Is your business still talking in terms of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar marketing and sales? Questioning investment in digital? Worried about e-commerce cannibalizing in-store sales? If so, you’re not alone—but it’s time to start looking at the purchase pathway more holistically. This is because e-commerce and brick-and-mortar sales can blend, and it can be difficult to separate the marketing strategy and levers that ultimately drive them. Instead, it’s smart to take a step back and realize these blurred lines are part of the same overall goal: increasing sales. We can embrace them with a new strategy in which digital marketing influences all sales, regardless of where they take place. How shopping is changing You already know that the COVID era has accelerated a shift to digital-first shopping and buying that was a long time in coming. Embracing a new paradigm starts with understanding that digital plays a role in almost every purchase, whether at the research, comparison, or transaction stage. Recent data and research bear this out. Retail e-commerce sales are on track to hit over $900 billion this year, an increase of nearly 14% over the already-hot market growth of 2020. Smaller retailers are likely to see higher conversion rates than the giants like Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target. And, even if you’re a bit slower to the party, it isn’t too late by any measure: by 2023, e-commerce sales are forecast to climb from 13% to 22% of all purchases. The biggest players in e-commerce are embracing the idea that digital marketing drives both online and in-store purchases. According to research by The Digital Shelf Institute, advertising on retailer sites has a halo effect, driving sales on other platforms and in other channels, such as brick and mortar. In fact, this halo may be as high as $3 to $7 for every $1 spent in digital advertising on Amazon. Insight into sales channels So, with proof that digital is influencing sales in all channels, let’s look at the next challenge: breaking down internal barriers. Digital and brick-and-mortar teams have traditionally been siloed—and sometimes even in competition for the same finite resources—but this can (and should) change. The lever for change is access to insights from business intelligence. This is an area where many marketers struggle, but it’s make-or-break stakes for brands, especially considering how volatile the consumer market is. For CPG and e-commerce marketers ready to level up their business intelligence insight, Line Item is a lifeline to more profitable e-commerce. This performance analytics platform gives marketers a single tool for insights into what’s working for brands—and what’s holding them back. This includes:

• Insight to optimize SEO strategy and search results
• Ability to identify new or unknown competitors
• Attribute-level insight to understand what drives value
• Ability to monitor third-party activity and pricing
• Visibility into gaps in content, imagery, or product descriptions that might be hurting rankings and much more

With detailed insight via a single platform, Line Item can enable a new, BI-driven approach to marketing that embraces digital marketing as critical to every purchase pathway. How to embrace a digitally influenced strategy Let’s get into the details to demonstrate how embracing a digitally influenced strategy empowered by Line Item can change how you resource your marketing—and determine success. Consider how online and digital initiatives can ultimately influence all purchases. For example, research from GE Capital has revealed that 81% of shoppers start their research online. This means that your SEO campaigns, page rankings, and online product content really matter. If they’re not putting you on page one for organic and paid rankings, you’re missing out—and that’s going to affect in-store sales as well as online purchases. This is where Line Item can really make a difference, with insight into how your campaigns are performing, if you’re getting your share of page one, and if there are gaps in descriptions that are affecting consistency (which will affect your rankings). Think about what gaps in your tools and resources might be holding your brand back. Do you know how your campaigns are performing, and if they’re profitable? If out-of-stocks are hurting your revenue? If your reviews are hurting your reputation and your sales? Insight into these drivers is critical in helping you boost your marketing return on investment. Line Item gives you the kind of smart insights to drive more sales. Some of the biggest giants in e-commerce are recognizing the power of digital in influencing their sales and are adopting an omnichannel strategy. We think it’s most powerful when this omnichannel approach is also underpinned by the power of Line Item, with detailed insight into e-analytics and what’s driving your sales. Learn how Line Item can be your lifeline to more profitable e-commerce—and more sales in any channel.

The world of CPG and e-commerce has been changing fast—and the wild ride doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. The rise of e-commerce has turned many brick-and-mortar shoppers into online and omnichannel shoppers. And they’re rapidly moving between channels, influenced by availability, good deals, and convenience. As a result, shopping trends can change fast—and brands are under pressure to adapt. This is challenging under any circumstances, but especially in a market as dynamic as it is today. It’s more important than ever to have access to business intelligence that can help you make better decisions for your brand and products. This is where turning to a robust performance analytics platform like Line Item can enable powerful monitoring and optimization of e-analytics data for greater visibility, profitability, and competitive edge. As you’re considering e-analytics platforms and options, it’s important to evaluate the frequency and cadence of the data offered by the solutions you’re considering. This is because data velocity is key in helping you home in on actionable insights in a fast-paced market. In most cases, platforms offer either daily or weekly updated data.

• Daily data is reported and updated at a set time each day. This means the most recent day’s information is added to the dataset, giving you updated insight as well as any corrections or adjustments to previous days’ data.
• Weekly data is typically updated on the same day of the week each week. It gives you an aggregated overview of every data point, but it doesn’t isolate specific individual days.

The frequency and cadence of the data are going to influence your e-commerce marketing strategy, and your ability to respond to these dynamic shifts we’re continuing to see in the market, so it’s crucial to understand the difference. Weekly data can help you understand and forecast general sales trends over time as well as focus on consumer behavior trends like popular keyword searches. Weekly data, though, can hamper your ability to respond to market shifts and changes in consumer behaviors with agility. This is where daily data can make a huge difference in business intelligence and responsiveness for brands. Daily data can enable you to respond to a range of scenarios that can make or break your brand. Here are a few to consider. Speed reaction time. Daily data can accelerate your ability to respond to things that can have an adverse effect on sales, like out-of-stocks, third-party activity, and MAP violations. This is where daily insight from Line Item can help you monitor out-of-stocks and determine if they’re hurting your revenue. Line Item also enables you to verify item pricing, analyze if your products are overpriced, or help you identify third-party activity that might be damaging your brand or its sales. With the potential cascade effect of retailers lowering prices across platforms, pricing violations can quickly hurt revenue—and waiting a week for insight could do serious damage to your bottom line. Understand and react to customer sentiment. Imagine that your customers have microphones, and they’re able to broadcast bad news when they see it. This isn’t a stretch, as social media is the microphone, and customers are using it widely and freely. Add to this the reality that in a digital world, customers seek out reviews before purchasing, and you can see how a negative review can have a snowball effect on customer sentiment. In a fast-paced market, you won’t want to wait a week for damage control. Daily data can give you insight into reviews—and Line Item can help with visibility into reviews that might be holding your brand back, so you have the agility to course correct. Track and parse trends. In such a rapidly changing market, trends can mean new opportunities for sales—and to grow brand and product loyalty with a persuadable market. But taking advantage of them requires timely insight into changes in shopper behavior, high-volume days and the effect on demand, and understanding what really drives value. Knowledge truly is power, and Line Item can help you have more of both. You can monitor new and unknown competitors, including foreign and low-priced, to understand potential threats to customers and market share. You can also drill down into product attributes to understand what customers are seeking, from flavors to form and packaging. This is especially critical as new variables come into play in our ever-changing present. Access to more and better data is changing how e-commerce and CPG marketers respond to the market. It’s a competitive advantage your brand can’t afford to ignore. But choosing the right cadence and frequency of data enables agility and insight that can truly make the difference in sales and profitability. It’s important to understand the difference in data delivery between platforms and evaluate how access to daily data can help your brand better navigate today’s wild ride. This is where Line Item can truly be your lifeline to more profitable e-commerce.

The most wonderful time of the year…is here. You already know that the holiday shopping season is the most critical period for retailers, both online and brick and mortar. How your business does during the last quarter of the year determines where things land for your bottom line. This year, though, brand and e-commerce marketing managers are facing another wild ride, with uncertainty created by shifting trends. The pandemic brought on a surge in online buying, and many buyers are likely to continue to buy online. In fact, according to September 2021 survey data, consumers are planning a 50/50 split between online and brick-and-mortar buying. The retail giants—Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart—are already capitalizing on convenience to hold onto their share of wallet. There are other factors, though, to consider. Shopping trends are changing fast. News of supply chain pressures and worldwide shipping delays has spurred many shoppers to buy early or shift their buying behavior — 83% of shoppers intend to start before Thanksgiving this year, in a departure from the norm. In such an unpredictable market at such a high-stakes time of year, business intelligence has never mattered more. This is where the performance analytics platform Line Item can be the lifeline e-commerce marketers need right now to ensure they make the most of the holiday season. As we head into the heart of the 2021 holiday season, here are a few strategies to prepare and protect your digital shelf for the upcoming holidays. Focus on organic search ranking. Whether they’re buying online or in person, many shoppers start their research online—on a smartphone or a tablet. This is why it’s essential to monitor and improve your online search ranking. Watch where you’re showing up, too. Moving from page 2 to page 1—and even into the top 10 listings—can significantly boost your sales. Improving your organic search ranking depends on visibility into what’s working—or not—for your brand. This is where Line Item can help, with detailed insight into what changes you could make to content, product descriptions, or imagery to affect your ranking in organic search results. Analyze your paid search strategy. Shoppers are pressed for time, and you have only seconds to capture attention when it comes to search results. The holiday season is the time to invest in a robust paid search strategy, but you’ll want to be sure you understand what product attributes drive value. This is where Line Item can give you valuable campaign-level and product attribute insights. With them, you can better understand what’s driving the market and what your competitors are doing, so you can sharpen your edge and see ROI from a page-1 slot. Ensure your product detail pages are complete. This is a biggie. Incomplete or inconsistent product detail pages can harm you, whether we’re talking about Amazon listings or your own website. Across your e-commerce portfolio, all product detail pages should be complete, correct, and compelling. Line Item can help with this to make sure you aren’t overlooking clear areas or gaps that prevent you from meeting category bestseller benchmark standards. Evaluate your SEO strategy and campaigns. During this volatile time of year, whims and demand drive the market in unpredictable ways. And that’s during a typical season, which 2021 is anything but. It’s essential to drill down to campaign elements, including CPCs, to ensure you have a read on how changing demand, sudden interest, or seasonality might be driving spend. E-analytics insight from Line Item can help you ensure your campaigns are profitable and that your overall marketing spend ultimately drives return on investment. Watch out-of-stocks closely. Maintaining optimal inventory is key to profitability. When a customer is ready to buy and your product is out of stock, you lose the sale—and maybe the customer, too. Line Item helps you determine if out-of-stocks are hurting your revenue. Track pricing. Many retailers are introducing new pricing strategies to drive sales this holiday season. Buy Now Pay Later is one of these, and it can appeal to segments like Gen Z and the unbanked, both of which are more price sensitive. The major retailers have already rolled out BNPL options; some have been in play since 2019. BNPL can affect pricing, so it’s important to monitor this. With Line Item, you can verify item pricing, selling price, and list price across platforms, ensuring that products are priced correctly even with new options like BNPL, and you can easily monitor third-party and competitor activity to protect your brand and products. Of course, there are other strategies to consider, too—best practices like:

• Ensuring your checkout process is as easy as possible
• Providing access to customer service with tools like live chat, and with quick responses
• Creating engaging content, like gift guides
• Using targeting and segmentation to create personalized email campaigns
• Boosting sales with savvy retargeting
• Using updated visuals and copy for featured holiday campaigns, and to ensure your site and product pages have that holiday look and feel, and more

This holiday season may be full of surprises, but your performance shouldn’t be one of them. The right insight can make or break your brand this holiday season, and business intelligence can give you what you need, when you need it. This is where Line Item really stands out as a single platform with insight into shopping trends and behavior, and what your competitors are doing—so you can finish 2021 in the black.