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As retailers globally navigate extraordinary disruptions, industry leaders are showcasing their resilience, determination, and innovative spirit. We’ve initiated a series of discussions with executives from Amazon Web Services (AWS) strategic partners to highlight their leadership and adaptability during these challenging times.
In this edition of our Retail Partner Executive Conversations blog series, we sit down with Emily Carter, VP of Solutions and Product Marketing at Rokt, a pioneer in ecommerce technology. In this conversation, Emily shares her insights on the significance of fostering sustainable and profitable growth through advanced technology.
AWS:
Can you provide insight into your perspective? What are Rokt’s primary segments within the retail industry, and what types of retail executives do you engage with?
Emily Carter:
Rokt maintains a robust presence in the retail sector, serving clients from various segments, including well-known brands like Lands’ End and Wayfair. However, our solutions extend beyond retail, reaching diverse sectors such as travel, telecommunications, and financial services. We’ve built successful partnerships with leaders in these areas like Live Nation, PayPal, and Hello Fresh. In retail, we interact with CMOs, heads of ecommerce experience, and strategic partners, all dedicated to driving growth, profitability, brand awareness, and enhancing customer experiences. We also connect with executives from sales, operations, and customer experience to better understand the unique challenges retailers face. Ultimately, our goal is to provide customized solutions that meet these specific needs.
AWS:
Retailers are currently dealing with significant disruption. What challenges are your retail clients facing?
Emily Carter:
Retailers in 2023 are encountering substantial hurdles in both ecommerce and broader retail landscapes. The rising competition and the struggle for differentiation in an overcrowded online marketplace present considerable challenges. The bankruptcies of major players like Bed Bath & Beyond and David’s Bridal highlight the necessity for sustainable and profitable growth that transcends digital platforms. Retailers must successfully navigate these challenges to thrive in both online and physical environments.
Moreover, customer expectations are at an all-time high, with personalization becoming essential. Retailers need to deliver customized shopping experiences, tailored recommendations, and seamless customer service across various channels. Meeting these expectations requires sophisticated data analytics, AI-driven algorithms, and a deep understanding of customer preferences and behaviors.
Another significant challenge is the phasing out of third-party cookies, which heavily impacts the data retailers can access. With privacy issues gaining traction, major web browsers and regulatory actions have limited the use of third-party cookies for tracking and targeting. This shift complicates retailers’ efforts to gather insights into customer behaviors and preferences, making it more challenging to provide personalized experiences, focused advertising, and effective customer segmentation.
To address these challenges, retailers must continually adapt, innovate, and invest in cutting-edge technologies to enhance customer experiences and maintain a competitive edge.
AWS:
How do you see retailers adjusting their operations to align with current market dynamics and evolving consumer expectations?
Emily Carter:
Retailers are responding to market dynamics and changing consumer expectations by embracing digital transformation. They are investing in user-friendly interfaces, personalized marketing, and data-driven advertising strategies to enhance their ecommerce platforms. By utilizing advanced technologies like Rokt, retailers can optimize the customer experience on an individual level, maximizing marketing efficiency.
To achieve profitability, retailers are concentrating on managing their operating costs, developing retail media networks, and improving organizational efficiencies. They recognize the growing importance of advertising through retail media, which is rapidly expanding in the industry. By creating strong retail media networks, retailers can unlock additional revenue streams beyond their core operations and utilize customer data for targeted advertising experiences.
Through strategic adjustments, retailers can navigate tighter budgets and lower advertising costs while effectively responding to market dynamics and consumer expectations.
AWS:
The retail sector demonstrates remarkable resilience. What role do you see technology and the cloud playing in the future of retail? How will technology enhance customer experiences and improve operational efficiencies?
Emily Carter:
Moving forward, technology and the cloud will be vital in the retail industry, enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiencies. By leveraging data analytics, AI, and machine learning, retailers can provide personalized experiences and targeted promotions. The cloud enables scalable and integrated data management and real-time operations. By adopting these technologies, retailers can meet shifting consumer expectations and stimulate growth in a competitive retail environment.
AWS:
Amid current retail disruptions, how is Rokt innovating to support its customers?
Emily Carter:
In the interconnected realm of ecommerce, collaboration is essential among retailers, advertisers, and technology providers to achieve success. With the evolving landscape of privacy regulations, businesses require reliable partners like Rokt to effectively utilize their first-party data. By collaborating with Rokt, ecommerce businesses can present a competitive alternative to dominant digital advertising players, capitalizing on their own first-party data.
Rokt generates new revenue streams and remarkable outcomes for ecommerce sites and advertisers by providing relevancy at pivotal transaction moments, achieving an incremental profit of over three million dollars for every 10 million transactions, and an effective cost-per-thousand impressions (eCPM) surpassing $300. Our advanced machine learning technology alleviates the consumer’s paradox of choice, curating only the best offers from premium, non-endemic brands to enhance the customer experience.
As companies establish their retail media networks, Rokt’s purpose-built technology zeroes in on the transaction moment, doubling the economics of ecommerce transactions. This unlocks immense opportunities that retailers typically overlook during the in-cart and confirmation page stages.
Rokt’s algorithm fine-tunes messaging for individual consumers, presenting personalized cross-sells and upsells during checkout, loyalty program incentives, and third-party promotions on the confirmation page. By ensuring high relevance for consumers and maximum value for brands, Rokt amplifies the potential of each ecommerce transaction.
AWS:
There’s extensive discussion regarding the transformation of the shopping experience, leading to a so-called “new normal.” What does this mean for the future of retail?
As we explore these insights, you can learn more about equal pay in the workforce by visiting Career Contessa. For further information regarding employer regulations, check out SHRM. Additionally, if you’re interested in career opportunities, consider this excellent resource.
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