Retailers look to pool their data to counter competition from e-commerce players
Senior marketers at both brands and retailers are increasingly looking to pool their data resources to help counter the market disruption posed by e-commerce players, with 60% currently participating as part of a data cooperative, according to a study from Criteo and Forbes.
Sharing data insights has been dubbed 'the great equalizer' by Forbes Insights
Criteo and Forbes Insights have today (October 10) published a study which demonstrates that, while marketers understand the competitive value of sharing data, concerns around customer privacy, plus the accuracy of the insights generated by any pooled data resource remain a challenge.
Entitled ‘The Commerce and Data Opportunity,’ the study of over 500 marketers revealed that 60% are already part of a data cooperative, with 71% of retailer participants claiming they are willing to contribute online search data any such collaboration in order to help bolster mutual revenue gains.
It also goes on to cite how 66% of marketers claimed “ensuring data quality” as the biggest challenge of participating in such a venture, while 65% cited “confidentiality of data” as their biggest concern.
The findings also indicate how both marketers from brands and retailers are eager to pool their insights in order to limit the potential negative impact of the rise of e-commerce players such as Alibaba and Amazon.
For instance, brand-side marketers demonstrated concerns that physical/digital giants will limit access to their products, whereas participants representing retailers expressed worries that this trend will cause consumers to turn away from smaller retailers.
Other common challenges identified in the study included retailers’ concerns that, while they may have more access to customer data (compared to brand-side marketers), they are less confident in their ability to activate data into actionable insights. The consensus being: “more data alone doesn’t necessarily translate into a greater ability to take action,” according to Criteo.
Bruce Rogers, Forbes’ chief insights officer, further commented: “Data is the great equalizer in this time of division, and global executives agree that a shared approach is the key for gaining an upper hand in the battle for consumers’ share of time, attention and wallet.”
The study comes as the adtech outfit prepares to introduce two new products to its recently launched Criteo Commerce Marketing Ecosystem (CME) geared towards helping retailers boost customer acquisition.
Criteo Audience Match, and Criteo Customer Acquisition are the two latest additions to CME, with the former tool pitched as a means of re-engaging online audiences with relevant product messaging, while the latter has been dubbed as a way to message customers with a high purchase-intent.
The Audience Match tool lets advertisers use insights from their CRM or DMP tools to more accurately target users across the web and in-app using display ads by cross-referencing them against the deterministic customer ID base in the Criteo Customer Graph.
Meanwhile, the Criteo Customer Acquisition tool lets advertisers use the adtech outfit’s customer ID base to search for likely customer based on a historical analysis of their behavioral data.
Retailers including House of Fraser, La Redoute and New Look have participated in early beta tests of the new tools with Criteo claiming that early adopters have increased their customer acquisition rate by up to 73%.