The 2022 holiday shopping season has begun and forward-thinking brands are seizing the opportunity to collect zero-party data via interactive experiences in the busiest email week of the year.  While Marigold confirms over 13 billion emails being sent across our products this week, we saw the deployment of campaigns on our Experience platform nearly double year over year, with over 20 million consumers participating from the Monday before through Cyber Monday.

In a week traditionally focused on solely driving sales via offers and discounts, this trend to engage and collect zero-party data shows forward-thinking brands striving to build relationships with consumers and bolster their ability to personalize their future messaging and offers this season.  Many of the experiences put before consumers allow brands to collect real-time sentiment and purchase intent through surveys, polls, and other creative interactions to deliver the right personalized offer at the moment.  The experiences can be placed on brand websites, apps, or even within advertisements.

Marigold’s clients using Experiences include brands like Pepsi. Chris Muscutt, head of martech for Pepsi in the UK, recently discussed the brand’s investment in zero-party data (ZPD), along with the concept of progressive profiling consumers across brands in their portfolio. Muscutt has been leading the charge to place a value on the individual ZPD collected within these consumer engagements to prove an ROI against their efforts to collect it.  He shares more about his experience with ZPD in this recent video interview.

The second trend Marigold found this week was an increase in purchase activity from loyalty programs.  Looking at a steady base of clients year over year, purchase activity is up approximately 25% starting Black Friday through Cyber Monday. This shows that brands investing in loyalty solutions are reaping the benefits at the cash register during the peak holiday kickoff.  Our platform provides clients with emotional loyalty recognizing non-financial transactions beyond the basic points-for-purchase. Tracking and rewarding customer actions that don’t always require them to dip into their wallet strengthens the customer relationship and has an impact when that customer is ready to buy.  We expect this trend to continue into 2023 as consumers are faced with a recession and will look to find more value from brands that are rewarding their every interaction.

The last note for the week is from Liveclicker, another Marigold solution used by Chipotle, Food Network, and Mastercard to deliver real-time experiences (think countdown clocks and geo-targeting tools).  That platform saw a 75% increase year over year in email volume sent on Black Friday. More than ever, marketers recognize personalization as the pathway to ROI.

Want to learn how we can help you build better relationships with your customers? Reach out to us and we’ll create a strategy unique to your brand needs.  For more content and ideas across email, SMS, ZPD, or loyalty programs, visit our Signals video-on-demand library.