Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

With an average website visitor conversion rate of just 3%, retailers struggle to convert sales. Online retailers lose an estimated $18 billion in revenueannually due to last-minute cart abandonment. Remarketing, the use of real-time insights to provide targeted recommendations, is just one effective big data methodology that can yield a 55% increase in spend from cart abandoners. 

Few industries are more impacted by quickly-changing consumer trends than retail. The complexity of consumer preferences means that big data is “especially promising and differentiating” for organizations in this sector, according to IBM’s Rebecca Shockley and Keith Mercier. In a retail environment where consumers take a multi-channel approach to product selection and purchase, creating a 360-degree view of target customers is particularly critical to retaining business.

62 percent of retailers report that increased adoption of analytics is creating a competitive advantage. While retail adoption of third-party data actually lags slightly behind other industries, retailers who optimize for modern cross-channel shoppers are likely to gain an immense lead.  In this article, we’ll explore some ways that modern retailers are utilizing big data insights to understand cross-channel behaviors and create a targeted customer experience....

We need answers, not data.In today’s socially-fueled communications ecosystem, our core challenge as marketers stems from the same place that opportunity does: Big Data.  We are at the center of a chaotic, endless ecosystem of conversation.  Finding our bearings requires both a high-level view of the overall messaging horizon, and the ability to zero in on the people and places that matter.  By understanding where we’re going, why, and who’s going to be there, we stand a far better chance of engaging the right people in a quality conversation that amplifies our message.

With that in mind, the most critical tool in our PR and marketing arsenal is a sophisticated communications search engine....

If you’ve noticed fewer window shoppers on the streets lately, it may be because they’re at home window shopping from their couches; that is, they’re discovering and exploring products without necessarily intending to purchase.

For our 2015 US Mobile Landscape report*, Forrester analyzed mobile audience data from our behavioral tracking panel to understand how consumers use smartphones and tablets in 2015. We found that although professionals often group both devices under the “mobile” umbrella, consumers use smartphones and tablets in very different ways.

One notable difference centers on mobile commerce: While smartphone commerce is still struggling to get traction, for tablets it’s already one of the most common activities. In fact, Forrester’s US Mobile Phone And Tablet Commerce Forecast, 2015 To 2020 shows that total tablet retail purchases more than double those made on a smartphone.

Our behavioral data shows that in the first half of 2015, 68% of tablet owners visited a shopping site at least once in a given month — that’s more than the number who visited news/media, TV/video, or even social networking sites! And these tablet shoppers aren’t just visiting Amazon.com. Only about half took to Amazon —the other half visited other online shopping websites that fit their interests, brand preferences, and lifestyle....