Affinity Solutions Powers Customer Journey Innovation with Pepsi and Snowflake
By Liz Emery, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Affinity Solutions
Is there such a thing as a direct path to success in commerce when the consumer purchase journey is winding and fragmented? If so, what are the “must haves” to get there?
On Tuesday, July 11th, Affinity Solutions’ Chief Business and Marketing Officer, Damian Garbaccio spoke with Iwao Fusillo, eCommerce Global Head of Data & Analytics for PepsiCo and David Wells, Industry Principal for Media, Entertainment and Advertising for Snowflake at Adweek’s Commerce Week. The session “Affinity Solutions Powers Customer Journey Innovation with Pepsi and Snowflake” was about how investing in the right commerce solutions enables brand marketers to implement actionable insights for increased consumer purchase.
Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from there discussion:
Tap into new (and better) data sources
Iwao Fusillo, eCommerce Global Head of Data & Analytics from PepsiCo, discussed the power of real-time, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) insights raising the bar for big brands. Fusillo said, “very similar to what many in this group would think about from a return perspective, it is very much a return on ad spend business, so we spend a lot of time, energy and effort in optimizing that one thing.” Exactly as Fusillo said, ROAS is a key metrics for most brands. Given the importance of metrics like ROAS, data like actual purchases, becomes a crucial element to measuring accurately. Without a direct line of sight into outcomes from marketing, it becomes difficult to optimize and action as a brand.
Marketers need to prioritize understanding the complex path to purchase for their brand buyers. Leveraging new and trusted data sources to make data-driven decisioning in both activation and attribution is a growing trend. As Damian Garbaccio said, “access to data to make better decisions on the customer journey faster and in a secure way for things like in-flight analytics or inflight optimization is just getting rolling in the way we want it to.”
Marketers need to move beyond their comfort zone, jumping onboard the data bandwagon. Whether you are using first party data or second- and third-party data, the focus should be on the outcomes of your marketing to validate the true return on investment as well as how you should approach marketing optimization. Thinking beyond proxy metrics like reach and frequency is essential to validate marketing.
Put privacy first
In the privacy-by-default marketing world, leveraging real-time insights from data sources backed by consumer consent and accessed through privacy-protecting technologies is vital.
David Wells, Principal of Media, Entertainment and Advertising at Snowflake said, “Access is only as important as the governance that goes with it” and he is 100% correct. Without proper protection and investment in the right solutions for targeted marketing, brands leave themselves and their customers vulnerable. Iwao Fusillo stressed the value of technology partners like Snowflake “It’s a handshake that happens in a very secure environment.” Building the right, privacy-focused tech stack and data partner roster should be at the top of every brand’s to-do list.
Start by Starting:
Don’t wait for perfection, push your partners to utilize data-driven innovations with actionable insights to connect the dots between media impressions and outcomes. Data sharing comes with hesitation and rightfully so, but as Iwao Fusillo noted “it’s a joint win when our B2B retail partners share data with us, right? Because we are essentially growing our joint business together.”
Enabling the right solutions, like Affinity’s Consumer Purchase Insights Native App leveraging Snowflake’s data share technology, can remove the emotional barrier and provide a safe and compliant space for data-driven innovation. Getting started with key data partnerships will drive the return marketers are looking for. For example, leveraging actual consumer purchase provides a complete, granular view of customer and prospect purchase behaviors, across and between brands and categories, to inform a wide array of growth strategies based on deeper audience understanding. To learn more about how to leverage Consumer Purchase Insights to drive your business success, see our Insights to Actions blog series where we explore how to use insights to solve complex business problems. Making the right investments in data and technology partners now sets brands up for success tomorrow. Yesterday is too late.
The time is now to shift to data-centered outcomes marketing. Marketers who have a privacy-compliant, data-centric approach, backed by the right technology, that puts the consumer at the center are on the path to commerce success. To learn more about Affinity Solutions and Consumer Purchase Insights reach out to Sales@affinitysolutions.com. To watch the full session on demand click here.
