Advanced ecommerce marketing automation made simple

In today’s overcrowded marketplace, every company wants to streamline its marketing processes and get valuable insights into customer behaviour. Enter marketing automation technology.

This chapter looks at how choosing the right marketing automation software can help you streamline your operations. You can then collect and analyse all your data (from your entire tech stack) to segment your audiences and personalise your communications.

In this chapter, we cover:

• How software can elevate your strategy
• The importance of a customer data platform (CDP)
• More must-have tech features

Customer data has taken centre stage for marketers. With all the known data breaches, changes in data regulations, and customer calls for transparency, collecting and using zero- and first-party data is one of the only reliable approaches to data collection. Your owned channels now become the source of your most important data.

This chapter examines how harnessing rich data can grow your marketing list and enhance customer relationships. We’ll cover the differences between first-, second-, and third-party data and the issues associated with their use.

In this chapter, we cover:

• Different data types
• How to collect data
• Key concerns with second- and third-party data

Segmenting your audience lets you gain detailed customer insights to produce a powerful, data-driven marketing strategy. However, successful data segmentation depends on data quality and the sophistication of your marketing automation technology.

This chapter looks at the value of segmentation and shows you different ways to segment your audience to achieve meaningful personalisation and increased customer satisfaction.

In this chapter, we cover:

• Effective ways to segment
• Different types of segmentation
• The value of personalisation

It’s time to dive into the strategies and tactics that support the customer journey. This chapter looks at the customer journey from the perspective of both the marketer’s and the customer’s goals.

First, we look at the marketing lifecycle to understand the marketer’s goals. Second, we look at the customer journey from the perspective of the customer’s goals and how you can plan to delight and retain them. Then we see how everything fits together. Looking at both sides helps you prepare to meet your business goals and create customers for life. Then we look at creating the automation flows that make it all happen.

In this chapter, we cover:

• How to build a lifecycle strategy
• What customers think about at each lifecycle stage
• Essential automated flows to scale a personalised journey

According to Statista, the average email marketing return on investment (ROI) across industries is $36 per dollar. So it’s no wonder that 82% of marketers use emails for their marketing.

This chapter looks at all the elements that go into creating emails that will help you stand out among your competition.

In this chapter, we cover:

• Great subject line strategies
• Design best practices
• How to use A/B testing to optimise emails

The right marketing automation technology helps you create more targeted campaigns that increase engagement and result in a higher ROI. So, choosing the right software to analyse and improve your performance is crucial. Once you’ve selected your software and segmented your data, you can focus on those metrics that will help you optimise your performance.

This chapter looks at the key metrics that can help you iterate and optimise your automated email marketing.

In this chapter, we cover:

• Which metrics to track
• How email and SMS relate to business metrics
• How to optimise performance

Legal considerations have to be at the heart of all activities that involve customer data. Marketers aren’t always responsible for enforcing the nitty-gritty of compliance, but this chapter will get you up to speed on some considerations that will keep your communications compliant.

In this chapter, we cover:

• High-level information on compliance
• GDPR considerations for UK and EU businesses
• Compliance outside of Europe