If you had to point out the most critical ecommerce issue in today’s high-volume world, it would, without doubt, be hyper-personalisation. Not least because it happens to be the most lucrative and productive, but more likely because it delivers the highest known ROI. Therefore it follows: get personalisation right, and everything else follows, right?

Technological especially AI, emerging trends, are perpetually changing consumer behaviour and so in turn they are constantly altering what it takes to succeed. If you’re not using AI data analysis in your business and marketing strategy, your online store will fail. It’s not a case of if, but rather when.

What constitutes AI data analytics in ecommerce?

AI data analytics is the process of gathering data on your ecommerce site — including ROI, AOV, site visits, successful purchase numbers, basket abandonment, interests, brand loyalty, colour, texture, cloth, size for shoes and clothing, tastes, texture, smell, flavour, brand for grocery and in addition grape, chateau, region, luxuriousness etc for wine etc. There is also the nuances unique and individual consumers, unique to each vertical, as they are shopping with you. — and using this information to inform future marketing or sales strategies. The less data captured to less ammunition you have to perfect your strategy.

AI data analysis is particularly important in the ecommerce sector, as the often quoted 70% of shoppers abandon their baskets, raises its head. This can occur for several reasons, including complicated checkout processes, website errors, and poor returns policies. Not least as time and opportunity to consider something and not lose it while they do so. This data allows you to get indirect feedback from their customers on what percentage they liked at that specific moment in time, and how much it matters in comparison to anything else. To say nothing about what else was going off in their life, and thoughts.

You should also bear in mind that you are competing in the main against ill-equipped competition, so have a free reign, in the main so far. If the personalisation of your product offerings on a perpetual basis for each consumer, is “on the money”, namely exactly what they want, when they want it, sure enough, your AOV, and LCV will soar to heights never before experienced. Consider your existing data for those stats, and apply it to competitors not keeping up with you, and you have a good idea how big a march you can steel on them before they get wind of what you’re using.

Why tracking data should be important to you

Operating in a highly competitive ecommerce space during an economic downturn means that your time and money are incredibly valuable  — there’s no room for guesswork when it comes to creating successful on-site strategies and marketing campaigns. 

Yet an estimated 58% of companies say they make decisions based on ‘gut feel’ or ‘experience’, rather than on verifiable data. That’s 57% of companies that could be making a detrimental business decision, without even knowing it.

Ecommerce businesses should take care that all of the decisions they are making are data-driven. This will ensure that their email marketing strategies are future-proof and their online promotions tactics are targeted towards key consumer pain points.

With the advent of AI, your captured data and the analysis of it with the right tools, provides unique personal insights into the psyche of each consumer’s purchase process, culminating in unique individual insights, unique to each consumer, so much so you can predict what they are going to buy next and when, simply but for offering it to them. (Note the distinction of this being opposed to you waiting for them to come and find it).

There are highly sophisticated autonomous tools to enable immediate empowerment of your ecommerce business by applying data analysis, that you can install immediately.

Image the amount of investment being made into researching how the ecommerce retailer to maximise their sales on both an immediate and perpetual basis, for minimum investment, delivering maximum returns.

Solutions like SwiftERM can be installed instantly; pre-vetted and approved by your platform, for you to establish viability before you subscribe.

Autonomous marketing combines real-time marketing—the ability to be there in the moments
that matter for customers— with experience management concepts that pinpoint the customers who offer the most value and cement a retailer’s relationships with them for the long term.

Retailers who win on real-time customer experience do so by building effective systems to automate engagement. The key to that is not only to have data but also to use it—to link consumer identity data with all interactions and touchpoints so the retailer can present a consistent face and experience across channels. 

In a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, companies had 17 different technology applications using customer data and an average of 28 different data sources for generating customer insights and customer engagement. Only one in four had an omnichannel campaign history and a record of using it effectively. Building on that foundation of data, automated machine learning uses advanced analytics and decision platforms that can make those customer interactions not only timely and consistent but also personalised and responsive.

Why Ecommerce Data Analytics Helps Businesses Achieve Success

Understanding why data analytics is important is the baseline for success. It is no more than achieving an appreciation of the power of knowing, in advance, of the potential actions, that deliver you the greatest opportunities.

So what is the greatest threat to your business at this precise moment in time? Apathy, complacency, and competitor activity, all might be reasonable assumptions. there are papers on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which suggest it could be a laggard to adoption of the concept early enough.

We would offer that it’s the lack of appreciation for the power of your need to identify and personalise every interaction with your consumer. They shop with you for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly psychologically have made a conscious decision to do so, which underlines their loyalty and preference to come to you. Failing to respect that, and equally bad, fail to nurture that at your peril. Someone else will.