MARKETING
10 Future Trends of Ecommerce Customer Experience
Customer experience is probably one of the most crucial aspects to focus on for ecommerce companies.
According to the PWC customer experience report, 86% of online shoppers are even willing to pay more in return for a superior customer experience.
While it’s true that quality products have a notable impact on the success of your ecommerce company. In fact, quality products were considered “King” once upon a time in the ecommerce industry. But the king has long been dethroned.
Nowadays, online shoppers value customer experience and product quality equally. This simply means that product quality is no longer the only reason why online shoppers buy from particular brands. They now emphasize on the overall online shopping experience.
Put another way, providing a superior customer experience is now your golden ticket to succeed in the fast-moving ecommerce space.
And in this article, we’ve shared the top 10 future ecommerce experience trends you need to consider adapting in your ecommerce company.
Before we dive in, let’s quickly clear up what ecommerce customer experience actually means.
What is Ecommerce Customer Experience?
Ecommerce customer experience basically refers to how your customers perceive all their interactions with your ecommerce brand. It covers all online experiences starting from the first time a customer hears about your ecommerce company to the post-purchase experience.
Though, there is no one way to create a winning customer experience for your ecommerce company. But one thing that’s clear as crystal is that it must be simple and satisfying for your customers. Otherwise, they’ll immediately get frustrated and begin the hunt for alternative options in the market.
To help you prevent that, we’ve shared 10 customer experience trends to implement in your ecommerce store.
Top 10 Future Ecommerce Customer Experience Trends
COVID-19 pandemic brought plenty of customer experience trends that have ultimately helped ecommerce companies over-achieve their goals.
But in order to remain competitive, every ecommerce company must also be on the lookout for future ecommerce customer experience trends to adapt.
Here are the top 10 future trends you can consider.
1 – Customer Service
Customer service plays a crucial role in providing a positive customer experience in ecommerce stores.
According to Microsoft Customer Service Report, 72% of online shoppers expect the ecommerce support team to have an idea of who they are, what purchases they’ve made previously, and what kind of help they need.
The same report also revealed that 48% of online shoppers expect a response from the support team within 24 hours, while 18% of them expect a response within the first hour.
Furthermore, 56% of customers stop shopping from an ecommerce brand if the customer service experience is poor.
The lesson here is, ecommerce companies must keep track of their customers and promptly respond to their queries/complaints with satisfying solutions.
2 – Payment Security
Believe it or not but payment security plays a major role in ecommerce customer experience strategy.
Plus, ecommerce companies also need to be vigilant about accepting payments online. Especially because of the volume of online payment frauds occurring these days.
According to a report, online fraudsters are predicted to siphon off $12 billion per year.
Another report by Finance Online also found that ecommerce companies deal with 206,000 web attacks on average every month.
Looking at these reports, one thing is clear — ensuring a secure payment transaction is a must to earn customers’ trust and develop a strong customer experience in ecommerce.
3 – Faster Delivery
In the age of instant gratification, customers’ expectations for faster delivery is growing every passing day.
Ever since Amazon pivoted from 2-day shipping to next-day shipping and now same-day delivery, it has forced other ecommerce brands to follow Amazon’s footsteps.
According to a recent survey conducted by PWC, 88% of online shoppers are even willing to pay more for faster delivery options.
Because of this, over 51% of ecommerce brands worldwide have already started offering same-day delivery. And 65% of ecommerce companies plan to offer it in the next two years.
The point is, it is now absolutely critical to start offering faster delivery options to remain competitive in your ecommerce niche.
This is even more crucial if you’re selling products globally but unable to keep up with faster deliveries. In such cases, you should partner with a quick international courier service that guarantees timely delivery of all your international shipments.
4 – Hyper-Personalized Upselling
When it comes to ecommerce, the potential of upselling cannot be overlooked. And by offering hyper-personalization along with custom-tailored deals, it becomes easier to win customers.
A McKinsey report recently found that ecommerce brands that go the extra mile to serve customers with a hyper-personalized shopping experience grow faster (in terms of revenue) than their competition.
By offering personalized incentives you can also boost upselling in your ecommerce store. You can create various forms of incentives such as point-based rewards, cashback offers, referral bonus programs, and so on.
If you’re planning to implement incentives of any form, make sure to integrate functionality that lets you create custom incentives with ease.
5 – Habit Loops
Humans are creatures of habit. In fact, habits have a massive impact on our everyday lives. That includes how we interact with other human beings, and how we interact with brands.
Therefore, creating habit loops in your ecommerce store can have a huge impact on the overall customer experience. A habit loop is a neurological loop that forms a habit in every one of us. It consists of a cue, routine, and reward.
Smartphones are a prime example of habit loop formation. A new notification is a cue, checking the notification is routine, and seeing a new message from a friend or loved one is a reward.
To form a habit loop in your ecommerce store, you need to start by creating a hook for your products. Hooks trigger an action that leads to a reward for your potential customers.
While forming habit loops, make sure that they make your potential customers excited about your products and your ecommerce brand so that they continually reach out for more rewards.
6 – Self-Service
Nowadays, customer service channels are getting increasingly overwhelmed and the customers are also well-aware of this fact. This is why customers are now also becoming more resourceful and seek to fix their problems independently.
Ecommerce brands need to respect this and make it easier for customers to find solutions to their problems.
The best way to do this is by investing in a knowledge base and a dedicated FAQ page. Having a knowledge base and FAQ page can help your customers walk through the common problems and discover the best solutions possible.
7 – Social Commerce
Social commerce makes it easy for customers to connect with brands and shop for products they desire to purchase on their favorite social media platforms.
The shopping features on Facebook and Instagram allow users to buy products from their favorite brands in just a few clicks.
According to research, almost one in three Facebook users in the US are planning to make purchases through the platform in 2022.
Statista also revealed that social commerce sales are forecasted to triple by the year 2025.
So, if you haven’t already created your product catalog on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, you should do it right away!
8 – AI-Powered Chatbots
AI-powered chatbots are ruling the ecommerce space these days. In fact, ecommerce brands are predicted to spend nearly $7.3 billion on AI by the end of 2022.
So, if you haven’t invested in an AI-powered chatbot, you absolutely should.
The main reason AI-powered chatbots are on the rise is that online shoppers nowadays hate to wait for getting answers to their questions.
AI-powered chatbots can resolve this issue by answering your prospects’ questions in real-time. And in situations where your AI-powered chatbot cannot answer a customer’s question, it can automatically transfer it to one of your human representatives.
This way, your customer support team can focus only on complex queries, while your AI-powered chatbot handles the rest.
9 – Omnichannel Customer Experience
For many years, trends in the ecommerce space have been pushing towards creating an omnichannel customer experience.
For those who don’t know, omnichannel customer experience is about meeting your customers wherever they hang out the most online and selling your products on those platforms.
Social commerce, for instance, is a prime example of the omnichannel customer experience.
Another crucial ecommerce channel is mobile commerce.
According to Statista, the total m-commerce sales in the US already surpassed $360 billion in 2021. And the same is forecasted to reach $710 billion by 2025.
Looking at these statistics, it goes without saying that your customers should be able to purchase your products on their smartphones & social media platforms just as easily as they can on your desktop website.
10 – Augmented Reality
When COVID-19 Pandemic restricted people from visiting brick-and-mortar stores to try on apparel items before purchasing, ecommerce brands started integrating Augmented Reality technology in their online stores.
The AR technology enabled customers to try on apparel through either webcam or by uploading their photos and allowed them to experience the product digitally.
While the pandemic has begun to wane, customers continue to make apparel purchases online. AR has given them the possibility to shop apparels confidently on the internet and that trend is only going to grow in the near future.
Key Takeaway
If you’re an ecommerce brand looking for ways to not only maintain but also grow your market share in 2022 and beyond, you need to double down on improving customer experience in your ecommerce storefront.
Implementing the 10 future trends mentioned in the article will definitely help to elevate your overall ecommerce customer experience and increase your market share in the near future.
MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”
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