Executive Summary
Gavin Laugenie, Global Head of Content, Dotdigital
Ecommerce activity is on the rise around the world, driven in part by a global pandemic that has stimulated online shopping in record numbers. As competition rises among ecommerce-enabled brands, we worked hard to ensure that our 2022 Hitting the Mark Report reflected the state of the industry more accurately than ever.
Our most comprehensive global research coverage yet
We expanded our evaluation criteria from email practices to cover the entire customer journey — examining the marketing and customer experience performance of 100 ecommerce brands around the world. We also expanded the regions we analyzed that included more varied types of ecommerce companies. E.g. subscription services, DTC There’s another key change in the way we performed our analysis: the scoring criteria also penalized brands for areas of poor performance. When it comes to basic best practices of digital marketing, some things just aren’t negotiable. In order to up the ante, and show what it really means to “hit the mark”, we’re keeping our standards high. Each section evaluates a different aspect of the customer journey in order to break down actionable and achievable strategies, with added insight from our expert partners. We look forward to sharing what we’ve learned, to help advance the ecommerce experience for customers around the world.
Enhancement in some areas, room for improvement in others
Our research revealed incremental improvements in how companies handle their customer experience and cross-channel communications — but our scoring changes also highlighted some shortcomings in their email marketing. For example, when it comes to email, welcome campaigns are well-established as brands strive to make subscribers feel wanted. On the other hand, they're limited by a lack of personalization. An inconsistent approach to preference center access and thin data gathering processes let some brands — and ultimately their customers — down. Companies often failed to use the data they did have effectively, leaving personalization opportunities on the table, or mishandling it by using incorrect data (such as the name of an order's recipient rather than the account's owner) when they did use it. Gavin Laugenie, Global Head of Content
We look forward to sharing what we’ve learned, to help advance the ecommerce experience for customers around the world."
