Content Type Blog Post

Marketers have heard it a million times: Customers want personalization. They want offers, promotions and recommendations tailored specifically to them, straight to their inbox. In our own research, Epsilon found consumers are 80% more likely to make a purchase when a brand offers personalized experiences.

Let’s take a short trip back to March 2020—no mask required.

Although digital has been a significant part of shopper marketing for a few years now, connecting with customers digitally on an individual, one-to-one level has been a challenge for the industry. Why? Because most of the data comes in the form of "audiences" and "segments," not individual journeys.

For the past 20-plus years, casinos have been at the forefront of using first-party behavioral data to drive intelligent segmentation and targeting. Now, it’s time to apply that same innovation to leverage third-party data, as well. Casino marketers have been trained to believe that “External appended data doesn’t predict gaming behavior.” But when it comes down to it, that's not entirely true anymore.

For most marketers, last year was all about hunkering down, trimming marketing spend, putting a pause on innovation and focusing on staying afloat. Few industries were hit harder than travel, with airlines nearly halting service, hotels left without guests, and only one in three tourism destinations open to international travelers. Even Disneyland had to close its doors for a bit—only the third time in history…

You’ve heard it a million times—"the modern marketing landscape is in the middle of a major change"—which is inherently true. The Covid-19 pandemic pushed marketers to completely rethink the way they communicate with customers, and the deprecation of third-party cookies coupled with increasing privacy restrictions by the likes of Apple and Google have made it even more difficult to have that dialogue with customers digitally.

As consumers, we’ve defined the financial services industry by the different products offered to us. For example, we may work with one bank for our mortgage needs and another for our checking and a third for our savings and financial planning.

Hear from our experts on the specific criteria and Epsilon's ratings in the 2021 Forrester Wave™ on Loyalty Solutions—and why they matter to your loyalty marketing outcomes.

The biggest topic in marketing in the past year has been data deprecation and its impact on knowing your consumers in a digital context. But there have been other forces at play for some time—changing privacy regulations, walled gardens restrictions and consumer-driven privacy control—culminating in one conclusion for nearly every marketer: They need to double-down on first-party data.

Over the last year, the auto industry has had to practically overhaul strategy and accelerate retail innovation to meet fast-paced changes in consumer expectations. How OEMs and dealers craft and model the customer experience is transforming—from the moment when a customer starts looking for a new vehicle, shopping, test-driving, sale and every digital and in-person interaction in between.

Table of contents:  

A recent Phocuswire article explained Expedia’s focus on the cruise segment, continuing to invest to capture cruise demand by simplifying the shopping and booking experience, including a big focus on their call center extending the digital experience. The complexities of a cruise conversion make online bookings a challenge—and the cruise brands’ own call centers are at the center of their direct booking activity—so brands cannot…

Visit Omaha wanted to reach visitors during the city’s offseason and attract them to the area. Epsilon helped to evaluate their traditional audience markets and serve eye-catching creative to boost visitation during winter months, resulting in a strong revenue and community impact from over 14,500 new tourists. Let's see how they did it. 

Spam traps remain a top concern of senders fielded by our team. Yet while there is general agreement that spam traps should be avoided, there is not necessarily universal understanding as to what spam traps are or how they function for receiving networks and block list moderators. What are spam traps? How do spam traps work?  In short, a spam trap is a record designed…

The slow march to widespread adoption of first-party data became a full-on sprint last year—and it hasn’t slowed. Originally driven by consumers through privacy laws and regulations, the deprecation of third-party cookies and mobile ad identifiers has required marketers to take stock of their first-party data assets. Thankfully, the majority of marketers we surveyed last year (61.9%) were focusing on first-party data strategies to meet…

Retail marketers have contended with numerous roadblocks in recent months. Just as eCommerce skyrocketed in the wake of COVID-19, third-party identifiers (3PIDs) like cookies and Apple’s IDFA began deprecating. The effect made it more difficult for marketers to reach targeted consumers, as well as to confirm when—or if—an engagement was achieved for subsequent measurement and insights.

Refining and perfecting a recipe is a baker’s Everest. Working through two, three, four iterations of a recipe take time and dedication—a passion (and ability) shared by few. Auzerais Bellamy, owner of Blondery, is one of the few.

At the end of the last school year, 60% of kids were going to school at least part of the week, and it’s likely that number rises heading into next year. As in-person schooling crawls back towards normalcy, so too does in-store grocery shopping – 85% of shoppers are back in the aisles. Does your digital marketing distinguish between parents of in-person and remote learning…

Bar Louie came into 2020 knowing it needed a change. The gastrobar staple, known for its great drinks and community feel, was facing a bankruptcy, and was using the reorganization as a chance to realign its overall company goals with smarter, data-driven marketing strategies focused on targeted messaging for lapsed customers.

Have you ever baked something by following a recipe—maybe a layered blondie cheesecake jar from renowned DTC bakery, Blondery, or even Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies? What happens when you don’t have all of the ingredients and their measurements? Or a bowl and mixer to transform those ingredients into the finished goodies?