Tech Tactics is Sourcing Journal’s series with brands and technology companies to discuss their latest innovations.
Getting customers to complete a purchase—let alone multiple—has become a tricky task for retailers in recent years. In fact, according to Baymard Institute, around 70 percent of online and in-store shoppers abandon their carts, complicating efforts to build customer loyalty.
To combat this problem, Bluecore launched its new Experimentation Hub on Thursday. This tool enables retailers to test their marketing strategies against broader customer-centric goals, such as increasing first-time buyer conversions and improving purchase frequency, rather than focusing solely on individual campaigns or channel-level tests which have become “the industry standard,” according to the retail technology company.
Related Stories
“Experimentation is critical for retailers to determine what’s working and what’s not as part of their marketing strategies,” said Dave Lokes, vice president of digital strategy at Bluecore. “But the only way to make decisions that will impact customer behavior and drive growth is by first understanding the signals of shoppers that indicate movement toward retention or churn.”
The hub, which will be utilized by retailers like Tapestry, Alo Yoga and Express, allows retail marketers to test campaigns across key audiences, including new buyers, retained customers and reactivated customers. This will help brands identify and prioritize strategies that enhance customer engagement and drive growth.
Additionally, the tool will allow marketers to break down data silos and test against key customer metrics, such as first-time buyer conversion rates, average order value (AOV) and purchase frequency.
By shifting the focus of experimentation to revenue-driving outcomes, Bluecore says marketers can achieve a more predictable return on testing spend and better optimize their programs for incremental revenue growth.
“With the Experimentation Hub, we’re putting customers front and center to retailers’ testing and offering a holistic approach to customer movement so marketers can analyze, execute and test toward their goals, all within the Bluecore platform,” Lokes said.
This tool builds on Bluecore’s broader suite of products and services, including its predictive intelligence tools. These tools have helped renowned brands like Steve Madden reduce campaign production time by 87.5 percent and increase their repeat buyer rate by 22 percent through predictive campaigns.
To get these results, the Steve Madden team inputs its retail data into Bluecore’s retail-first platform, designed to identify the best recommendations for each shopper. Bluecore then integrates with the brand’s existing technology, enhancing the value of its current data sources to generate predictive recommendations and personalize its campaigns.
“Bluecore helps Steve Madden provide unique customer experiences—delivering [personal] recommendations for our ever-growing product assortment,” Hannah Sinclair, director of retention marketing at Steve Madden, said in a Bluecore case study. “The predictive intelligence tools also ensures that Steve Madden [can help its] customers find great products that are as unique as they are.”
