Eight last minute ways to maximize revenue this holiday season

Holiday season is here. Creative is ready, campaigns are scheduled and promotions are starting to go live. The next month means everything to your DTC brand. Either you have strong sales…or you reevaluate what’s next. You don’t want to discount too heavily, but you need to drive sales. Sales from new buyers. New buyers with the potential to become brand champions. It’s a tall order, and you’re feeling the pressure. 

You’re probably reading this blog because you want to make sure you’ve done everything possible to set your brand up for success. You want to make sure your efforts will drive the most possible revenue, not leaving a stone unturned. We’re here to tell you about clean and unified data, and eight ways it can still help your brand this holiday season. If you’re not sure why customer data needs to be cleaned, take a look at this article before jumping into the list. 

1. Attract higher-value shoppers based on accurate cohorts

With an accurate customer history (based on clean and unified data), you can get a clear picture of shopper behavior over time. A simple cohort analysis based on clean data will show which acquisition strategies lead to attracting higher value customers, and which strategies you need to change. Without an accurate customer history, it’s impossible to implement the right merchandising strategy, the most effective media mix or any sort of personalization. 

2. Create marketing segments and lookalike audiences that result in sales

Clean and unified data means you can understand which customers are first-time buyers, which are repeat buyers, and how each customer has interacted with your brand in the past. Creating segments based on real purchase history means the right message is delivered to the right customer. 

3. Adjust promotion strategy based on true outcomes and relative cost

Are promotions primarily being used by already loyal shoppers who would have made a purchase at full price, had the promo not been offered? Is your first-time buyer free shipping code being used by repeat buyers who are signing up with a second email just to get the promo? Once data has been cleaned and unified around IRL shoppers, it’s possible to see the patterns that answer these questions. There’s still enough time to adjust your promotion strategy to maximize your revenue this year. 

4. Optimize your merchandising strategy to align with holiday goals

Is your goal this holiday season to sell as much product as possible? Is it to grow awareness of a newly launched brand? Is it hinged on repeat purchases from past holiday seasons shoppers? Clean and unified customer data can show the right merchandising strategy to align with any of these goals. 

5. Shift marketing budget toward a more effective mix

You know social media advertising is the primary way to get your product in front of potential customers, but it seems like there are always new changes to navigate. Which platform is most effective at winning new buyers? Which is most effective at creating strong communities? What is the lifetime value of shoppers who purchase through Instagram vs TikTik vs Facebook? To understand the truth in these scenarios, it’s critical to have clean data that’s unified across platforms. When your data gives a full picture of customer history, you can shift your media investment to align with your goals. 

6. Identify behavior of gift buyers to create effective merchandising and marketing strategies

Gift buyers have different habits and triggers. Buying for others doesn’t look exactly the same as buying for ourselves. They might love your brand and want to share it, but perhaps won’t spend as much as they would on themselves. Or maybe your brand is their “go-to” for corporate gifts, and you have the chance to get their Christmas budget for the first time. Clean and unified data can allow you to identify the behavior of gift buyers specific to your brand, and create the most effective strategies to win their purchasing this Christmas season. 

7. Clean marketing lists to not waste money

This is a super simple step that can save you thousands of dollars and requires nothing more than a few clicks of a button. Login to Orita and securely transfer your data from just about any source (via Fivetran). After a couple of days, clean and deduplicated data files will be sent back to you. Simply upload the clean data into the platforms you use to send emails, catalogs or text messages and save money by not delivering marketing to the same person multiple times. 

8. Be prepared for promo abuse 

Increased acquisition-focused promotions always equal increased duplicates in your data, primarily because shoppers will create multiple accounts to take advantage of one-time use codes. The graph below shows what this trend looks like for a real ecommerce client of ours that experiences major seasonality. Between 70-80% of duplicate accounts for the year are created during the holiday season. 

While this can’t be prevented, you can be prepared. First, our data confidence platform can notify you of a spike. Second, you can exclude this data from your calculations and analytics until it’s been cleaned. Don’t let yourself rely on inaccurate numbers when measuring your success.

For Leading E-commerce Brand, More than 70% of Duplicate Accounts are Created During the Holiday Season

While the rising cost of customer acquisition, predictions for lower spending, and the rapidly changing pace of consumer preferences might have you in a tailspin heading into the holiday season, it’s not too late to make some changes that will help set your brand up for maximum success. It takes less than a week to clean and unify your customer data, and it could be the secret weapon you’re looking for. 

We’d love to chat about how we can help, reach out today.