Analyzing data from Marigold's 2024 Consumer Trends Index Report, Trent Lanning (senior researcher at Marigold) has spotted a clear theme: customer loyalty will be crucial for marketers to nail this year. Here's how to get it right.

2024 is shaping up to be a transformative one for the e-commerce business. Artificial intelligence (AI), data privacy, and disruptive technologies — along with nagging concerns about the economy — all pose formidable challenges to an e-commerce landscape that already faces the pressure of increased expectations from tech-savvy consumers.

CreatorIQ recently released our annual Influencer MarketingTrends Report — a survey of hundreds of brands, agencies and creators — designed to shine a light on the most important trends worth following, noting both where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

Byline: Tim Sovay, chief business development & partnerships officer, CreatorIQ

Research shows that consumers respond better to social media ads featuring influencers.

On the consumer side, according to our same report, 72% of consumers admit they spend more to purchase from their favorite brand. Yet, 70% of consumers don't feel particularly loyal to the brands they purchase from.

Wunderkind for instance has petabytes of consumer behavior information gained from trillions of individual data points accumulated over 13 years. In just the last 30 days, we’ve tracked over 170 billion e-commerce events and captured nearly 950 million unique device or email associations, and over 11 billion e-commerce site page views.

Using Marigold Engage content management tools helped Vitacost refine successful messaging, enabling the company to capitalize on the power of kinetic email and personalization, and delivered significant impact.

In advance of the CreatorIQ Connect event on October 26 in Los Angeles, we sat down with a representative from each, getting their perspective on the trends and ideas shaping the future of digital influence.

Nyma Quidwai, vice-president, client services and inventory partnerships, Vizio Ads: “[When it comes to CTV platforms,] it’s important to remember, ‘What can you bring to the table that is a differentiating factor, and what sets that inventory apart? Having a very strong ad stack definitely helps to ensure that there are seamless ways to integrate into the inventory.

Don’t concern yourself too much about how many followers the creator in question has, because any piece of content has the potential to scale far beyond the limits of any one individual’s follower count. This is particularly true for content-first platforms like TikTok (a feature other platforms have already started to emulate).

With over a billion active users, TikTok is more than just a hub for entertainment; it's a digital universe that has completely transformed the way we interact online. For brands seeking to tap into the elusive Gen Z and Millennial market, TikTok presents a golden opportunity. However, there are also unique challenges that make standing out on the platform daunting if you don’t know how to approach TikTok correctly. Creating compelling content is a start, but it takes more than that to capture the attention of TikTok's savvy users.

As more brands lean into zero-party data collection to learn more about their customers, the opportunity to create targeted and personalized email marketing campaigns increases. But collecting actionable data requires a strategy designed to not only engage customers, but provide value as well.

The men’s clothing retailer introduced a post-rental survey built by Marigold to gather key insights from customers. Using style and preference data collected from the survey, Men’s Wearhouse was able to make recommendations and direct customers to new products and items.

Kicking off the data conversation, Truthset president Chip Russo chaired a discussion with speakers from Captify, Audigent, Newsweek, PubMatic and Experian to explore how ongoing signal loss has led marketers, agencies, and platforms to tap directly into sell-side channels for access to top-tier audience and context – and the importance of collaboration between all parties.

Recently, Koio set out to find a partner that could help them acquire first-party data and grow their customer list. After trying several companies, the Koio executive team finally settled on Wunderkind. The difference between Wunderkind and other platforms was obvious to VP of Marketing Joe Anhalt, who had the following to say about the best-in-class marketing solution:

Taken together, these steps quickly surpassed Donatos’ performance goals. In 2022 alone, Donatos added nearly 135k new members to its loyalty program. By February 2023, membership engagement hit an all-time high of 51.4%, a YoY improvement of 23%.

According to our survey, brands credit the authentic and relatable content that creators publish as the main driver of conversions, at 48%. Aspirational or instructive content follows at 21%, with ease of reach and entertainment value both tied at 15%.

Second, brands can more easily find, recruit, and manage a larger number of creator partnerships than ever thanks to the availability of creator discovery and management platforms like CreatorIQ.

Creating a consistent sound or soundtrack that is as synonymous with your brand as your logo or products themselves is a powerful tactic in any industry, but particularly suitable for verticals like the beauty industry when so many other elements of branding are fragmented.

Next, it's crucial to identify the touchpoints where customers are receptive to engagement and can influence others. By following the eyes, ears, and thumbs of customers, businesses can ensure their presence in the right places. Whether it's through QR codes, short codes, or other means, brands can create doorways for customers to consume value in any environment, be it on the radio, TV, advertising boards, sports pitches, in-store, or even on a drink.

Choose solutions that allow for more empathetic advertising toward the user experience. The more seamless and elegant the ad experience, the more receptive the user will be. For instance, we recently introduced our WunderKIND Ads solution to give brands the ability to serve ads only after visitors have finished consuming the publisher’s website content.