E-commerce and brand managers will soon have to rely on first-party data — the data you collect directly from customers yourself.

Not just to stay compliant with privacy regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA, but because a first-party data strategy can enhance your revenue, provide value internally for your business, give you better customer data, and ultimately help you build a relationship with your customers. 

Chapters:

1. What is first-party data?
2. How to use first-party data
3. How to collect first-party data
4. First-party data e-commerce strategies
5. Examples of first-party data strategy in action
6. Maximize your first-party data

What is first-party data?

First-party data is customer information and data that you collect yourself — directly from your audience. Nobody else owns this data except you. It cannot legally be sold or shared, it doesn’t follow users outside of your website, and it’s made up of two different “types” of data.

1. Declarative data

Declarative data is the data that your audience self-reports, such as their name, email address, location, and more. It doesn’t just have to be rote demographic data, however. It can also be data such as their income level, the number of pets they have, and more. It’s especially useful for understanding consumer behavior and finding out what triggers buying behaviors.

Example: A customer informs you that they have pets: two cats. This information comes directly from the customer.

2. Behavioral data

Behavioral data is data based on the activities of a site visitor. This type of data is often collected via the use of a first-party cookie or tracking pixel. This cookie is unique to your site and your site only, and never follows the user across the web. Tools like Google Analytics are commonly used in conjunction with behavioral data to analyze site performance and user behavior, giving marketers and managers granular details about what parts of their website are performing and what parts need improvement.

Example: A customer likes several cat pictures and pages on Instagram but does not explicitly tell a business they have any cats. It’s up to the business to make that inference.

How to use first-party data

Before you start on your first-party data strategy, there’s some housekeeping and tactics that will need looking at first.

Align with stakeholders on what first-party data you’ll collect

First, you need to align with stakeholders on what first-party data you’ll collect. This way, you have buy-in from everyone on your team, and everyone’s needs are equally represented. Because this first-party data will become your only data source, it needs to be as robust as possible, while still keeping within regulations.

Aligning with stakeholders requires some prep on your end. Before meeting with the different stakeholders in your organization (managers, executives, legal, IT), come up with a list of metrics you’d like to track. Some common ones include sales interactions, emails, phone numbers, site behavior, purchase history, and common demographic information, such as age and location.

Next, you’re going to want to run this list of possible data points by your stakeholders, justifying why you want to collect each data type and how you’re going to do it, so there isn’t any friction between departments over what data is collected and how it’s being used.

Update to the latest Google Analytics data model

Google Analytics version 4 includes new ways to segment and track users, is GDPR and CCPA compliant, and is built to take on first-party data by utilizing AI to fill in data gaps that third-party data would ordinarily have filled.

The ever-popular analytics tool specifically addresses issues with the retirement of third-party data and inconsistencies in cookie consent options by using AI to fill in missing customer information, meaning you can still collect and analyze user data even if you don’t have a complete user profile.

Additionally, Google Analytics 4 helps you easily find and delete user data upon request, which means you can stay compliant with “the right to be forgotten.”

Looking to get started with a site implementation? Google has some valuable resources and a step-by-step guide to implementing Google Analytics 4 properties on your website’s analytics property.

Build new personas and segment your audiences based on first-party data

Because you’ll be using first-party data moving forward, you need your personas to be as accurate as possible; working with inaccurate or baseless buyer personas is a huge waste of time and resources. But you can’t keep relying on third-party data to build your buyer personas. Ask any marketer how accurate their third-party data is, and you’ll probably get back a “not very.” Survey data collected by Deloitte unearthed some startling facts about first-party data’s ugly cousin:

• Over 66% of respondents said that the third-party data about them was zero to 50% accurate as a whole
• Around 71% of all third-party data was deemed inaccurate after a review by survey respondents

As part of a first-party data strategy, personas based on first-party data are crucial to providing a personalized e-commerce marketing and advertising experience. Buyer personas based on first-party data have a number of benefits, including a 10–20% reduction in marketing and sales costs, a 20% higher customer satisfaction rate, a 10–15% increase in sales conversion rates, and a 20–30% increase in employee engagement.

Start by leveraging all the first-party data you can to build your personas. This might include data like location, age, purchase history, audience research, CRM data, or user account information, all of which can be consensually collected without the use of third-party data or cookies.

How you divide your customer base is entirely up to you. But some common shopper segmentations include: 

• Shared characteristics and behaviors
• Common interests
• Demographics
• Region
• Purchase or browser history
• Frequent shoppers or buyers
• New customers
• Recent cart abandoners
• Browsing or buying habits
• Engagement levels
• Average AOV (e.g. big spenders, sales hunters, etc.)

Build a data governance strategy that keeps you compliant

Data governance is the process of ingesting data and managing that data’s lifecycle from creation to storage to deletion.

Both the GDPR and CCPA have clauses that allow users to request their data be deleted — “the right to be forgotten” and “right to erasure.” Data governance strategies play a huge role in both of these clauses — you can’t comply with a data deletion request if you can’t easily find and manage that data in the first place.

Failure to govern your first-party and third-party data in accordance with regulations could put you in regulatory hot water. The GDPR imposes stiff fines for companies who fail to comply. Amazon was hit with a massive $887 million fine for not complying with the GDPR.

Failure to govern your first-party and third-party data in accordance with regulations could put you in regulatory hot water.

Building a data governance strategy requires you to consult with two teams: legal and IT. Legal will be able to tell you what needs to happen to the data you have from a governance standpoint. IT will be able to help you find a solution to managing your data.

Start collecting first-party cookies in place of third-party cookies

You may have seen those popups on some websites asking to place cookies on your browsers while also offering you the chance to opt in or out of data collection. That’s how first-party cookies are placed in a way that’s compliant with regulations — and it’s a crucial aspect of your first-party data strategy. There’s a few key ideas at work here:

• Customer information gathered from first-party cookies is gathered consensually
• This data is being used on this site and only on this site and will not follow the user across the web

Ordinarily, companies use third-party cookies — cookies that have been placed on users’ browsers by third-party sites — to gather customer data. These cookies are placed without the consent of the user, directly violating the GDPR and CCPA, which prohibit the non-consensual placement of third-party cookies. How do you start collecting first-party cookies?

You can do this manually by consulting the different teams in your org about how you’re going to implement a first-party cookie strategy. Design the language and copy, then take your plan to legal, and finally to IT, who can implement a first-party cookie solution. 

If you’re a small or medium-sized business, services like Cookiebot can help you set up collection popups. Larger organizations can rely on tools like OneTrust to do this at scale.

Value exchange

Value exchange is a tactic used to entice customers into exchanging their personal information for high-value content or services (you might recognize this as giving your email in exchange for an e-book or a discount from a company). Value exchange is consensual data collection that’s compliant with the GDPR and CCPA, and it’s mutually beneficial to your business and the customer. It’s a win-win that provides some great, long-term benefits.

Common value exchange tactics are to offer discounts, which help you gather emails, and loyalty programs, which can improve your bottom line and your brand’s relationship with your customers. You get their data and earn their trust, and the customer gets a valuable piece of content, item, or service.

Additionally, it represents your commitment to user privacy and data transparency. You’re being upfront about what you’re collecting, why, and what the customer is getting in exchange for their data. This type of approach is great for building goodwill with your customers and helps you stay compliant with regulations.

How to collect first-party data

Collecting first-party data starts with building users’ trust, gaining their consent, engaging the customers in ways that prompt them to volunteer information, and having the right tech to gather first-party data in place. Here are some tried-and-true methods of collecting first-party data:

Be transparent about the data you do collect. Customer trust is built on transparency, but one in five consumers still believe businesses don’t care about privacy. Separate your business from the pack by explaining how you’re going to use the data you do collect and how it’s being collected in your cookie consent popup.

Ask for reviews from customers. Asking for customers to review products in your e-commerce store is not only a great way to improve your sales performance but also gain access to customer data consensually.

Offer quizzes to your customers in exchange for personalized recommendations. Customers like personalized product or content recommendations — 35% of Amazon purchases come from product recommendations, and 75% of Netflix watches come from recommendations based on customer data. Learning a buyer’s likes, dislikes, and interests is a great way to improve the customer experience, your ROI, and consensually gather first-party data.

Let customers make accounts in your e-commerce store. Accounts are a veritable treasure trove of first-party data. By letting customers volunteer information via user-created profiles, you give them an incentive to return to your e-commerce store and can also mine their accounts for useful bits of data.

Reward repeat customers with a loyalty program. Building a successful customer loyalty program provides you with a dynamic source of customer data — a data source that is constantly evolving and is updated by the customer — as well as better sales numbers and increasing your brand loyalty. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Ask users to participate in surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys are an excellent way of improving your products and services. Surveys can also function as a source of first-party data, giving you the ability to tie interactions back to specific customers so you can identify points of friction within your e-commerce store or customer journey.

First-party data e-commerce strategies

Follow these best-practices for using first-party data to drive e-commerce growth.

Retarget hesitant shoppers

Retargeting is a super effective way to use first-party data to reach customers who have shown interest in your products but haven’t completed a purchase. Use data from website visits to create targeted ads that remind them about their viewed or wishlisted products or items left in their carts.

This subtle-yet-not-so-subtle nudge brings reluctant customers back to your site and also nudges them to complete their purchases.

Generate personalized product recommendations and promotions

With 91% of consumers more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations, implementing this strategy into your e-commerce marketing plan is a no-brainer. Utilize purchase and browsing history to tailor offers and product recommendations that are most likely to appeal to each customer.

These can be displayed on product pages, in email campaigns, and even during the checkout process, and should include related or complementary items that encourage upsells and cross-sells to increase average order value.

Enhance the shopper journey

Strengthening customer relationships is paramount for any e-commerce business’s growth. The stronger the relationship, the greater the trust. And the greater the trust, the deeper the loyalty — which just so happens to convert to higher online revenue. 

Analyze your first-party data to identify any pain points and areas for improvement. This will allow you to optimize the customer experience by reducing any friction throughout the conversion funnel. For example, your first-party data might highlight that many of your customers make their exit during checkout after they see limited payment options.

So then you could add more payment methods, such as buy now, pay later.

Strengthen your loyalty program

A recent study found that 79% of consumers are more likely to do business with a brand because of its loyalty program, which translates to increased customer retention and revenue. Your best approach for making your loyalty program a reason that shoppers seek out your business?

Begin by using your first-party data, such as shopper preferences and previous purchases, to tailor your rewards to each customer. 

And with third-party data going away, loyalty programs are going to be more important than ever when it comes to customers actively sharing their information. With a well-executed, personalized loyalty program, you can increase your customers’ lifetime value, drive repeat purchases, and create champions for your brand.

Target shopping cart ditchers

Customers often leave your site and abandon their full shopping basket with no intention of ever returning to complete a purchase. While this might seem like a waste of time, it’s actually a great opportunity to build connections with online consumers you might never have heard from again.

First-party data can identify those who have recently abandoned shopping carts, and you can then send targeted email reminders or offers to encourage them to complete the purchase. This strategy is proven to work well, especially when an incentive like a limited-time offer is included. 

Looking to catch cart abandoners before they leave your site? Machine learning tech (like Bazaarvoice) can use first party data to identify when a shopper is likely to abandon, and intercept before they’ve made their exit.

Implement dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing can help you maximize revenue by charging different prices to different customers at different times, optimizing based on each consumer’s willingness to pay. Determine whether this hyper-personalization strategy could benefit you by looking at first-party data like customer preferences, buying behavior, and historical purchases.

You’ll also want to take a look at competitor pricing to ensure you’re not over (or under) reaching. From here, you can adjust prices based on your customer segment and offer discounts to customer groups who would benefit from them most to encourage purchases.

Create personalized campaigns

A large part of your marketing budget is likely going toward advertising. Take your wealth of first-party data, including purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics, and use it to create highly targeted campaigns that spark interest in your segmented groups.

For instance, a furniture retailer may target a group that has all purchased the same sectional with ads featuring a matching chair or ottoman, along with a limited-time discount if they buy it within a set time frame.

Don’t forget to test your strategies

Testing different strategies and messages based on first-party data is paramount to determining what resonates best with your audience.

Make sure to continuously refine your marketing and personalization strategies using A/B testing, and experimenting with different messaging, offers, and channels.

You can then use first-party data to measure the impact of these changes on key metrics like conversion rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and average order value.

Examples of first-party data strategy in action

First-party data is used like any dataset to improve your products, services, revenue numbers, or processes. In the following examples, you’ll notice a common thread throughout: a strong first-party data strategy is in place, and best-practice data collection techniques are used to do a lot more than just target customers for ads or remarketing.

B2C — The slipper store

An e-commerce store selling fun and stylized slippers severed its ties with its data vendor in order to build a first-party data strategy. Upon visiting its website, users are greeted with a prompt asking for their email and phone number in exchange for a 20% off coupon. The user fills in the form and collects their discount.

During checkout, the user is then prompted to create an account to speed along the transaction and manage future purchases. The customer creates an account, enters their shipping and billing information, and completes the transaction. The e-commerce store now has some data points it can use to help improve its products or services.

But that’s not all: first-party data can be used to retarget and nurture leads during the sales process.

B2B — Applicant tracking software vendor

An applicant tracking software (ATS) has a new website and a blog it’s using to capture organic leads. Employees notice that while the blog itself is attracting a fair number of leads for the company, once users navigate to the rest of the website, they bounce within seconds, most never completing an action beyond clicking through a few pages.

The company’s first-party data strategy helps uncover the problem. Using a first-party data cookie and Google Analytics 4, the vendor can see the users coming in via the blog, attempting to schedule a demo with the CTA link on the homepage, and then bouncing. Upon analysis, the vendor realizes that the form isn’t opening when users click the “schedule a demo” CTA. They re-work the form but have another problem on their hands: the vendor has no way of remarketing to leads who didn’t convert.

They turn to first-party data to help. The vendor creates high-quality e-books and assets and then gates them at the bottom of their highest-performing blogs, asking for some basic customer information, such as their email and phone number. Now the vendor can send personalized email content to their leads, educating them on the benefits of ATS in their business and qualifying them for a sales conversation.

Maximize your first-party data with Bazaarvoice

E-commerce managers and brand managers who don’t embrace first-party data are living on borrowed time. Regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA, in conjunction with unanimous motions to quash third-party data and cookies, have put additional pressure on businesses, that often don’t have the time or resources to prepare for third-party data’s retirement.

An easy solution is insights and reports tools from Bazaarvoice. Rather than waste time hiring third parties, the tools help you analyze customer behavior and sentiment, build your brand, and source more reviews to diversify the voices in your first-party data strategy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer “on the rise” or simply a passing trend — this disruptive technology is here to stay. In our 2023 AI research report, a third of people said they’d used generative AI tools. Of those folks, 55% said they’d use them again. 

According to research from McKinsey, the impact of generative AI on productivity could potentially add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy. As e-commerce leaders, there’s multiple ways it can work for us — to save time and resources and ultimately help our businesses grow. 

Chapters:

1. Three key benefits of AI marketing for e-commerce
2. How AI marketing works
3. Top applications of AI marketing
4. Drive your marketing forward with AI

Three key benefits of AI marketing for e-commerce

AI helps create smoother and more efficient internal operations that extend to the customer during the buying process. As Benj Fein, Group Project Manager at Bazaarvoice, puts it, “AI lowers the cost of your workflows so you can work faster and smarter.”

Here’s the top three key benefits. 

1. Improved marketing efficiency

AI empowers marketing teams to automate tasks so they can work smarter and achieve more significant results. Using tools with these automated capabilities takes the more time-consuming tasks off your plate, so you have time to focus on creating successful marketing campaigns and meeting company goals. 

AI lowers the cost of your workflows so you can work faster and smarter

It’s not just simple tasks that can be automated, either. E-commerce companies can employ AI to automate a lot of different marketing functions, including email campaigns, social media posts, ad targeting, and content optimization.

AI-driven tools analyze customer data and behavior to deliver personalized and timely content, streamlining processes and increasing efficiency.

2. Faster customer feedback and CX insights

When it comes to customer feedback analysis, AI achieves quicker and more detailed insights than traditional methods. Using natural language processing (NLP), AI can decipher customer experience and sentiment signals, like keywords linked to touchpoints and activities, and emotions that correlate with complaints or positive experiences.

Other tools like customer satisfaction surveys and Net Promoter Scores can’t extract this kind of nuanced data.

The CX insights that AI can unearth have a range of business benefits for marketing professionals. AI can reveal misalignment in customer pain points, expectations, and unmet needs. This information can help treat CX issues in real-time, as well as inform ongoing processes, procedures, and strategies.

For example, AI can analyze customer behavior, purchase history, and preferences which is information you can use to offer personalized recommendations. 

A better understanding of CX can improve staff training to provide better shopping experiences. This, in turn, leads to customer retention, loyalty, and long-term growth.

3. Personalized marketing messages

The use of AI in crafting targeted marketing messages has become increasingly common, offering e-commerce companies a powerful tool to streamline their communication strategies. AI uses keywords and sentiments to create highly personalized content that aligns with customer preferences.

Using the feedback and insights generated by AI, e-commerce businesses can now craft marketing messages that foster more meaningful connections with individual customers. 

A common example of this is automated A/B testing. AI can efficiently evaluate different message variations and identify the most effective ones based on real-time customer responses and engagement metrics. This iterative approach allows marketers to continuously refine their messaging strategies and deliver content that maximizes customer engagement and conversion rates.

How AI marketing works

AI e-commerce marketing uses data to assess customer behavior and intent through machine learning. AI tools can then take action by interacting with customers or providing predictions and recommendations for the appropriate business departments.

Because AI relies on data, e-commerce companies need to have data resources in place, including customer relationship management (CRM) software, campaign insights, and website data. They also need to establish goals for using AI and have internal or outsourced experts train on the technology. That way, you get the desired outcomes based on those goals. Part of AI’s capability is to automatically improve its performance with experience and management.

The companies experiencing the best results from AI are the ones that use advanced data, technology, and models in addition to core best practices. So, having an internal or third-party team dedicated to AI and data development will yield the best ROI.

Applications of AI marketing

Deloitte estimates the generative AI market will likely double every other year for the next ten years. You can capitalize on this growing trend by adopting AI for some of your marketing functions. Here’s a few common applications of AI marketing. 

Conducting keyword research

E-commerce companies can use AI to supercharge their keyword research efforts, gaining valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences.

AI augments traditional keyword research by leveraging its capabilities in NLP and data analysis. When you employ an AI-driven tool like Jasper or Surfer SEO, you can quickly process large amounts of data from search engines, websites, and social media platforms to identify relevant keywords and uncover hidden patterns in customer search behavior.

Using automation, you can uncover the words and phrases that resonate most with the target audience, enabling you to tailor your content and product offerings accordingly. This level of personalization can lead to better customer experiences and higher satisfaction. According to McKinsey, 71% of people expect brands to personalize their interactions, and 76% of people get frustrated when interactions aren’t personalized. 

AI’s ability to analyze vast data sets quickly and accurately allows for real-time keyword monitoring. This means that e-commerce companies can stay on top of emerging trends and adapt their keyword strategies promptly, maintaining a competitive edge in the fast-paced online market. 

You can incorporate these AI-generated keywords into your website copy, social media discussions, product descriptions, advertising campaigns, and more. By adding these keywords to your website copy, more potential customers will find you online.

And because the AI did the heavy lifting with the keyword research, your team has the time to engage directly with those potential customers.

Implementing voice commerce

Voice commerce refers to the ability for consumers to use voice commands for product search, discovery, and even purchasing. Globally, over four billion digital voice assistants are in use, including Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. It’s a quick, convenient way for people to take an action — like shopping.

Voice commerce eliminates the need for manual input, which streamlines the purchasing process significantly. Users can simply say a command and the AI-powered voice assistant quickly responds with relevant product options and information. This level of convenience and speed saves valuable time for consumers, allowing them to complete purchases effortlessly, no matter where they are or what they’re doing.

Enable these digital voice assistants for your e-commerce app and website so customers can use them to browse and buy. You can register your business with Siri, Alexa, or other digital voice assistants, so customers can easily find your brand and products through voice commands on their devices. 

Creating effective advertising copy 

Use AI to craft compelling advertising messages that engage your target audience effectively. AI tools that use NLP can assess the language and tone that resonate best with your target audience. You can use these tools to make sure your ad copy aligns with your brand’s voice while appealing to their emotions and preferences. Through advanced algorithms, AI can craft unique copy that aligns with specific customer interests, boosting engagement and conversion rates.

By leveraging AI-driven data analysis, e-commerce companies gain a deeper understanding of their audience’s preferences and pain points. From there, you can use prompts with AI tools like ChatGPT to create copy that directly addresses customer needs, leading to higher relevance and resonance.

And it’s incredibly easy to do once you learn the program! You simply input customer data, such as preferences, purchase history, and social media interactions, into your AI copywriting tool. From there, the AI tool analyzes this data and generates personalized ad copy for each customer segment, highlighting relevant products and appealing to their unique style preferences.

AI tools can integrate with your existing marketing platforms, such as social media, email marketing, and website content management systems. This integration ensures a seamless data flow between your AI tool and all your other company tools.

You should also segment your audiences based on key characteristics so your AI tool can create more personalized copy for each audience. 

Improving product discovery

AI analyzes data to deliver personalized marketing messaging, especially in the shopping discovery stage. A big part of that is product recommendations on e-commerce sites, apps, and social selling channels. AI uses customers’ purchase history and other shopping behaviors, like product page views and abandoned cart items, to showcase relevant product recommendations. Personalized product recommendations are particularly helpful for those brands with extensive product catalogs.

There’s a lot of examples of how AI strengthened product discovery for large, prominent brands. IKEA leveraged Google Cloud’s Recommendations AI to create a better search experience for their customers with personalized product recommendations. Implementing this technology delivered accurate recommendations to customers in a quick, user-friendly fashion. The result was a 400% increase in relevant product recommendations, a 30% increase in click-through rate, and a 2% increase in average order value.

Better search means a better overall e-commerce experience, which the majority of consumers and website managers say leads to a high likelihood of repeat business. Not delivering relevant, helpful content to customers has consequences. Customers who can’t find one item they’re looking for will abandon their entire cart, and three out of four will give up and go to a competitor after an unsuccessful search.

Staples Canada significantly enhanced their product discovery performance with AI. With more advanced search results and personalized product recommendations, they’re able to show many more customers the products they’re looking for that also match their interests. This implementation led to a significant increase in conversion rate.

Likewise, Wayfair uses a multifaceted AI system to produce precise yet thorough search results on its e-commerce site. They train their algorithm to detect visual elements, like design features, color, material, style, and more, from customer, supplier, and rendered photos. They also manually tag their products with relevant keywords so the algorithm produces broader search results based on keywords and visual elements.

This feature led to an increased add-to-cart rate and completed purchases.

Presenting product reviews and detecting fake reviews

It’s well understood in e-commerce that product reviews are an effective tool for converting shoppers into buyers. AI can manage, organize, and display your product reviews from customers, which is essential for large-scale businesses with lots of products and reviews to wade through.

“In the purchasing stage, AI can help showcase reviews that can convince consumers to make the purchase,” says Fein. For example, Bazaarvoice’s reviews tools have a range of features powered by AI, like highlighting the most helpful reviews from a large volume of reviews and displaying them strategically throughout your e-commerce site.

AI can also scan your entire product catalog and identify items gaining traction that have few to no reviews. Fein says this automated process enables you to identify which products need review coverage or other content that adds value for customers, like visual user-generated content (UGC).

Insulated water bottle brand Takeya leveraged Bazaarvoice tools supported by AI to increase sales on their own site and their retail partner site, Target.com. They were able to display reviews for all of their products on both sites and automatically add visual UGC sourced from social media to corresponding products.

Detecting fake reviews

Ironically enough, AI can also help you detect fake reviews from bots that use AI. This allows you to remove them and protect your brand image and reputation. Consumers are much more discerning about reviews than they were several years ago — they can easily pinpoint a fake review from an authentic one. 

Using NLP, AI tools can comb through reviews on your website, social, and Google to examine the language and tone used in the text. Fake reviews often exhibit certain patterns, such as an excessively positive tone with repetitive phrases.

AI can also detect suspicious language patterns and grammar inconsistencies commonly found in fake reviews. It can compare the writing style of other reviews to look for indications of automation or bots. 

Enhancing the customer experience

A primary function of AI for marketing is to support CX teams. With the help of AI, they can handle customer interactions on a much larger scale and gain insights to refine their processes.

Chatbots

Chatbots are a classic example of AI in action. When interacting with customers, chatbots can provide personalized responses that go beyond the typical FAQ answer. A survey of high-level operations and CX professionals concluded that companies that invest in advanced conversational AI tech will reap benefits, including decreased operational costs, more productive agents, and more satisfied customers.

Conversational AI is instrumental in capturing and guiding customers during the research and discovery stage. It can quickly answer questions with live chat, enable purchasing via a chatbot, use NLP to correspond with users, and offer hands-free voice assistance. AI bots can also respond to user actions with prompts designed to inspire purchases, like validating their cart item by announcing that another customer just bought the same thing. This kind of messaging can increase conversion rates by 5x or more.

Some types of conversational or chatbot AI can also offer guidance to the human reps on the other end of the screen. They can analyze the customers’ tone and recommend different responses for the best resolution or suggest that a supervisor step in to manage the inquiry or issue.

Airlines are examples of companies that get a lot of customer service activity. And for a rapidly growing airline, that can be overwhelming. Before adopting an AI approach to customer service management, AirAsia relied on localized call centers to handle inquiries from international locations, which meant up to hour-long wait times and time zone conflicts.

To resolve this problem, AirAsia implemented a 24-hour, multilingual chatbot that could check flights, book flights, answer questions, update passenger information, and add bonus products to bookings. The ROI included a 98% wait time improvement, an 8x increase in upsells, and significant live agent relief.

Translation technology

With machine translation, NLP, and other capabilities, AI can automatically take your marketing efforts global. This is more than just translating basic small pieces of web content in other languages, which often doesn’t produce the most accurate or natural results. AI can pick up on tone and context to provide quality translation and communication on a larger scale. As with other AI applications, this doesn’t replace professional human staff but makes their job easier and more efficient.

The translation technology industry is in high demand and thriving because it can provide significant support in translating documents, software, and websites in multiple other languages. This is crucial for meeting brand, communication, and legal standards for all pertinent audiences.

Analyzing customer feedback

AI can mine through all your customer touchpoints — from website comments and messages to product reviews and social media interactions — to synthesize all kinds of customer feedback. These insights keep you up to date on any service or product issues that need resolving and let you know what customers are liking. So you can give them more of it. AI tools can organize this info by customer, making robust customer profiles by tracking positive or negative experiences, questions, product reviews, and more.

AI algorithms can understand vocabulary that expresses a range of emotions and perspectives that “can directly shape both short-term and long-term actions to retain customers,” according to Harvard Business Review. And it can deliver this analysis in real-time, so staff across departments can all be aligned on customer behavior and pain points.

Customers aren’t shy when it comes to making their grievances or exceptional experiences heard. That’s why Bazaarvoice’s customer sentiment analysis tools give you the full rundown of what customers are saying using advanced machine learning and NLP. Not only that, but our Premium Network Insights can categorize sentiment by topic and product and compare that feedback against your competitors.

Boosting efficiency and strategy optimization

AI supplies you with insights and goes the extra mile to recommend what actions to take in response. Fein considers this one of AI’s best functions. “The most effective features in AI for marketers are ones that are built with data personal to marketers, [so] the system is saving time making recommendations similar to what the marketer would choose if they had more time themselves,” he says.

An example of this is using customer reviews as a resource to inspire product and messaging improvements. The toy manufacturer KidKraft uses Bazaarvoice Insights tools to evolve their brand according to customer demand. These tools provide KidKraft with, “an automated way to understand what customers are saying about its products and see recommended actions the brand can take to improve its marketing strategy and design better products.”

This extends to social content as well. Fein says part of Bazaarvoice’s AI can, “highlight trends in your social strategy so that the content you are spending time pushing to your discovery path [is] more likely to receive engagement.” That capability includes recommending the types and timing of content that are likely to perform well based on your past content.

AI can even predict the success of partnering with different influencers. “We have AI to help estimate the value of content generated by your influencers to help you gauge the ROI of those relationships,” says Fein.

AI tools can scan product catalogs to reveal product pages that require content coverage like reviews and visual UGC to display that would enhance the product’s presentation. Customers who interact with this type of UGC on e-commerce sites are twice as likely to convert.

“AI can benefit e-commerce brands by [reducing] the amount of steps in scaling their business. When managing a full catalog and ensuring it’s properly covered in the tons of channels out there, AI can help step in and help automate some of the steps in that process,” says Fein.

Drive your marketing strategy forward with AI

Don’t you wish you could go back in time and invest in Tesla? Back when everyone else was still scoffing at the idea of a luxury electric car? Well, that’s the current situation with AI, and specifically AI marketing. Keep an eye on AI developments and grow with the technology as it evolves and expands.

And remember: AI doesn’t replace your marketing department. It complements and enhances it. here’s some examples of how top brands are using AI, for your inspiration

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Masterclass: How to use AI strategically and responsibly

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User-generated content definition

User-generated content, refers to any content — ratings and reviews, social posts, Q&As — created by an individual rather than a brand.

Historically UGC was more of a B2C tactic but increasingly more B2B businesses are realizing the potential UGC can provide their brand and are starting to balance out their marketing channel mixes.

Shoppers want to see UGC being shared by brands across their digital and physical touch points. Which is why 82% of brands and retailers are moving or considering moving paid media budgets to owned and earned content creation. (Consider this a bonus stat on top of the other 64).

Benefits of user-generated content

Aside from being the content shoppers actually want to see from brands, as demonstrated above, UGC has a wealth of benefits. It plays a crucial role across the entire consumer buying process, inspiring confident purchasing decisions at every step.

When we want to buy something, we inadvertently turn to our fellow shoppers for advice. We want to read an honest review, or see how a product looks in the real world and not just a curated photoshoot. UGC provides the social proof shoppers need, and that’s only the beginning.

Compendium of user-generated content statistics

As the leading end-to-end user-generated content platform (not our words, the words of G2), we have a wealth of research, insights, and statistics regarding user-generated content, which we’re frequently asked by clients to share with them. So we’ve complied into this handy bookmark-able compendium for your reference.

But to provide a balanced approach, we’ve also made sure to include various user-generated statistics from third parties and other reliable sources too.

UGC strategy

1. 86% of brands and retailers believe that more authentic UGC in their paid and owned media would improve the performance of their ads and content

2. 25% of search results for the world’s biggest brands are links to user-generated content

3. Shoppers are nearly 2.5x more likely to say user-generated content is more authentic than brand-created content

4. 60% of consumers believe UGC is the most authentic marketing content

5. Nearly half of shoppers are less likely to buy from a brand or retailer who doesn’t have reviews on their site

6. 53% of shoppers say UGC makes them more confident in their purchasing decisions than professional photography

7. 40% of shoppers say UGC makes them more likely to buy a product from an ad

8. When shopping on a brand or retailer’s website, 40% of shoppers won’t purchase if there isn’t UGC on the product page

9. User-generated content-based ads get 4x higher click-through rates than average

10. 84% of consumers are more likely to trust a brand’s marketing campaign if it features user-generated content

11. 77% of shoppers are more likely to buy a product they found through UGC

12. 85% of consumers say they turn to visual UGC over branded content when making purchasing decisions

13. Visitors to websites that have UGC spend 90% more time on site

14. Conversions increase by 10% when UGC is included in the online purchase path

15. 77% of people said they would submit UGC to gain a reward

16. Half of consumers wish that brands would tell them what type of content to create and share

17. 80% of consumers prefer seeing real customer photos vs. stock photos

18. Featuring UGC increases revenue per visitor by 154%

19. Shoppers trust UGC when used in an ad (42%) more than brands advertising without UGC (31%)

20. UGC content sells: Brands and retailers ranked reviews (64%) and customer photo and video content (43%) as the most influential elements of their sales and advertising efforts

21. 62% of shoppers are more likely to buy a product if they can view customer photos and videos

22. 74% of shoppers want to see consumer content on brands’ websites

23. Ads featuring UGC have a 50% reduction in the cost-per-click, compared to ads without

24. User-generated content forms seven of the top 10 types of research shoppers prefer to utilize before making a purchase (one of our favorite statistics!)

Written UGC

25. Bazaarvoice clients see 3x conversions when social content is combined with ratings and reviews at retail

26. Having just 10 product reviews can lift conversion rate by 45% (Bazaarvoice research, 2023)

27. 63% of companies rely on ratings and reviews to meet their SEO goals

28. 88% of shoppers consult ratings and reviews before making a purchase

29. 61% of consumers strongly agree or agree that recent reviews (written in the past 3 months) are more reliable than older reviews

30. 71% of shoppers agree that the number of product reviews is more important depending on how expensive the product is

31. Close to a third of shoppers agree that a product needs more that 100 reviews to be considered credible

32. 85% of shoppers consult online product reviews on their phones whilst shopping in-store

33. Over a third of shoppers consider reviews with photos more credible than reviews without

34. People need to see negative reviews in the purchase journey: 85% of shoppers think negative reviews are either as or more important than positive ones

35. Fake reviews break trust: 52% of shoppers say fake reviews make them lose trust in the brand

36. One fake review spoils them all: 75% of shoppers claim that if they notice a fake review for a product on a site, it would impact their trust in reviews for other products on the same site

37. What’s in a review: 4% of reviews detail product flaws, 2% of reviews detail product improvements, 1% of reviews detail copy improvements

38. Fake reviews spoil the sale: If they suspect fake reviews, 56% wouldn’t buy the product, 50% wouldn’t trust the brand, 34% wouldn’t trust other reviews, and 25% wouldn’t buy from the site

39. 60% of shoppers would rather purchase a product that has 10 reviews with user images than 200 reviews with no images (Bazaarvoice survey, January 2023)

40. 70% of shoppers would rather buy a more expensive product with higher ratings and reviews than a less expensive product with fewer reviews (Bazaarvoice survey, 2023)

41. 72% of sampling participants on average indicate they’ll repurchase the product (Bazaarvoice survey, 2022)

42. Adding review highlights can increase engagement rates by 12%

43. Adding review highlights to the top of the review section can increase conversion rates 3.5%

44. 33% of shoppers want QR codes in-store that can be scanned to read online reviews

Social UGC

45. 97% of shoppers have purchased though social media

46. 69% of shoppers have been inspired by social media to makle a purchase through another channel

47. 54% of shoppers say they’d be more likely to buy a product on social media if they could click the post and get the product info right on the platform

48. Last year, 27.3% of TikTok users made a purchase via the platform

49. 97% of Gen Z consumers say they use social media as top source of shopping inspiration

50. 44% of brands and retailers use social media to drive traffic to their online store

51. 42% of shoppers say they would buy a product with no professional photos (and only user-generated photos)

52. 41% of brands and retailers provide shop floor staff with social content from fans/influencers to share with shoppers

53. 31% of brands and retailers feature social content from fans and influencers in email marketing

54. Shoppers are social: One in five said they shop on social media, mostly from Facebook shops (41%), via influencers’ Instagram stories (37%), and via ads on Instagram (36%)

55. Companies see a 50% higher engagement when user-generated content is incorporated into social campaigns

56. 140% higher conversion rates when users interact with galleries content on product pages (Bazaarvoice Galleries Performance Benchmarks, 2022)

57. 15% higher average order value when users interact with galleries content on product pages (Bazaarvoice Galleries Performance Benchmarks, 2022)

58. 308% increase in time on site when users interact with galleries content on product pages (Bazaarvoice Galleries Performance Benchmarks, 2022)

UGC ROI and value drivers

59. The average ROBO (research online, buy offline) multiplier for brands in the Bazaarvoice Network is 3.91x — this means that for every $1 of revenue influenced online, user-generated content influences $3.91 in-store 

60. Feelunique drives $10 million in annual sales using UGC

61. GANT reduced its return rate by 5% by leveraging UGC

62. Iconic London gained a 126% lift in conversion rates with UGC

63. Bazaarvoice adds 2.71% contribution to total revenue

And finally…

64. For every $1 spent on the Bazaarvoice platform, you get back $4 in return. (That’s a 400% ROI!)

Getting started with user-generated content

The stats speak for themselves. As the statistics show, implementing user-generated content can make your brand more authentic, inspire shopper purchasing decisions, and deliver a hefty ROI. 

If the above stats have convinced you to combine your branded efforts with user-generated content, the first step is choosing the right UGC provider to work with. There’s six core areas you need to look at when evaluating a potential partner:

The right user-generated content provider is more than a few statistics. They’ll be experts in the six focus areas above, and then some. But remember, not all user-generated content partners are the same and the evaluation stage can take some time. Not sure where to start?

Read our e-book on how to find your ideal UGC provider for the essential questions to consider when selecting a user-generated content partner.

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Like most kids, you probably went with one of the big hitters like flying, super speed, or incredible strength. Or my own preference, the ability to teleport anywhere at anytime. But as an e-commerce manager or business owner, there’d be nothing more valuable than the ability to read people’s minds. Imagine having instant access to consumer insights that tell you exactly what your audience loves, hates, and everything in between.

Fortunately, there’s easy ways to acquire and implement these consumer insights, and you don’t need superpowers to do it. To get started, simply go through our nine expert tips on how to use consumer insights to improve your marketing strategy. First, though, let’s get clear on what consumer insights are and how people have typically gathered that information in the past.

What are consumer insights?

Consumer insights are the interpretations of consumer behaviors that help businesses understand how their target audience thinks, feels, and engages with their brand. This information can come in many forms. For example, you could aggregate bunches of behavioral data from Google Analytics to find trends in demographics. Or you could learn how your ideal buyer persona feels about your niche by simply combing through competitors’ reviews.

At the end of the day, any piece of information that gets you closer to understanding how your target audience feels about your brand or products is a consumer insight.

And these insights are invaluable for improving your marketing strategies.

Once you understand the kinds of things your audience loves, you can give them more of it. This leads to deeper engagement, stronger customer relationships, and higher conversions. But you might be wondering, “with everything I need to get done by yesterday, how would I even gather consumer insights in the first place?”

It’s a great question, especially since that term has evolved with all the technical advancements developed over the past two decades. Before digital marketing tools were readily available for small-to mid-sized business owners, gathering consumer insights was fairly tedious. Common methodologies included:

• Focus groups
• One-on-one interviews
• Telephone surveys
• Paper comment cards

These strategies are still valuable for larger businesses with big marketing teams, but let’s be honest: they’re not ideal for the majority of e-commerce brands. They require too much time, attention, and resources that many business owners simply don’t have. Fortunately, newer methods have popped up in recent years that allow you to gather and implement customer insights, including:

• Social media interactions
• Competitor analysis insights
• In-depth behavioral data on your audience (with free tools like Google Analytics)

Plus, there’s tons of automated tools with advanced functionality that allow you to gather consumer insights and make it easy to put what you learn into action. But if you still need a bit of help, don’t worry. We’re about to dive into nine tried and true techniques for using consumer insights to improve your marketing initiatives.

9 ways to use consumer insights to improve your marketing

Understanding your audience is important for increasing conversions and sales but only if you actually use the information you collect. We’ll look at how you can apply user insights to improve your marketing efforts, but feel free to jump to the section that you find most valuable:

1. Social media insights
2. Competitor analysis insights
3. Insights from your audience analysis

Insights from social media

Social media is the perfect place to engage with your audience in real time. As a result, it’s one of your best resources for finding and using consumer insights to improve your marketing efforts.

1. Bring your products to more targeted communities

When people comment on your brand, you can click on their profile to learn more about this type of customer. One thing to look out for is the communities that this person engages with. But the world of e-commerce moves fast, and it’d be prohibitively time-consuming to research your customers’ social accounts manually.

That’s where the right social listening tool steps onto the scene.

Social listening tools allow you to see where your target audience is hanging out online and what they’re saying there. Once you figure out where your audience base is spending their time, you can bring your products directly to those groups. This gives you access to large communities full of warm leads.

Plus, many tools have also reached a point where they’re practically “plug n’ play.” That means you don’t need any technical skills or coding experience to operate them. Some popular social listening tools for gathering consumer insights include:

• SparkToro: A new(ish) tool that helps you identify what types of content (blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc.) your customer base consumes
• Sprout Social: A social management platform with a suite of tools to help with your social media strategy and uncover audience trends
• Mention: A freemium tool that helps you listen to the conversations your audience is having about your brand across social media channels
• Bazaarvoice Social Publishing: An AI-driven solution to help you understand what social content your audience loves

Once you know where your audience is spending their time, leverage the opportunity to bring your products to them.

2. Build more attractive contests, offers, and lead magnets

As you’re learning what your audience loves, you can transform that knowledge into useful contest prizes or lead magnets. This gives you a head start in creating the kind of content and offers that will attract your ideal audience.

One of the best examples of this comes from WizardPins, a manufacturer of custom pins, coins, keychains, and more. They started holding contests on social media and used an enamel pin worth about $10 as the prize. From that first contest, WizardPins generated over 700 followers.

What did this level of growth tell them? Their audience really engages with these pins as a free prize, providing WizardPins with a more affordable strategy for growth than conventional methods (such as paid ads). And the contest wasn’t difficult to create. It looked like this:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nacho, Frito, Cosmo & Luna (@nachocorgidog)

Over the next 18 months, WizardPins held 40 contests and generated 30k followers. If you’re doing the math, that’s a growth of 30,000 followers for only $400. And it’s all thanks to WizardPins’ watchful attention to what their audience was engaging with.

3. Shift your messaging based on changing attitudes or beliefs

Consumers don’t live in a vacuum, and their thoughts/attitudes change over time. Listen to the conversations happening on social media to keep up with your audience’s attitudes toward your niche. Then adapt your messaging accordingly.

For example, according to Digimind, a U.S.-based liquor company had a line of Russian Vodka in their portfolio. But back in 2016, Russia was creating negative sentiments among North American users on social media because of their involvement with the presidential election. So they pivoted their message. They built a marketing campaign with the following slogan: “Made in America. But we would be happy to talk about our ties with Russia under oath.”

And that shift paid off. As a result, they increased their share-of-voice by 5–10x. Had this liquor company neglected their consumer research, they would have missed out on that growth altogether.

Insights from competitor analysis

Consumer insights give you a huge edge over the competition. When you see how your audience reacts to your competitors, you can work to improve your product or make your offers more enticing.

4. Improve your products based on negative competitor reviews

If you listen, you’ll learn a lot from consumers – even if they aren’t your consumers (…yet ). Read your competitors’ negative reviews to see where improvements could be made to your product.

For instance, here’s a product for a build-it-yourself remote control car for kids by GAMZOO:

Right away, you can tell they have a BIG competitor: LEGO (a better-known kid’s company in this niche). And if LEGO’s marketing team wanted to get a competitive advantage, they could simply read through the negative reviews for this product to learn what their audience values. In this case, we see a trend among 2-, 3-, and 4-star reviews that this product is difficult to build. Even for the recommended age:

Negative reviews from competitors unveil pain points about your audience that you can use to improve your product line. With this information, LEGO can emphasize how their instructions are simple to follow, can be downloaded online, and encourage kids to learn autonomously. In fact, they’ve built an entire resource hub with instructional resources to fix a clear pain point felt by their (and their competitors’) audience.

5. Learn from your competitors’ content marketing and social strategies

Another great way to get consumer insights is to learn how your competitors are running their content marketing strategies. Read through blog posts, social posts, or sign up to your competitors’ email lists. This will give you an idea of the types of content your competitors are using to successfully attract your target audience. Which is a bit like giving you a cheat sheet to a winning strategy. If it’s working for them, after all, why couldn’t it work for you?

When you’ve identified the types of content your competitors are publishing, begin creating similar (but better) content to improve your content marketing efforts.

One of the best examples of this in the real world is how companies compete for rankings on search engines like Google. Using a tool like Ahrefs or Similarweb, you can see what blog posts or web pages your competitors are ranking for. Then you can analyze the post’s or page’s structure to figure out how to improve on that content and steal their rankings.

So let’s say you sold dog collars and wanted to see what kind of content your biggest competitor, Ruffwear, is putting out there. You could pop their domain into a tool like Similarweb to see tons of information, like traffic, volume, and position:

Now you know that Ruffwear ranks in the second position for the “dog booties” keyword. And you also know that this term has a volume of 9,460 people who search for that phrase per month.

Now, you can head to Google and find the article by typing in the keyword “dog booties” and locating your competitor in the results:

Then analyze that content to see how they’re positioning this product and look for ways that you can make a better version of that page or post. And since you’re not starting totally from scratch, you have a head start on creating more engaging content.

This is just one example of how you can spy on your competitors’ content marketing strategies, though there are many others. The key is to learn what’s working for your competitors, use that as your new baseline for content creation, and build something better than what’s already out there.

6. Up your PPC game using your competitors’ paid advertising strategies

While it can be difficult for businesses to determine the concrete value of a single blog post or page, paid advertising is more cut and dry. Finding a company that’s spending money on targeted keywords or audience segments gives you a safe bet that this strategy is paying off. (After all, your competitors wouldn’t be investing money into those long-term ads if it weren’t profitable).

But the question remains, how can you tell which ads your competitors are running or which keywords they’re paying for?

The good news is that some advertising platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have become more transparent regarding who’s paying for ad space on those channels. For example, Facebook created an Ad Library in 2019. This lets you type a keyword into the search bar and see which competitors are running related ads. You’ll see:

• How long the ad has been running
• Which platforms it has been running on
• The advertisement ID
• The company running the ads just below

Pro Tip: The only way spying on your competitions’ paid ad strategies pays off is if you can identify their most successful campaigns to create better ads for the same keywords. However, you don’t have access to how well the ad performs, so what should you do?

In this case, a good option is to scroll through Facebook Ad Library results and look for active campaigns that have been running for several months. This is a good indication that the ad is bringing in more revenue than it’s costing. Otherwise, your competitor likely would have turned the advertisement off.

Another option is to use an advanced tool like SpyFu or Semrush to check your competitors’ SEO and PPC strategies. You’ll see what keywords they’re spending money on with paid ads, which platforms they’re using, and whether or not the campaigns are still active.

Again, this will tell you that these topics/words are very relevant to your audience. Then, it’s your job to analyze the advertisement, figure out why it’s resonating with your audience, and build a more enticing ad. But since you’re starting with a competitor’s strategy, you’ll skip a lot of the trial and error associated with PPC advertising.

Insights from your audience analysis

So far, we’ve covered how you can use consumer insights from social media and your competitors’ marketing strategies. Now, let’s turn our focus inward by looking at how to use consumer insights you gather from your audience.

7. Engage with your target audience in their own words

Many companies scroll through user reviews, social media feeds, and blog comments to understand how their audience thinks and feels about their brand. If you’re working on a budget, you can do this manually by looking at reviews for your products. The cosmetic company Vichy, for example, could learn how people describe their facial cream by reading reviews. They’d see lots of terms repeatedly cropping up, like “light,” “not heavy,” and “silky.”

Okay, great. But what do you do with that information once you have it?

Learn the exact phrases customers use to describe your brand. Then, you can reuse those phrases in your copywriting. It’s like having access to a cheat sheet telling you how to connect with your audience. Returning to Vichy, they might read through the reviews above and create a landing page for their facial cream with the following headline:

“Silky smooth application for that light and bright feeling all day.”

This level of personalization in copywriting has been proven to boost conversions. Spend some time reading through your user reviews and start a spreadsheet to note common words or phrases your customers use. It’ll only take a few hours of your time, but it will be worth the higher conversion rates.

8. Ideate content based on engagement (and double down on your winners)

Pay special attention to which types of content are getting the most engagement. To be clear, the term “engagement” is vague, and it’s measured differently across marketing channels or niche-specific KPIs.

Tracking website engagement, for example, might include measuring things like:

• User sessions
• Time on page
• Bounce rates
• Conversions from that page

But measuring engagement with social media would include other metrics, such as:

• Likes
• Shares
• Comments
• Follower growth rate

Email marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing channels are no exceptions. Each will have a different measurement for engagement that you’ll need to get clear on. Once you’ve defined those KPIs, you can isolate which platform you want to optimize. From there, look for trends among the posts that get the highest engagement rates based on how you calculate them.

The good news is that when you find something is working well, you can double down on that strategy. Dollar Shave Club did this when they created their first video back in 2012. The CEO paid $4,500 to have the video created, and it was initially used as an advertisement. The video went viral, meaning it wasn’t just viewed in ad placements. Instead, the video was organically shared with millions of people, bringing in 12,000 orders for their product in the first two days.

Since then, they’ve created more videos that get lots of engagement, including the 2018 “Get Ready” and the 2019 “Dad Bod” campaigns. This blend of entertainment/advertising has led to Dollar Shave Club’s $1 billion market value. It also serves as a great lesson to run with the types of content your consumers are engaging with the most.

9. Leverage your negative reviews to reduce churn

If you see a negative review about your brand, consider it a learning experience. Then, turn it into something positive. Identify what this unsatisfied customer was missing and see if you can fill the gap. In many cases, if one user is feeling a certain way about your products, others are, too.

You can do this manually or use tools designed to gather consumer insights based on your customer reviews. T2, for example, is an international tea manufacturer and distributor. They used Bazaarvoice to increase the number of user reviews they received. After analyzing what their customers were saying, a trend emerged: consumers were missing a type of tea that had been discontinued.

So they brought it back with massive success.

T2 was also able to gather this insight from user-generated content (UGC) in the form of reviews, testimonials, and customer photos from social media. Along with bringing their former product back, they incorporated more of this UGC into their marketing strategies. As a result, they saw a 75% increase in conversions from their Australian site, a 174% increase in conversions from their U.S. site, and a 77% percent increase in conversions from their European site. All websites saw a significant increase in sales.

If intrigued by this, you can see exactly how they did it by checking out their story here.

The easiest way to gather consumer insights

If you’re running an e-commerce store, you’re probably juggling a hundred different tasks while simultaneously putting out a thousand fires every single day. It’s a fast-paced market with an ever-growing amount of new strategies and competitors to keep up with. So how can you efficiently gather consumer insights and transform that information into action without totally burning yourself out?

One of the best solutions is incorporating more UGC into your marketing strategy. Here’s why.

UGC is so much more than getting a fun image to share on Instagram. It’s your audience showing and shouting to the world how they feel about your brand. This content can come in many shapes and sizes, such as:

• Positive (and negative) reviews
• Detailed testimonials
• Five-star ratings
• Social media posts

But regardless of what form your UGC comes in, it all gives you a deeper understanding of how your audience feels about your brand. And with the right tool, you can gather meaningful insights from all your UGC without getting completely overwhelmed.

For example, the high-end sporting gear store Le Col used Bazaarvoice’s suite of UGC insights tools to gather more social proof for their products. They gathered enough images to add a gallery to their site, and they injected UGC into their email campaigns. This led to a 13% higher average order value for products with reviews, a 155% increase in revenue per visitor, and a 125% increase in conversion rates.

And the good news is that you can boost conversion rates and increase sales for your store by relying on UGC, too. To get started, check our Insights and Reports tools for gathering, analyzing, and helping you implement insights from UGC in your marketing campaigns. 

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The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights

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To find out the latest trends and sentiments around cosmetics and skincare in 2021, Bazaarvoice recently surveyed over 10,800 Influenster members. The highest composition of respondents were Millennials, followed by Gen Z, Gen X, and then Boomers.

When asked what beauty decade they identified with most, 42% of respondents said they’re all for the Kardashian-inspired looks of the ‘10’s. This was followed by the ’70s, with 21% saying that minimal makeup and shimmery eyes are their things (Boomers especially were more likely to choose the ‘70s). 

In addition to these beauty-by-decade prompts, we asked questions about some of the trends that are resonating right now. What did we find? These are five big trends dominating the beauty world today that brands and retailers need to know about. 

The current beauty trends consumers are following:

1. Sustained focus on skincare
2. Expressive cosmetics
3. Experimenting with new techniques and products
4. Personalized skincare and cosmetics
5. Demand for brand transparency

1. Sustained focus on skincare 

A sustained focus on skincare has been a popular beauty trends for the past few years, but the pandemic has heightened this trend. In fact, close to 2 in 3 respondents said that they’re more focused on skincare now than they were pre-pandemic. This makes sense because people have had more time to dedicate to this type of care during quarantines and stay-at-home orders.

In addition to educating themselves on how to best treat their skin, respondents also said that new ailments have led to this increased focus on skincare. About 56% of people said they’re focused on targeted products for their specific skincare concerns. 42% prioritize purchasing cosmetics that offer skincare benefits.

Many women told us that they’re also now experiencing acne for the first time in their lives, likely due to stress and that dreaded “mascne” (mask + acne) the pandemic has brought on. Or they were starting to get more fine lines, which wasn’t a previous concern.

How can brands and retailers meet this need? Showcase social proof from customers who have seen results from products on your Instagram and other social channels. This will help promote products for particular skin concerns, highlight loyal customers, and give followers the chance to engage directly with your brand. 

2. Expressive cosmetics

Because of the skincare focus from the past few years, minimal makeup has also been a beauty trend to let glowy, smooth skin shine through. However, through this most recent survey, we found that when consumers wear makeup, it’s more a form of expression rather than an “everyday look.” About 8 in 10 respondents said they’re interested in makeup looks using color cosmetics, like bright eyeshadows, rosy cheeks, and vibrant lips.

Knowing this, brands and retailers should make an effort to focus on those bolder products in marketing and social media campaigns. Especially now the world has re-opened up and people start engaging in more activities outside again. 

And while we’ve been observing a trend of “less makeup-wearing” at home (what’s the point of doing a cat-eye when you’re just binge watching that new show everyone’s been telling you about?), over 25% of respondents said that even though they’re wearing less makeup now, they’ll return to ‘full-faced’ makeup soon. 

3. Experimenting with new techniques and products 

As we mentioned, consumers used all the extra time on their hands to experiment with new products and techniques. About 79% of shoppers have explored new makeup and/or skincare products and brands in the past year due to COVID-19, with close to 75% getting their inspiration from Instagram. (However, Boomers are more likely to choose a brand’s website for their makeup inspiration).

Some proven ways brands and retailers can engage more consumers on Instagram are:

• Creating product tutorials
• Responding to user comments and DMs
• Building a library of user-generated content (UGC) by asking customers to post using a branded hashtag
• Sharing UGC on feeds and in stories
• Hosting contests or giveaways
• Teaming up with influencers
• Going live occasionally 

The other places people are seeking inspo right now? The second most popular answer was “Bloggers and influencers,” followed by YouTube, friends and family, TikTok, and brand websites. 

4. Personalized skincare and cosmetics 

When stores were shut down at the height of the pandemic, shoppers had to rely on brands to virtually match them to the right product. In our survey, 2 in 3 respondents said they’d taken online quizzes on brand sites and apps to figure out the perfect shade of makeup or skincare formulas for skin concerns. And, people are trusting the results of these brand quizzes. 

For those who have taken these approaches to figure out their shade or formula, 55% said it helped them decide what to try and/or buy next. 30% said they would try these resources again. And finally, 29% found their perfect shade/or formula. 

To establish even more trust with consumers, brands and retailers should understand the right audience specific to the respective skincare concerns. It’s also important to have claims from consumers before, and at launch, so you have proofs of concept ready. Product sampling is a great way to get products into the hands of the right consumers and ask them about their experience, validate claims, and get testimonials that can be used in marketing materials and advertising.

5. Demand for brand transparency 

One emerging beauty trend is transparency. In addition to finding the right shade or formula, consumers are also paying attention to a product’s ingredients and how it’s made. Nearly 66% of respondents said it’s their priority that brands provide more information about product ingredients and their benefits. The following are the most important to today’s consumers: cruelty-free, clean, hypo-allergenic, natural, organic, vegan, and green.

As well as transparency, consumers also care about the “behind the scenes” of a product’s creation. We always ask shoppers questions about brand and product messaging, claims, and packaging, and we continuously see that consumers care about a product being cruelty-free and green.

It’s essential for brands to provide education and visibility to consumers. For example, one Peter Thomas Roth acne treatment showcases its ingredients on the packaging. Still, the brand also wants to ensure that its consumers understand how those ingredients are changing their skin. 

Through a Bazaarvoice sampling campaign, it sent this treatment to women struggling with acne. The brand provided information on the packaging about each ingredient and its efficacy. Bazaarvoice prompted recipients to post their experiences with the product on social media and share their recommendations. 

Beauty trends are always changing. But it’s evident that the pandemic has rapidly changed the way consumers approach makeup and skincare. With endless products out there, your brand needs to take time to understand these trends and develop messaging, campaigns, and materials that resonate with today’s consumers to stand out from your competition. 

Learn more

The 101 on UGC: Health & Beauty

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To find out, we surveyed almost 9,000 American members of our Influenster community to see what their plans are for this holiday season. We asked them to tell us how they’re celebrating, who with, and where and how they’re shopping for it. 

Even with less or no restrictions, the holidays still feel different 

Sporting events and live music festivals are being held at full capacity, so it should come as no surprise that almost half (49%) of respondents said that COVID won’t affect their holiday plans. However, when asked if they feel that the holidays will resemble the holidays pre-COVID:

• 49% said not quite, but more so than last year
• 26% said they’ll still be taking precautions
• 25% said they’ll be the same

32% said that their holiday event will require everyone to be vaccinated. 

Consumers are heading online for traditionally in-store events

COVID may be affecting the way about half of respondents celebrate the holidays this year, much less are letting it affect how they shop. Less than a third (30%) of respondents said that COVID will affect their shopping plans, while almost half (45%) said ‘no’ and a quarter said ‘maybe’. In fact, 61% of respondents said that they’ll be spending the same amount of money as they did last year on gifts, while 22% said that they’ll be spending more. 17% said they’ll be spending less.

For those who said that COVID will affect how they holiday shop, 40% said they’ll utilize a combination of online and in-store shopping, whereas 38% said they will primarily/exclusively shop online. But they won’t just be shopping primarily online, they’ll be browsing there as well.

This year, given the hesitation to return to in-store shopping, Black Friday looks like it will be more digital than ever before.  

Consumer purchasing decisions are looking quite a bit different, as well. After a year of hardship and separation, people are looking to get sappy.

People are traveling and gathering, but mostly with family

Over a quarter (27%) of respondents said that they’d be hosting a large family/friend gathering for the holidays this year, with more people than just who live in their household, but almost half (43%) said ‘no’ and 30% said ‘maybe’. Last year, a little over half (55%) said that they had or attended a large gathering as they do often/always do. 42% said they didn’t at all due to COVID. 

While over a quarter (27%) plan on attending/hosting a celebration with friends, like a friendsgiving, only 9% plan on attending their office’s holiday party.

For those not gathering, 46% will be celebrating virtually and buying gifts online to have them shipped to their friend/family’s house. Another 23% who will be celebrating virtually will be sending gifts in the mail. 

Get more statistics beyond holiday shopping

So, while the holidays may not look exactly like they have in years previous, they’re getting there. Just like last year’s holiday shopping statistics told us, brands and retailers need to ensure that their e-commerce offerings are ready for an onslaught of customers.

Learn more

How shoppers are stuffing their stockings this holiday season

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To better understand how shoppers were prepping for Prime Day, we surveyed over 21,000 global consumers to learn how they were planning to review, shop, and spend during these days. (The results of which can be found here!)

And in the 24 hours following Prime Day, over 5,000 global consumers from our Influenster community shared how they participated in the retail event this year. We also looked at the shopping data from our client network of over 11,500 brands and retailers during Prime Day, and the month leading up to it.

One thing that certainly didn’t change: The increasing popularity of the event. Over half of respondents (55%) said they shopped this Prime Day. Orders in our own network increased 7% year-over-year on the first day of the event, and 5% on the second day when compared to last year. So we know Prime Day is still popular, but what did consumers buy? And for who? And why? Let’s find out.

Shoppers are treating themselves more than ever

Prime Day is usually the optimal occasion for consumers to do their holiday shopping, hence earning the moniker, “Black Friday in July.” So you’d expect that when asked who they shopped for this year, respondents would say gifts for their families. But our responses were rather different this year:

• 83% shopped for themselves
• 45% shopped for family members
• 24% shopped for their partner

In fact, only 28% of respondents said they actually purchased a gift for a special occasion or holiday. That’s a huge difference from the past, and could be the sign that Prime Day is no longer the unofficial kickoff for the holiday season.

In terms of expenditure, 1 in 4 shoppers spent between $50 and $99 on purchases. The most popular items bought this year were beauty products (47%), electronics (38%), houseware (37%), apparel (33%), and wellness products (26%).

Prime Day became Prime Month 

Okay, it wasn’t actually a whole month of Prime Day. But based on our survey respondents’ shopping habits, you’d think it was. When researching what they wanted to buy during Prime Day in weeks leading up to it, 40% of respondents said they ended up spontaneously purchasing one or several products. The most common pre-Prime Day purchases included beauty products (48%), electronics (31%), housewares (31%), and apparel (30%). 

According to our own network data, online orders have increased year-over-year during the month leading up to Prime Day, some days as much as 33%. Two of the days that saw a decrease in orders were the two days prior to the event, likely because consumers were wanting to save their money for the impending sales. 

User-generated content (UGC) decided purchasing decisions 

A whopping 88% said they relied on ratings and reviews to complete a purchase during Prime Day. Another remarkable statistic that further emphasises the importance of having a reliable ratings and reviews provider.

Three quarters (74%) of respondents said they relied on photos and/or videos from other customers to make a purchase during Prime Day — only 18% said they exclusively looked at written ratings and reviews. This reflects consumers’ growing reliance on visual UGC to help them make purchase decisions. 

With the exception of only seven days, consumer questions asked on our network were up year-over-year for the entire month leading up to Prime Day, as people researched what they would buy. Just like with online orders, the two days before Prime Day there was a decrease, as people likely had already gotten their research done. 

Reviews submitted also saw massive increases in the month leading up to Prime Day. Likely because people find so much use in reviews they wanted to help out their fellow consumer. 

It wasn’t just Amazon Prime Day

While 75% said they shopped at Amazon on the day(s), 25% said that they shopped at a combination of Amazon and other brands/retailers, or at non-Amazon brands/retailers that had the best sales. 

74% of respondents shopped where they thought they would, but 10% said they were swayed to buy elsewhere by a sale and 16% said they did both. Over three quarters (77%) said the items they intended to purchase were on sale during Prime Day. Only 12% said they were purely driven to purchase a product by how much it was discounted.

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With countries all over the world opening up, consumers are feeling ready to splurge, Gatsby style. As trends are increasingly telling us, clearly consumers want to make up for lost spending time. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues, and how long for. Will it affect the upcoming holiday season?

Watch our holiday season webinar to find out!

Placing shoppable visual and social content into your e-commerce experience inspires shoppers to make purchases. It amplifies your investment across social to bring your buying experience to life, allow you to track an ROI on social content, and boost your sales.

Our short video below talks through the four essentials you need for a successful social commerce strategy.

18 minute watch

FEATURED RESOURCE

Where social commerce is headed next

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Instagram TV (IGTV) is Instagram’s longform video feature, allowing users to post high quality videos anywhere between a minute and 60 minutes long. It’s the perfect function for video content creators looking to stand out.

More importantly, that makes it the perfect function for your brand and now, thanks to a recent Instagram API update, support is available on Bazaarvoice.

You asked, we listened

We already know how important utilizing Instagram Stories is if you want to dominate on Instagram, which is a necessity for brands today. Now, IGTV is becoming just as essential so we’re absolutely thrilled to announce that IGTV is now supported through the Bazaarvoice Visual & Social Content offering! 

Ever since IGTV was first released on the Instagram App, we’ve had frequent interest from clients. Thanks to our partners at Instagram, we’re able to quickly respond to this update and provide you with one of the first IGTV tools available.

We know full-well the importance of Instagram to most brands out there so we always take steps to offer the latest and greatest features available in the Instagram ecosystem. 

What’s the lowdown?

The new feature automatically pulls content from IGTV into our Instagram Analytics Dashboard. We will now provide you with engagement metrics, giving you another measurable benchmark alongside photo and Instagram Stories. But that’s not all! 

Unique to Bazaarvoice is the ability to make your IGTV channel shoppable. With the new integration, we can showcase your IGTV media content across the Bazaarvoice Network. Redistribute your IGTV posts to our Like2Buy, Galleries, and Showroom to get the highest ROI possible from your visual content.

You’re also able to put links directly into IGTV videos, making it incredibly easy for you to drive traffic to product display pages and other landing pages. Don’t worry, you still have the “link in bio” and “swipe up to shop” options so you can attract users whatever discovery path they take – a sure fire way to boost sales and drive your revenue.

What metrics can I track?

• When you schedule a post on IGTV, you’re able to see those posts through BV’s Instagram Analytics pages. Your post will be displayed alongside your other regular feed posts on the Summary and Feed Engagement page, with comparable metrics to the rest of your feed posts. Metrics include: allowing you to report on your IGTV reach, impressions, total engagements, engagement rate, and video views. 
• You can track your competitors’ IGTV posts through our Competitors page.
• You’re able to measure IGTV posts that your influencers are posting in our Influencer dashboard.
• You can ingest IGTV posts that include any hashtags that you’re tracking. The value here is that you’ll be pulling IGTV content into your media library, making it easy for you to distribute this content to our experiences and drive more value outside of Instagram.

Summed up in a tasty blurb:

You create a video and post it to IGTV and we’ll pull it into the platform to provide you with metrics on how it’s performing. In addition, you can repurpose your video across the Bazaarvoice Network for other e-commerce uses, like PDPs, landing pages, and your link in bio. There’s no reason your content needs to live and die on Instagram. The more channels you share it with in a meaningful, shoppable way, the more traffic and revenue you’ll drive (which we can track for you.) Easy as that. 

The thing is, Instagram is no longer just a nice little platform to showcase your products on. It’s an essential part of the e-commerce ecosystem. According to Instagram’s own research, 87% of users say they took action after seeing product information on Instagram, such as following a brand, visiting their website or making a purchase online. 

IGTV is a necessity in this ecosystem. With its increasing popularity, combined with the rise of video content marketing, it’s becoming the must-have tool for your brand to get ahead on social and drive conversion. Now with IGTV supported through the Bazaarvoice Visual & Social Content offering, that’s exactly what you’ll do.

Get in touch with us here to learn more!

The past year has, sadly, distanced you from your shoppers. That means it’s never been more important to connect with them! Learn how to amplify your user-generated content (UGC) across the Bazaarvoice retail network to reach more shoppers in more ways and grow your business.

To learn more, check out our webinar on

the power of visual content