails catered to their interests. Don’t neglect the relationship with your customer post-acquisition: what happens next is just as important as acquiring them in the first place.
3) Marketers want to be nimble and launch things quickly.
However…
4) The biggest bottleneck to personalization is resources, specifically development resources.
Internal teams can’t be experts in everything. That’s where marketing apps help: they make things simpler so businesses can go farther.
5) Pop-ups don’t do as well as they used to, but "gates" are better.
Don’t ditch forms! Just pivot to a more successful format: embedded forms and quizzes perform better than pop-ups of the same form.
6) LTV and Conversion Rates are key topics in today’s market.
In other words, marketers need data to make decisions.
7) Use segmentation to increase open rates.
Merge Tags and Message Types are easy ways to send more relevant email.
8) Combat rising ad costs with owned channels.
Email and SMS are marketing channels that you own, meaning you don’t have to pay for outrageous outside advertising costs. That’s why it’s important to capture the email + SMS: to better retarget shoppers after the click.
Rising ad costs also make retention and loyalty especially important. It’s easier to retain and grow an existing customer than acquire a new one, so eCommerce brands like Andie Swim use data captured by Digioh to power personalized retention and loyalty efforts.
Andie uses the quiz data they capture to build more in-depth segmentation, send personalized messaging, and further understand their customer. They do all of this while driving incremental revenue in new and innovative ways. Andie and other customers of ours are seeing amazing success using quizzes this way!
See You at Our Next Event!
From one event to another, we’ll be hitting the road to Las Vegas in less than 2 weeks! We’ll be at Shoptalk in Las Vegas March 26-29th! We’d love to meet up with you at one of the following events we’re hosting.
- Topgolf on March 26th: What better way to start off Shoptalk than with some friendly competition, networking, and whiskey tasting?
- Carbone on March 28th: Join us for the best Italian dinner in Las Vegas with our partners Tapcart, Gorgias, and more!
Contact us for your VIP invite, or if you just want to meet up during Shoptalk to say hi!
