Roger Dunn

When used sparingly, video can be a hugely impactful format to use on e-commerce sites. As an eye catching format, they capture attention on the digital shelf and allow brands to showcase the product in use, providing suggested use cases and how-to’s on how best to put the product into action. Cross-sell and up-sell opportunities are also possible with the chance to showcase a broader range of products. The bonus? These formats are now being introduced more broadly as retail media opportunities, so costs can be shared or even entirely offset by supplier investment

There are different types of cookies in relation to digital advertising. First-party cookies are created and stored by the website you are visiting directly. These are used to collect user data for analytics, remember specific site settings (like language) and store login information. Third-party cookies are created & placed by third parties other than the website you are visiting directly, with uses including - cross-site tracking, retargeting with ads for products they've shown interest in, or ad-serving more broadly. However, into the future the role of 3rd party cookies will be limited, as Google Chrome phases out their use and consumers expections around privacy grow. As such, marketers must pivot their advertising strategies.

Retail media is a natural place for joint ad campaigns to be activated, allowing brands/suppliers and retailers to collaborate and co-fund activity across the purchase funnel. This can involve on-site placements like sponsored products and display banners, through to off-site digital and in-store assets. The benefits of retail media, are the closed loop reporting to track and optimise results, plus the fact it can quickly be ramped up as required around key seasonal events and sales periods.

A/B testing allows retail businesses to make informed changes to their user experience via a data-driven approach that ultimately tracks through to the sales impact. This allows retailers to construct hypotheses and to learn what elements and optimizations impact user behavior the most. More than just tackling one-off questions, A/B testing can be used on an ongoing basis to improve a specific experience or work towards a measurable goal like sales or conversion rate optimization.

The golden rule ahead of time is to do your research, you'll know the obvious stuff, plus a well informed question will always be more impressive. From here, it's naturally best to ask open questions with useful topics including: "Can you describe a typical day or week in the role?" "How will you measure success?" or "What are you hoping the person in this role will accomplish in their first six months and then their first year?" ...and finally, always ask: “What’s your timeline for next steps?”

Customer reviews have multiple benefits, from influencing organic search position, through to driving conversion. They also offer a range of rich insights including about the product or packaging itself, identifying new or different product use-cases, through to any challenges or negative perspectives - all of these can have an influence on returns, repeat purchase, and open up opportunities for new positioning and innovation. Reviews can also be used as social proof across all media channels, even in physical locations like stores or shopper catalogues.