In this comprehensive exploration of the evolving landscape of marketing and eCommerce for 2024, we engage in a dialogue with key industry experts: Mércedes Gómez Varela, payment solutions guru and partnerships lead at Worldline; Zahira Martín, the Ecommerce director at La Casa de las Carcasas, dedicated to automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI); and Joan Miró, General Manager at Kraz, a renowned Data Science consultancy with a keen eye on data trends.
Embracing the Past, Navigating the Present: A Reflection on 2023
As we embark on discussions about the future, it’s essential to reflect on the recent past—specifically, the nuances of the industry in 2023.
Joan: Let’s dissect this into two dimensions. Economically, there’s an air of uncertainty at the macro level, suppressing exuberance. On the flip side, the data realm is abuzz with excitement, driven by projects, investments, and a palpable interest in harnessing data’s potential.
A seismic event in 2023 was the eruption of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, GPT4, and Gemini, leveraging BART’s interface. This not only diverted attention from other popular topics like the metaverse but also reshaped data use and access dynamics. The pivotal question here is the future trajectory of these models and their evolving applications.
Mercedes: Macroscopic inflation, impacting not just Spain but all of Europe, induces consumer spending retraction. Paradoxically, it favors eCommerce by propelling business through comparison tools like marketplaces. From a merchant solutions perspective, economic uncertainty prompts companies to make decisions with a long-term focus on profitability and expenses.
Undoubtedly, the standout theme of the year has been artificial intelligence (AI). It’s not merely a passing trend but a contagion that has permeated various sectors, businesses, and fields, signifying its enduring presence.
Zahira: The AI landscape, while present for years, witnessed an unprecedented surge in tools and opportunities for experimentation and research. This revolutionized eCommerce and digital marketing, especially in process automation, streamlining mundane tasks, liberating bandwidth for creative endeavors.
Amid economic shifts, AI drove up acquisition costs, prompting a meticulous review of expenditure. It helped us optimize our approach by revealing underutilized tools and pinpointing areas for refinement.
Peering into 2024: The AI Era Unfolds
Zahira: AI finds applications across our departments, particularly in generative AI for content creation. Leveraging existing content, we stretch its utility in copywriting, creative elements, and even the construction of programmed ad structures. Internationally, with a presence in multiple countries, AI aids in catalog translation, providing a foundational translation for local teams to refine.
Other AI-driven tools in play include our website chatbot, contributing significantly to user engagement, and the analysis of customer reviews for extracting keywords.
Mercedes: AI is poised to tackle the most intricate aspects of our work, especially in payments. Dealing with millions of customers and transactions, AI, alongside fraud detection, allows merchants to configure fraud detection patterns before transmitting information to the card issuer. The potential applications of AI extend beyond mere merchant protection to empowering consumers against unauthorized transactions.
Joan: While individual departments leverage AI tools for specific benefits, such as content creation and design, the industrial-scale use of AI is expected in 2024. Utilizing tools like GPT4 or Gemini with database connectors for continuous translation represents a paradigm shift. However, the challenge lies in the organizational integration of AI at a corporate level, especially for larger enterprises.
The Marketplace Momentum: Navigating the Wave of Consumer Accumulation
Zahira: Acknowledging the trend of consumer accumulation in marketplaces, the focus for 2024 is personalized shopping experiences. Marketplaces armed with extensive customer data are poised to tailor the purchasing journey, aiming for users to exclusively choose their platform. Analyzing user behavior becomes pivotal, allowing businesses to anticipate needs and enhance user engagement.
Mercedes: The evolution of marketplaces is essential. The emergence of niche marketplaces and the expansion of eCommerce businesses into new product categories are foreseeable developments. Even in the B2B realm, significant marketplace projects are underway, fostering a democratization that benefits eCommerce platforms with established customer bases.
Additionally, exploring avenues like second-hand markets gains traction, driven by companies like Decathlon championing sustainability through the sale of reconditioned products.
Adapting to Cookie-free Horizons: Navigating the Post-Cookie Era
Joan: The impending removal of third-party cookies in Chrome by Google marks a substantial shift. This, coupled with Apple’s privacy-focused moves, emphasizes a growing trend towards user privacy. While this change poses challenges in advertising, especially in measurement and tracking, it also signals a shift away from traditional attribution models.
Exploring alternative attribution models becomes crucial in light of these changes. Marketing strategies will need to adapt to evolving landscapes, moving beyond reliance on last-click and first-click models.
The Payment Landscape in 2024: Insights from Worldline’s Extensive Study
Mercedes: Drawing insights from the upcoming study, “Expectations of online shoppers: today, tomorrow and beyond,” there’s a merchant obsession with fraud management. Despite the PSD2’s impact reduction, fraud remains a concern, prompting a focus on risk minimization, cost reduction, and optimization.
Merchants prioritize loyalty, recurrence, and hyper-personalization within payments and logistics—the less glamorous aspects of the eCommerce value chain. The study also delves into the significant shift in Spain’s payment mix, with a surge in popularity for methods like Bizum, Wallets, Google Pay, and Apple Pay among the younger generation.
Unveiling the Future of Digital Advertising Costs
Zahira: The trajectory of digital advertising costs appears to be on an upward trend. Intensified competition for keywords and the escalating use of advertising contribute to this cost surge. The key to mitigating acquisition cost impact lies in customer retention and increasing average transaction values. Payment models, especially deferred payments, have played a role in elevating our average transaction values.
Decoding Marketing Effectiveness: Insights from Kraz’s Advanced Data and Marketing Mix Modelling
Joan: Industries have unique channel preferences, and our focus at Kraz has been on Marketing Mix Modelling. This serves as a referee, aggregating sales data from various advertising platforms to discern patterns and understand how platforms or campaigns respond to specific actions. The model provides a visual representation of sales or lead curves, attributing weights to factors influencing their evolution.
Navigating Social Commerce and Predicting Platform Popularity
Zahira: While liveshopping hasn’t been explored yet, influencer-led live campaigns have been part of our strategy. TikTok emerges as a potential surprise platform, although its current cost may pose challenges. Google Ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) remain our primary choices for social media advertising.
In conclusion, 2024 promises a dynamic landscape with AI at the forefront, personalized marketplace experiences, adaptive advertising strategies, and innovative payment models reshaping the eCommerce narrative. As the industry braces for challenges and embraces opportunities, staying ahead of the curve will be pivotal for sustained success.
