The Email Collection Strategy That You (Probably) Never Heard Of
In this article, we'll delve into an advanced use-case centred around two primary objectives: collecting more emails and ensuring a more precise digital identity of website visitors.
In this article, we'll delve into an advanced use-case centred around two primary objectives:
Collecting more emails (or phone numbers) for marketing outreach.
Ensuring a more precise digital identity of website visitors.
The significance of email collection is widely recognized by the majority of marketers operating within the eCommerce domain. Capturing a website visitor's email address prior to a purchase provides an invaluable opportunity: the ability to retarget these potential customers through one of the most cost-effective channels available, thus potentially reducing expenditure on paid retargeting.
On the other hand, the concept of 'digital identity' might not be as ubiquitous in marketing circles. However, its impact on business is profound.
So, what exactly is the 'digital identity' challenge in eCommerce, and how does it affect marketing operations?
When aiming to centralize customer data, businesses often turn to a Customer Data Platform (CDP). One of the hallmark features of a CDP is the 'Single Customer View'. Envision it as a unique 'profile' within the CDP, offering a comprehensive glimpse of a customer's interactions across various touchpoints - be it email, SMS, web, offline, and so on. To illustrate, consider the 'Single Customer Profile' feature in our preferred tool, Bloomreach Engagement.
You might be wondering: if I visit a website from my mobile and then two days later from my laptop, how can the CDP determine that I'm the same individual?
The solution hinges on a critical piece of information: the email address. If a visitor provides their email address during both sessions, perhaps by logging in, the CDP can identify the common email address across two distinct profiles and merge them into a single, unified profile.
However, as one can intuit from personal experience, it's evident that this doesn't always occur. This leads to challenges in maintaining an accurate digital identity of website visitors.
Consider this scenario: if I access a website using three distinct devices or browsers and don't provide my email address on any of those occasions, the outcome would be the creation of three separate customer profiles within a Customer Data Platform (CDP) like Bloomreach Engagement.
Now, let's consider a scenario where I revisit the website using both a mobile device and a tablet, and during both visits, I log in to my account.
As a result, the first and second customer profiles will merge into a single profile. The third profile will remain separate until I revisit the website from a desktop and log in under the same email as I did during my mobile and tablet visits.
You may assume that a fragmented digital identity only impacts your analytics. However, that's a misconception.
In reality, a weak digital identity of your website visitors adversely affects at least four distinct areas.
1. Weaker personalization
Imagine wanting to display the last viewed products on the homepage for each customer
If the customer's last session was on a mobile device, and they are now accessing your website through a desktop, without a merged profile, you won't be able to show them the products they viewed during their previous session.
By ensuring a single customer view, you can offer personalized experiences irrespective of the device or channel in use. This approach significantly enhances the accuracy of your personalization strategies.
2. Accuracy of multitouch attribution
Suppose I intend to utilize linear attribution or the Markov model to comprehend the significance of my marketing channels.
If customer sessions are not consolidated under a unified customer profile, the attribution model will yield less accurate results.
3. Increasing trigger-based email send-out
Imagine a scenario where a customer visits the website using a desktop device that has not yet been linked to their main customer profile where their email address is stored.
If the customer adds a product to the cart, we are unable to send a cart abandonment email to them because this device has not yet been associated with their email address.
4. Reduced accuracy of analytics
The accuracy of various analytics metrics can be compromised if we fail to employ strategies to maintain a single customer view.
Questions such as 'When was the customer's last visit to the website?'
or 'How many unique visitors did we have last month?'
as well as determining the average number of visits required for a customer to place an order, would yield less precise answers without the implementation of strategies for maintaining a unified customer profile.
Strategies for Maintaining an Accurate Digital Identity of Your Website Visitors
At its core, we believe the most effective strategy is to provide a compelling reason for users to identify themselves during each session, especially when they cannot be recognized by their cookie.
While various strategies can accomplish this, in this article, we'll spotlight one that not only aids in maintaining an accurate digital identity but also bolsters email collection.
Member-Exclusive Products
Consider offering certain products exclusively to recognized members. This exclusivity provides a powerful incentive for visitors to identify themselves whenever they’re not automatically recognized. If specific products are visible only to those who are recognized, visitors that are anonymous are more likely to log in or register, thereby allowing you to capture and maintain their digital identity with greater accuracy.
We've fully executed this use-case in our Demo Store using Bloomreach Engagement. If you're interested in a comprehensive demonstration, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Once a website visitor logs in, these exclusive products become accessible to him, just like all other items in our product selection.
It's crucial to note that this use-case doesn't mandate logging in during every session.
For instance, if I identify myself in today's session and then return to the website, say, 90 days later without my cookie expiring, I'll still have access to all exclusive products. It's only when I visit the site via a new device, browser, or an incognito window that I'd need to log in to view the complete product selection.
As highlighted earlier, this is merely one of many strategies aimed at maintaining an accurate digital identity of website visitors. Stay tuned for future articles, where we'll explore more tactics serving the same purpose. These will be linked below for easy reference.
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