Marketing personalization gets the second date — or in this case, clicks and conversions.

Why’s that? Because personalized marketing is all about tailoring your campaigns to provide a customized experience for your e-commerce site visitors. And in the modern market, the majority of customers expect it, which means brands that design the same messaging for all their customers are so last season.

This is why Bazaarvoice partnered with Klaviyo — to help brands elevate their personalization strategies. It all starts with gaining knowledge about your customers and using it to provide them with an exceptional, tailored shopping experience.

Chapters:

1. What is personalized marketing?
2. Why is personalized marketing so important?
3. How to build a personalized marketing strategy
4. Personalized marketing examples
5. How to get started with personalized marketing

What is personalized marketing?

Personalized marketing uses information about your customers to create individualized, relevant messages and offers. For e-commerce businesses, this data-driven approach matches consumer demographics and behaviors with tailored website and marketing content.

There’s many applications of personalized marketing, from geo-sensitive push notifications that send discounts when you’re near a coffee shop, to abandoned cart emails that remind you of products you looked at but didn’t buy, to product recommendations based on order history. Just to name a few.

And personalized marketing is growing at a rapid pace. Nearly 40% of marketing decision-makers ranked personalization as the most important consumer experience. And a recent survey revealed that 33% of marketers in the US and UK devote over half of their online marketing budgets to personalization projects and initiatives.

The report predicts this trend will continue, driven by advancements in technology, data, and analytics that make personalization more widely available, as well as the rapid rise of generative AI tech.

Why is personalized marketing so important?

Personalized marketing allows you to gain extensive knowledge about your products and customers. You can learn what products, services, features, and messaging attracts customers and leads, then adapt your marketing and product strategy accordingly.

Customers receive marketing materials they actually want and make them feel connected to your brand. This leads to purchases in the short term and brand loyalty and customer retention in the long term.

Valuable information like this lets you focus on what works and scrap what doesn’t. If you only have blanket messaging and offers on your website and in campaigns, you’re missing out on opportunities to target visitors with effective content. According to McKinsey, personalization can

• Increase revenues by 5 – 15%
• Lower customer acquisition costs by up to 50%
• Increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10 – 30%

Increasing online privacy regulations makes user activity more secure and protected, but targeted marketing — like personalization — more challenging. The restrictions prohibit third-party data tracking that has historically helped marketers target campaigns to their website visitors.

This is why it’s extra important to know how to implement personalized marketing in the wake of new obstacles and a changing marketplace. Without the third-party tracking data that gives a broad view of users’ search behavior on various websites, marketers will need to rely on their own data and create campaigns based on that to reach their customers.

How to build your personalized marketing strategy

The basis of personalized marketing is having comprehensive and organized data about the people you’re trying to target.

Once you’ve assembled all your relevant data, you can use it to segment customers based on preferences, demographics, or order history. Then, you can identify the primary channels where customers engage in order to focus your distribution. Either your website, email, social media, live chat, or a combination.

1. Gather customer data and insights

Collect all the pertinent information on your customers that will be useful in serving them personalized content. This includes demographic data, like gender, age group, location, and income level.

Another big piece of the puzzle is shopping behavior, like purchase history and spending habits. With the advent of third-party tracking restrictions, this means relying heavily on collecting first-party data.

There’s different routes you can take to collect these insights, which require varying levels of oversight. Customer data platforms (CDP) are a primary resource for aggregating data from across multiple customer touchpoints. CDPs record when a customer visits your e-commerce website, is shown an ad, or opens a promotional email. And then how the customer interacts with each. CDPs then combine all this information into a single, data-rich customer profile.

A good example is our Bazaarvoice homepage. It appears slightly differently depending on whether you’re a social media manager or e-commerce manager. Each page is tailored to suit the relevant persona.

A personalization engine is similar to a CDP but with AI and machine learning that can assist in designing data-based, targeted campaigns.

Individual data sources also offer insights into your customers. These include social media and SEO management software, e-commerce and retail point of sale (POS) systems, and Google Analytics. These platforms will give you insights on customers who visit your website, engage with your brand on social media, and purchase your products or services.

2. Create customer segments

Next, you can create customer segments based on your data. Look for demographic and behavioral patterns in the data to determine how to segment your audience. Personalization engines and CDPs can combine and organize this data for you, or it can be done manually.

Some examples of customer segments to use for marketing personalization include age groups, occupations, spending amount tiers, product interest categories, and date of the most recent purchase. Once you have your different customer segments set up, tailor your messaging and offers according to the qualities and characteristics of each segment.

Segmentation is a planning tool for personalized marketing. To personalize content, you need to take it a step further. Personalized marketing takes customer segments and then individualizes content for the members of that segment.

For example, a segment could be a group of customers who regularly purchase higher-priced items. To create personalized content for a customer in that segment, you could send an email with product recommendations for luxury items in their size.

One brand who knows segmentation well is Little Sleepies. Wanting to boost their Black Friday sales, the apparel brand leveraged Klaviyo’s segmentation capabilities. Little Sleepies sent two campaigns in a day: the first to their full nurture list and the second to the segment that engaged with the first email but didn’t make a purchase.

They also targeted specific segments with personalized features like a countdown timer. Using Klaviyo’s segmentation paid off with a 138.2% year on year growth in revenue from email during Black Friday.

3. Personalize experiences based on UGC interactions

Leveraging the insights you find from consumer interactions with user-generated content (UGC) — like reviews and frequently asked questions — can be a powerful way to identify and segment audiences for win-back campaigns for unhappy customers. Or for surprise and delight campaigns for your biggest fans. 

Some example use cases include:

• Send review requests: Integrate flows to send post-purchase review request messages to your customers from Klaviyo. This ensures that any email communication is configured and managed within the Klaviyo platform, giving your teams a singular view of the communication with your customer
• Powerful segmentation and flows: Create flows within Klaviyo to thank your customers for writing a review, or segment based on review submissions to contact customers after they leave a positive or negative review
• Personalize your messages: Leverage past review data to notify satisfied customers of an upcoming promotion on a product they love or trigger a refer-a-friend invitation following a positive review submission 

Businesses can now incorporate Bazaarvoice data into their Klaviyo platform to drive additional intelligence to their marketing strategies and personalization triggers. Through the Bazaarvoice and Klaviyo integration, customers can leverage real-time UGC interaction data within email and SMS to create relevant shopping experiences for each customer and influence more purchases.

This integration enables brands to unlock the full potential of UGC while leveraging Klaviyo’s robust marketing automation capabilities to deliver personalized and impactful messages at scale.

Personalized marketing examples

Collecting and organizing customer data is only half the battle. The next step is putting that data to use with different types of personalized marketing tactics and campaigns.

Personalized email marketing

Only 8% of brands think email is important, which is surprising. Because not only do nearly a third of shoppers think personalized emails are important, but email is the top digital channel used for personalized marketing because it’s fairly easy to create customized email content for individual recipients.

After all, consumers have been getting promotional emails with their name in the subject line for years.

There’s multiple different types of email marketing campaigns that brands can personalize. Review request emails are the perfect opportunity to personalize content. They’re a direct response to a customer’s action, whether that’s a website visit, a cart abandonment, or a purchase.

Other types of emails, including product feature announcements, out of stock emails, newsletters, and special offers, can all be personalized. The most basic method is to simply include the customer’s name in the subject line or body of the email. Emails with personalized subject lines improve open rates by 26%, but this can also come off as heavy-handed. Product recommendations based on the customer’s preferences and order history are a more advanced way to appeal to the customer’s personal interests.

Enhance these emails with customer reviews and visual UGC of recommended products. UGC provides consumers with the social proof they need to learn more about products, and ultimately the confidence to make a purchase. You can go the extra mile and personalize the UGC itself. Example: If an email is going to someone in an older age bracket, include reviews or a photo created by someone close to their age that corresponds with the brand or product.

The way in which you collect UGC also plays an important role in personalization. One of the top recommended personalization campaigns is to send emails asking customers to review a recently purchased product. You can then use that UGC to display on your website, giving shoppers more details and insights from verified customers who have first-hand experience with products.

In this email example from Hulu, the streaming platform does a great job of using customer data to create a personalized campaign. It uses the customer’s demographic information (their date of birth) and purchase history. In this case, the customer was a previous subscriber who hadn’t renewed their subscription.

So, Hulu offers them a birthday gift in the form of a one-month free trial with the goal of winning back the customer.

SMS marketing

Often considered an extension of email, SMS marketing is an often overlooked but equally powerful tool — the average text open rate is 98%.

Much like with email, SMS works wonders for personalization because it’s easy enough to create custom content for specific segments. All you need to write is your customer’s name at the start and include messaging like “Exclusively for our text subscribers” to get going. 

There’s multiple types of personalization opportunities in SMS marketing:

• Promotional SMS include special offers like holiday sales and customer acknowledgement like a birthday message
• Post-interaction texts are usually sent post-purchase and post-delivery or even for abandoned cart notifications
• Customer service messaging can consist of shipping updates and delivery notifications

The key is to segment before you send. Types of SMS segment include loyalty program customers, engaged subscribers, or subscribers who’ve yet to make a purchase from you. And it works.

One brand, Fast Growing Trees, discovered this firsthand after they implemented a more personalized SMS strategy, using Klaviyo’s segment level campaign reporting. The brand started sending SMS messages to a more specific segment of subscribers — 60-day engaged as opposed to 180-day engaged — with the aim of increasing engagement and growing their SMS channel.

Since June 2023, their revenue per SMS message has already grown 35% quarter over quarter.

Website or app optimization

For e-commerce companies, your website or app is the ideal space for personalization. This is where you can deliver relevant calls to action (CTAs) for further browsing and exploration. Things like product recommendations of products similar to what’s in the shopper’s cart, or based on order history.

Some examples are “people also bought,” “you might also like,” “finish the look,” and “don’t forget to accessorize.”

Enabling your website search feature to produce relevant results and recommendations is another important aspect of website personalization. For example, if a website visitor searches for a black dress, everything that fits “black” + “dress” should populate.

And if you don’t carry a black dress, provide them with alternatives that closely match. That could be a navy dress or a grey dress, for example. If a search term is misspelled — like “black dress”— your technology should be able to understand that and produce results instead of no results.

Special offers tailored to different types of customers is an enticing website personalization tactic. Offer promo codes to first-time customers to use on their first order. Increase basket sizes by offering discounts on products or free samples that align with customers’ repeat purchases or interests.

Customized content is another way to provide a personalized experience for each website visitor. Create dedicated landing pages to include in emails that highlight personalized product updates and recommendations. Another way is to include the customer’s name and order history when they visit your website.

Netflix is an expert in the art of personalized marketing, particularly with its in-app recommendations. The company uses its subscribers’ viewing behaviors to create TV and movie categories based on their unique tastes. Examples of this in action are its “Because You Watched” and “Gems for You” lists.

Spotify does the work for you and curates recommendations into instantly consumable playlists. Some of its personalized playlists based on listener data include daily mixes, genre mixes, top artists mixes, Discover Weekly, and Release Radar.

The company’s highly anticipated annual Spotify Wrapped is a shining example of personalization in action. With this feature, they literally create a neatly packaged overview of each individual listener’s data and use it to make fun, shareable content and custom playlists.

Augmented reality

The use of augmented reality (AR) is a growing marketing trend that enables real-time personalization. The number of mobile AR users is expected to reach 1.73 billion this year. Some customers using the AR platform Adloid reported seeing up to a 200% increase in sales conversions.

AR is an example of advanced personalized marketing, where customers can see products superimposed on their own bodies, in their living spaces, or in other real-life settings. Some top retail and e-commerce industries that have quickly adopted AR include automotive, beauty, home goods and decor, and apparel.

On its website, L’Oreal’s Live Try On gives shoppers the opportunity to virtually apply its products from wherever they are using their mobile or desktop device.

And Target’s See It in Your Space feature is a great way to see how furniture and other products look in your home or office. Customers can accurately visualize these products and if they fit where they live and work.

Saying sorry

Elton John famously sang, “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” (Or Blue famously sang it, depending on the era you grew up in. Both are bangers). Either way, apologies can be tough. Not just for people, for brands too. But it really doesn’t have to be!

They’re the perfect opportunity to use personalization to turn a negative shopper experience into a positive one. 45% of consumers actually consider a brand apology to be the “coolest” personalization tactic they’ve seen.

Whether apologizing for an item being out-of-stock or following up on an abandoned shopping cart, there’s often a reason a brand needs to apologize. So if you have to do it, do it properly.

Take this tailored example from ZocDoc above. Not only does it provide a form of compensation to entice the customer to stay with the brand, it also uses the opportunity to gain customer feedback. This feedback can then be used to improve the service going forward, making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Product sampling

Launching a targeted sampling campaign creates a personalized experience for customers because you are sending products directly to them to try out for themselves. To maximize the personalization of each campaign, tailor the samples according to the individual customer.

For example, you can reward customers you consider high value because of their repeat business with pre-release samples of new products. You can target customers who have interests in specific product types with samples of new or similar products. You can include samples of relevant products along with order shipments.

With product sampling, not only do customers get a free gift based on their interests or customer history, but samples often create impactful UGC for brands.

In exchange for product samples, brands can ask recipients for feedback in the form of an online survey or a review, making sampling another valuable data-gathering tactic.

Conversational commerce

We’ve left the best til last. Knowing how to win at conversational commerce is a business necessity. Conversational commerce uses messaging apps and voice-activated technology to sell products and services, with help from artificial intelligence. Think of it as an online version of talking to a sales assistant in a store.

Whether shopping bots that aid a customer through the buyer journey, or customizable chatbots for customer inquiries, there’s a multitude of conversational commerce delivery methods. And each one provides a different personalization in its own right.

Take this example from our own Bazaarvoice website. You’ll have seen an iteration of it pop up in the bottom corner. Through some simple tweaking, our own lovely chatbot (Bazaarbot!) differs in messaging depending on who visits the site.

Let’s say a user has tried out our marketing ROI calculator tool. On their next site visit, our bot will encourage those with an ROI calculation to get in touch. As demonstrated below.

Using this example almost feels like spilling state secrets or insider trading. But you know what, it’s one of the multiple, successful customizations on our website. And you have to lead by example.

How to get started with personalized marketing

Personalized marketing is a proven way to win over customers, and it’s surprisingly simple to implement. But there’s a disparity between brands and shoppers when it comes to personalization — while retailers believe they’re excelling at personalized marketing, consumers disagree.

There’s multiple ways to solve this though — you already have most of the resources to do it. As it is, you can start personalizing with the data you already have and refine your strategy through more sophisticated collection and segmentation. But key areas of opportunity for brands include:

1. Focus on delivering the right content through the right channel at the right time
2. Use tailored offerings and purchasing incentives, like discounts, in exchange for personal information
3. Utilize the Bazaarvoice + Klaviyo integration to leverage real-time UGC within email and SMS in an automated way to create relevant shopping experiences for each user and influence more purchases

Over time, you’ll increasingly notice the impact it has. And your bottom line will thank you for it. Learn more on our dedicated Klaviyo + Bazaarvoice integration page or get started right away below.

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Let’s take a look at each and find out which are best suited to your goals.

Chapters:

1. Customer care and support integrations
2. Marketing automation and personalization integrations
3. Customer experience optimization integrations
4. Brand loyalty integrations
5. Choose the right Bazaarvoice integration for your business

Customer care and support integrations

Your customers have come to expect exceptional experiences at every touchpoint, whether they find you on social, your website, or in ads. Keeping a customer first mindset and learning from the outside in is a powerful tool for brands and retailers that want to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customers engage through a variety of channels that include social, ratings & reviews, email, chat, call centers and support boards. Keeping and logging all of this information into your CRM system can take loads of time. Enter four integrations that connect your CRM data to your help desk platform. 

These integrations allow brands and retailers to integrate their Bazaarvoice Data (Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers) into their help desk platform so that customer support agents can more efficiently manage customer interactions through one unified interface.

1. Zendesk

Zendesk’s mission is to simplify the complexity of business and make it much easier for companies and customers to build better connections. Their customer experience software unlocks the power of billions of interactions, enabling businesses to build rich, meaningful relationships with their customers. 

The Bazaarvoice Zendesk integration makes responding to customer reviews and questions more streamlined (particularly if you have a high volume of reviews), helping you create better customer experiences, improve workflows, manage brand reputation at scale, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

2. Sprinklr

Sprinklr helps the world’s biggest companies and the most beloved teams make their customers and fans happier. Across 30+ digital channels, their industry-leading AI creates insights for deeper and more real-time customer and fan experiences.

Sprinklr Connector — the integration with Bazaarvoice — allows you to leverage the response management tool you’re already using to answer questions and respond to reviews on your own site. This allows you to drive online sales by turning negative reviews into a positive, identify the high-priority customer questions to answer first, and save time by including this data in your existing Sprinklr reports. 

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management software juggernaut But they also have applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development making them a perfect fit for Bazaarvoice.

If you’re a Salesforce user, you can now integrate your Bazaarvoice review data into your Salesforce Service Cloud. Not only does this provide a wealth of data to glean insights from, but it also enables CSMs to easily respond and interact with customer reviews left on the client’s website.

After implementing the Bazaarvoice Salesforce Connector, which allows the customer engagement team to respond to consumer questions, reviews, and other inquiries within one tool, the Nestle Canada customer service team saves on average eight minutes coding cases.

“We previously didn’t have the capacity and had to let go of engaging with as many of the reviews as we wanted. It would have taken eight minutes to open a case and transfer all of that content. Now, it’s all automated,” said Kristina Rapljenovic, Website Manager at Nestlé Canada.

4. 1440 Reputation Studio

1440 Reputation Studio is an all-in-one review management platform, designed specifically to work with Salesforce Service Cloud. That means you can generate, monitor, respond to, and analyze reviews from dozens of channels in a single place, giving you an omnichannel approach to your review management.

Now, instead of wasting time logging into multiple sources, simply manage Bazaarvoice reviews directly from the 1440 app in Salesforce. The Bazaarvoice 1440 integration means brands and retailers alike can facilitate effective follow-up action to all customer feedback they receive.

Marketing automation and personalization integrations

In addition to excellent customer service experiences, consumers expect personalized and contextualized touch points throughout their buying journey — regardless of what channel they’re on.

These types of integrations allow Bazaarvoice user-generated content (UGC) data to be pulled into marketing automation platforms to deliver truly personalized, real-time email or SMS messages that captivate your customers, driving higher engagement and conversions.

Smart marketers leverage this data based on recently browsed, abandoned, purchased, recommended, or pre-selected products. By meeting your customers where they want to be met, you’ll encourage more UGC creation and create meaningful connections with customers that enrich the customer’s shopping experience. 

5. MovableInk

MovableInk is a marketing automation platform that helps clients send customized emails to their customer base to help drive conversions.

The Bazaarvoice MovableInk integration lets you incorporate real-time UGC into email campaigns (customized per user that opens the email) and provide ratings and reviews, social content, and product sentiment for recently browsed, abandoned, or purchased items to inspire more shopper purchases. 

6. Attentive

Attentive is the leading conversational marketing platform, reinventing business to consumer communication. Their SMS-first software platform helps everyone from lean teams to enterprise brands strengthen relationships with their consumers in a new way.

73% of marketers say SMS drives incremental revenue for their business, but SMS is often an overlooked channel. Bazaarvoice partnered with Attentive to solve this by bringing authentic UGC into SMS campaigns, unlocking the power of customer advocacy.

By meeting your customers where they are, you encourage more UGC generation, driving more connections with customers and enriching their shopping experience.

7. Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a unified customer platform that gives online brands direct ownership of their consumer data and interactions, empowering them to turn transactions with customers into long-term relationships — at scale. With Klaviyo, brands can combine customer data with over 220 native integrations to automate personalized email and SMS communications that make customers feel seen.

Klaviyo Marketing Connector allows clients to request reviews through Klaviyo flows, as well as segment users based on UGC data to deliver hyper-personalized campaigns that nurture customer lifetime value.

Customer experience optimization integrations

Shoppers crave experiences. According to our research, 98% of consumers value experience over price. Customer experience optimization is the process of using software tools that leverage customer feedback and data to deliver a frictionless, effective and happy shopping experience across all touchpoints — online and offline.

While optimization integrations overlap with CRM, the clear distinction is the heavy use of analytics tools and AI recommendations with optimization, as retailers evaluate buyer behavior in real time to continually improve experience and outcome.

Our main goal with the Bazaarvoice optimization integrations is to increase sales conversion, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty.

8. Contentsquare

Contentsquare leads the way in digital experience intelligence. Are you struggling to quantify ROI for your UGC campaigns? By integrating Contentsquare’s digital experience analytics platform with Bazaarvoice, you can better understand the impact that UGC has on your engagement metrics, conversion rates, and online revenue, helping you determine ROI of your campaign(s).

The integration also ptimizes the timing and placement of UGC to perfect your digital experience. For example, natural beauty product retailer The Body Shop increased average order value by 13% and enhanced the customer experience with Bazaarvoice Galleries and Contentsquare to guide product detail page optimizations.

9. Monetate

Monetate, a customer experience optimization platform, partnered with Bazaarvoice to join customer intelligence with content intelligence and drive rapid growth and digital transformation. Bazaarvoice provides UGC and data, Monetate optimizes when and where that content should appear in the shopping journey.

Leading brands and retailers are then able to understand, optimize and personalize their customer experiences at scale to deliver authentic, insights-driven personalized customer journeys. The integration means you can:

1. Control the display of inline ratings on product pages
2. Control the display of UGC on product pages
3. Utilize reviews data in Monetate Product Recommendations

Brand loyalty integrations

Every brand knows a retained customer is more valuable than an acquired one — you’re about 70% more likely to sell to a previous customer than a new one. But with a well-executed loyalty and referral program, brand’s don’t have to choose.

Brand loyalty programs allow brands to engage and reward their most loyal customers resulting in significant increase in lifetime value and retention, as well as acquire new customers through program referrals. 

10. Annex Cloud

Annex Cloud transforms customer loyalty experiences for organizations, ultimately making beloved brands. The integration with Bazaarvoice combines best-in-class loyalty management with powerful engagement and communication modules, enabling organizations to improve retention and drive growth on every level.

When you combine Bazaarvoice UGC with Annex Cloud’s loyalty solutions, you’re enabling brands to amplify the voices of its most loyal customers to accelerate growth. And in a time when third-party cookies are phasing out, the solution collects first-party data to build unique customer profiles for you.

11. TokyWoky

TokyWoky and Bazaarvoice have teamed up to allow brands and retailers to get even more of their top customers. TokyWoky’s Community platform technology rewards shoppers for taking specific actions (e.g. — receiving points to leave a review).

This helps make ratings and reviews and social commerce programs successful and turns reviewers into loyal customers. And given that 57% of shoppers spend more with brands they feel loyal to, this can have a noticeable effect on your sales.

Choose the right Bazaarvoice integration for your business

Every one of these integrations has the same goal in mind: to help you get even more out of 2024 and deliver the best customer experiences possible for your brand. But each integration can suit different business needs. Whatever your KPIs for 2024 are, Bazaarvoice has an integration that’s got you covered.

Make this the year that you can get more from the tools you are already using. Get in touch to learn more and discover the right integration(s) for you.

We’re better together. Interested in becoming a Bazaarvoice partner? Apply here.

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But a substantial amount of marketers don’t feel confident they’re maximizing its potential and want to improve their strategies to further strengthen performance.

That’s why Bazaarvoice recently partnered with SMS experts Attentive — to help brands unlock customer advocacy and elevate their SMS marketing strategies.

If you’re one of the companies that want in on the SMS marketing goldrush but aren’t sure of the best way to do it, we have the answers to help you get the most out of this quickly growing trend.

Chapters:

1. What is SMS marketing?
2. Benefits of SMS marketing
3. Examples of SMS marketing
4. SMS marketing best practices
5. Getting started with SMS marketing

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing is a way for businesses to communicate with their customers who have opted-in, primarily through text messages. These types of marketing messages can include promotions, order and shipping notifications, new product alerts, brand updates, news, and more.

Because of the nature and capabilities of texting, brands can also utilize MMS — multimedia messages that include images, videos, GIFs, and other animated and visual content.

Benefits of SMS marketing

We’ve already established the attractive revenue opportunities of SMS marketing, but there’s plenty of other reasons to invest in this particular channel. These are some of the other incentives SMS can offer in a world that craves speed and brevity, and sometimes wit.

Deliver what customers really want

91% of consumers globally have already signed up for an SMS program, or are interested in doing so. And according to Soprano Design research, 85% of smartphone owners would rather receive text messages from brands than phone calls or emails. Their behavior confirms this, given that the average text open rate is a striking 98% and response rate is 45%, compared to 6% for email. 

And when it comes to customer service correspondence, 63% of global consumers engage with brands’ SMS programs at least twice a week. Consumer preference for texting comes as no surprise, considering that many of us are frequently fixated on mobile screens, and our devices are quite literally within reach at any given time.

Higher click-through and conversion rates

In a benchmark report that analyzed over 10,000 text campaigns, the SMS click-through rate (CTR) is 30%, meaning 30% of customers clicked a link in a text. If you’re wondering if that’s a high CTR, the answer is yes, insanely high. For comparison, the total average click-through rate of email campaigns across 40+ industries is 2.6%.

Conversion rates for SMS marketing are equally impressive. The average conversion rate based on a combination of sources is 29%, which is significantly higher than Facebook ads, digital ads, Google ads, and email marketing campaigns.

Examples of SMS marketing

Texting customers isn’t just like texting your friends or family. While the tone should definitely be conversational and friendly, it’s much more intentional and focused. Before launching an SMS marketing program, consider the most effective types of campaigns, how they apply to your business, and how to work them into your strategy.

Regardless of the types of messages you plan to send, make a great first impression and start off the relationship right with a strong initial welcome message. Automate your first message to send right after a customer signs up for SMS. Thank them for subscribing, and reinforce your brand by including your company name and what you specialize in. Include a call to action (CTA), like a link to explore your e-commerce site or to apply a first-time shopper promo code to their purchase for a discount.

Here’s the different types of SMS marketing, with examples for you to emulate.

Customer service SMS

Handling customer service-related questions and concerns is a popular and valuable form of SMS marketing for brands. SMS provides a quick and direct avenue to alert customers of purchase confirmations, shipping notifications and updates, delivery notifications, and any other pertinent information.

Beyond alerts and updates, texting is becoming consumers’ preferred method of communicating with customer service representatives about pressing issues. We’re all familiar with the nerve-wracking scenarios of being on hold with the customer service department for up to an hour or more or waiting days for a response to a customer service email. But with SMS, shoppers actually want to talk with brands.

When Attentive asked 8,000 consumers which of the following actions they’d rather do, from most to least, they said:

1. Text a brand customer service questions
2. Talk to a store representative
3. Do laundry
4. Exercise
5. Talk to a brand/customer service on the phone

In a consumer survey of over 2,000 adults, 44% of active texters would rather initiate an immediate text conversation instead of waiting on hold for a customer service agent. Conversational commerce via SMS — if done properly – can eliminate those customer frustrations and allow you to resolve problems quickly.

One way to offer customer service through your SMS program is with live texting with a real representative. This is an effective method that can satisfy the 88% of global consumers who would strike up a conversation to learn more about a product. Another approach is to automate customer service messages with prepared responses to frequently asked questions and concerns.

A successful SMS improves convenience, promptness, and accuracy in customer service experiences and can increase satisfaction and retention.

Promotional SMS

Promotional SMS is likely the most common type of text coming from consumer brands. These are the kind of texts designed to drive sales and strengthen brand loyalty. There’s plenty of use-cases for promotional SMS, including:

• Special offers: Special offers can include any kind of sale you’re running site-wide, for holidays, or for particular products. These can also include promo codes for first-time purchases, text-exclusive promo codes, or any other type of discount 
• Product launches: Using SMS for product launches will alert your text subscribers of new product releases and early release access before new products are widely released
• Product updates: SMS is a great tool for notifying customers when out-of-stock products have returned and when certain products are low on stock
• Customer acknowledgment: Another clever way to use SMS to strengthen customer connection is to send personalized texts on their birthday, anniversary, or other special occasions
• Educational content: For health and beauty brands, consumer electronics, or any industry that can offer helpful resources for its products, SMS can help distribute tutorials, tips, and how-to articles

One brand who sees success with promotional SMS marketing is clothing giant Monsoon. Monsoon creates and sends campaigns targeting loyalty members, with voucher reminders and early access to shop sales, to help increase engagement and spend.

Their lowest value voucher reminder (£10) resulted in a 13% CTR and 45% CVR, while their highest one (£40) resulted in a 16% CTR and 57% CVR — well above industry benchmarks

Post-interaction SMS

Similar to post-interaction emails, post-interaction SMS is a way to follow up with customers after they’ve made a purchase, are considering a purchase, or are otherwise engaged with your brand. 

Sending texts for abandoned cart notifications is an important function of post-interaction SMS. Current abandoned cart rates are at just under 70%. But the good news is brands can use SMS to recover abandoned carts by sending their customers encouraging texts to convince them to close the deal. 

Abandoned cart reminders should be friendly and personalized with the customer’s name. You can take it to the next level by including user-generated content (UGC) featuring products customers added to their carts. This can include customer reviews and visual UGC, like images and videos of customers with the products. To sweeten the deal, you could include a promo code for a discount if the customer finishes the transaction.

Post-purchase texts are an opportunity to send customers complementary information about their purchases, like useful tips, tutorials, loyalty points earned, and UGC to show how other customers use the products. You can also recommend similar products and accessories for future purchases.

Post-delivery texts are your chance to ask for valuable customer feedback. These SMS campaigns can be used to ask customers to leave a product review, share their own UGC on social media, and fill out customer satisfaction surveys. (You can collect 2x more UGC with Bazaarvoice SMS review collection).

Collecting and leveraging UGC and customer feedback has a direct impact on your business. Customer ratings and reviews are the top third factor that improves online shopping confidence for over 7,000 consumers surveyed.

Customer satisfaction surveys can also provide brands with feedback that helps improve their products and services. 

Communicating brand values and social responsibility

Expressing your brand values, including aligning with social causes you support, is an effective way to diversify your messages and instill your brand identity. This can include your thoughts on and participation in environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion efforts, human rights, mental health, and more. 

These messages will particularly resonate with your younger audience, given that nearly a third of Gen Z have stopped buying from brands that don’t support social causes. By distributing this kind of content, you can also convey your brand story and background and make connections with customers. 

The above SMS example from fashion brand MATE the Label demonstrates its environmental values and commitment to using natural materials. MATE’s SMS program produces positive results in the form of high open rates and engaged subscribers.

SMS marketing best practices

Texting your customers may sound like a simple marketing task, but as you can see, it’s not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Just as there’s different forms of SMS communication with their own objectives, there’s different best practices you need to take when developing your SMS marketing strategy and launching campaigns to uphold quality and privacy standards.

Ensure compliance

Make absolutely sure that you only send SMS texts to opt-in subscribers. Conversely, stop sending messages as soon as recipients request to opt out. You should have clear instructions for how to opt in and opt out and explain the details of what customers can expect by opting in to receive texts from your brand.

Text sign-up prompts should be clearly separated from email sign-up forms and any other subscription options. With the opt-in prompt, include the kinds of messages customers will be receiving, like special offers, early access announcements, shipping notifications, etc. There should also be clear instructions for how to opt out on both the sign-up form and within the texts sent to customers. 

Last but not least, do not send or schedule texts during off hours, like early in the morning or late at night. Doing so can be disruptive and can be a quick way to frustrate your customers.

Segment before you send

Segmentation is a core component of effective personalized marketing and will greatly increase your chances of customer engagement. Instead of blasting out one general mass message to all of your SMS subscribers, you can meet the unique needs of different categories of customers with segments.

The qualities of each customer segment will determine the type and frequency of messages to send each one. Some examples of segments with tailored SMS approaches are:

• Engaged subscribers: This segment includes SMS subscribers who regularly click links in messages or respond to messages. You can include all general messages to this segment
• Subscribers who haven’t purchased: If a consumer opted in for texts but hasn’t made a purchase, you can send incentivized messages that include promo codes, UGC, or reminders of products and how they can benefit them
• Product categories: These segments can include customers who have a particular interest in certain product categories. You can send this segment price drops, new similar products, relevant sales, etc.
• Loyalty members: This segment includes SMS subscribers who are also members of your loyalty program. Strengthen the value of your loyalty program by alerting this segment of points gained, exclusive offers, etc

Menswear brand Mack Weldon leveraged the power of SMS marketing during the pandemic to reach different customer segments. They focused their SMS strategy on targeting customers interested in particular products and categories with custom messaging, including price drops and restocks. Based on its success, the brand plans to continue to invest in SMS as a retention channel and refine its strategy based on performance results.

Personalize your messages

At a minimum, add the customer’s name to the beginning of your messages, and you can do a lot more to personalize your SMS marketing. Your customer segments are a great resource for planning your messaging. Send special offers and content that aligns with the behaviors and interests of the customers in each segment. 

You can personalize messages to all of your SMS subscribers by promoting text-exclusive specials and sales. Make sure your recipients know it’s an exclusive offer by including “only for our text subscribers” or similar messaging. 

Make it conversational

The casual nature of texting is a draw for SMS subscribers, so you should avoid sounding like a robot or too rigid. Since texting is a primary form of communication for many, brands should treat it as an interactive exchange. Encourage recipients to respond by asking questions and inviting their thoughts and feedback. And allow your brand’s voice and personality to shine through to create authentic connections.

Promote your SMS program

Feature sign-up forms on your website and your mobile app if you have one. Be clear about the kind of communication customers can expect and what the value is for them to opt-in. Invite your email subscribers and social media followers to subscribe to texts for the full omnichannel experience.

Make it as frictionless as possible by allowing customers to text your brand to automatically opt in and begin the SMS relationship.

Measure campaign performance

As with any marketing campaign and initiative, you should measure the performance of your SMS marketing to decipher what’s working and what isn’t. Use the data from your SMS platform’s analytics to your advantage. Make sure you’re tracking the three key buckets of SMS KPIs: list growth, revenue growth, and message engagement.

• Revenue growth. How is SMS helping your bottom line? What’s your program’s return on investment (ROI) or return on ad spend (ROAS)?  
• Message engagement. What types of campaigns and triggered messages are your subscribers engaging with? Are they responding to your messages? Are certain message types or send times driving more opt-outs? 
• List growth. How many new subscribers are you adding? How many subscribers are you retaining, and how many are unsubscribing? Which sources are driving the most opt-ins?

And make sure to frequently assess any underperforming campaigns and optimize your strategy for better results.  

A/B testing is a helpful way to utilize the best elements of top-performing SMS campaigns for future success. Different components you can test are text copy, CTAs, timing, frequency, and multimedia, including emojis, images, GIFs, and video. Users have different tastes and lifestyles, so their preferences will vary, making it even more important to pay attention to your campaign performance.

Getting started with SMS marketing

SMS marketing is a relatively new addition to the e-commerce marketing toolkit that customers have latched onto, but not all brands are practicing it yet. Or at least not to the extent they could be. Now’s your opportunity to adopt this powerful channel or improve how you’re currently using it.

To do that successfully, you need to dedicate the necessary resources, and this may require buy-in from the decision makers. Consider this guide your pitch to go all-in on SMS marketing and take your brand to the next level.

With the Bazaarvoice and Attentive integration, you can unlock the power of customer advocacy. By meeting your customers where they want to be met, you can encourage more review generation and other types of UGC, driving more connections with customers and enriching the customer’s shopping experience.

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People spend a lot of their time shopping online. And, they need your help along the way. Shoppers seek inspiration, good-quality information, and the perspectives of real people to help them feel comfortable making purchases. 

The best way to improve customer service and offer the level of support shoppers crave is by responding to ratings, reviews, and other user-generated content (UGC). When you respond to UGC, you help your consumers feel confident they can get the help they need. Having a strong UGC response strategy helps you build relationships with consumers, which can improve consumer confidence in their purchase decision.”

To help you build impactful UGC programs (and create deeper and more efficient customer engagements in the process), Bazaarvoice and Zendesk have partnered for a new integration. 

As the leading UGC provider, that works with a large network of retailers, brands, and shoppers, Bazaarvoice offer Ratings & Reviews, Questions & Answers, and other UGC solutions. While Zendesk is a customer service platform connecting over 100,000 brands with hundreds of millions of customers across email, social channels, review sites, and more. 

“Bringing together the power of Bazaarvoice and Zendesk, we are making it easier for our clients to be customer-centric,” says Mark Drosos, SVP of Global Partnerships at Bazaarvoice. 

“This integration is a game-changer, enabling businesses to seamlessly gather and harness valuable customer insights while delivering exceptional support. By uniting two industry leaders, we empower brands and retailers to build stronger relationships, drive growth, increase lifetime value, and elevate the customer experience to unprecedented heights.”

How the Bazaarvoice + Zendesk integration improves customer service 

The Bazaarvoice + Zendesk integration enables you to build an efficient, effective UGC program that delivers high-quality customer experiences and improve customer service across the shopping journey.

You’re easily able to integrate your Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers data into the Zendesk platform. Here’s how the Bazaarvoice + Zendesk integration can help you improve workflows, enhance your brand reputation, and improve customer service: 

• Build robust customer profiles: The UGC you collect helps you keep tabs on what consumers are saying about you and your products. You can also discover new customer profiles that aren’t already in your CRM 

• Manage brand reputation at scale: Whenever a shopper leaves feedback or asks a question, thousands more are paying attention. You can prioritize high-impact reviews and questions with alerts and deploy a response interface that your team already knows well 

• Increase productivity: The integration lets you centralize customer interaction through your Zendesk platform. This helps maximize the workflow management your response team has already built, which drives efficiency and saves valuable time

• Learn about your customers: Reviews (negative and positive) provide a wealth of information about your shoppers. You can learn about their pain points, where customer service is lagging, and any issues they’re having with your products. You can also identify gaps in the market, where you could innovate and improve

• Drive top-notch customer experiences and retention: Leverage your UGC to create informed, personalized customer support and increase the lifetime value of your customers. Improve customer satisfaction by responding to reviews and questions quickly and seamlessly tracking consumer correspondence in the Zendesk platform

• Give consumer voices a boost: UGC is a true asset. Consumers who interact with UGC are 2x more likely to convert. Bazaarvoice’s Ratings & Reviews tools let you collect authentic ratings, reviews, photos, and videos from consumers 

Helping you respond to negative and positive reviews

UGC plays a huge role in consumers’ purchasing decisions, with 89% always or mostly consulting reviews before buying anything. Shoppers value any and all reviews, both negative and positive. They also expect you to respond to their reviews and answer their questions. 

Review management is a key part of a successful UGC strategy. Letting reviews simply flow in isn’t always enough. But, your response to all those reviews is everything when it comes to boosting your brand reputation, gaining consumer trust, and just giving shoppers what they want. 

While negative reviews might seem like a turn-off for shoppers, they’re actually much appreciated. 60% of shoppers consider negative reviews equally important as positive feedback, as they can provide just as much (or even more) information about your products. However, most shoppers expect you to respond and address the issues that they mention. 

Responding to reviews makes shoppers feel valued. Even replying to positive reviews — which can be easy to take for granted — establishes trust and shows your customers that you care about what they have to say and are dedicated to ensuring the highest level of customer service. 

The Bazaarvoice + Zendesk integration makes responding to customer reviews and questions more streamlined, giving you the opportunity to join the conversation with the native content on your own site. It’s as simple as logging into our portal, where you can track and manage questions and reviews across the Bazaarvoice Network. You can choose how and when to receive notifications, so you can respond to consumers at the right moments.

Improve customer service with the Bazaarvoice + Zendesk integration 

Our integration with Zendesk enables you to easily and efficiently respond to customer reviews and questions at scale, helping you turn customers into repeat buyers. 

Ready to boost your UGC strategy, build smarter shopping experiences, and take your customer service to the next level? Learn more about the Zendesk integration here. Or get in touch directly below to get started.

Interested in becoming the next Bazaarvoice partner? Visit our partner page to learn more.

You can opt to watch the on-demand masterclass here.

Working in omnichannel retail can feel like building a plane while you’re flying it. It’s easy for brands to find themselves in a tailspin of uncertainty, trying to put their resources, time, and budgets to work with efficiency. But one of the consistent truths of omnichannel is simple: content rules all.

But not all content is equal. While having a mix of paid and branded content is important, it’s earned and shared media, aka user-generated content (UGC) — content like reviews and images created for you by unpaid individuals and brand fans — that’s really going to deliver results. For example:

Nowhere is this truer than Walmart.com, one of the world’s largest online marketplaces. From improving search rankings to increasing sales, leveraging UGC on your product detail pages (PDPs) and beyond is essential for omnichannel selling on Walmart.com.

What role does UGC play in the omnichannel experience?

As a brand selling products on Walmart.com or in-store, a key pain point is maximizing channel sales. To solve this, you need to amplify the voices of Walmart shoppers with authentic UGC that shoppers want.

Aside from providing authenticity and inspiring purchasing decisions across the shopper journey, UGC has a number of benefits.

It makes your products discoverable

You could have the greatest product in the world. But if shoppers can’t find it, few people will buy it. And given that Walmart.com is one of the largest marketplaces in the world, competition for key search terms is particularly fierce.

Content is the most important factor to ensure your products win that competition. Detailed product descriptions and reviews help search algorithms understand what your products are, rank them as high quality, and serve them up during relevant searches.

It educates and convert shoppers

Consumers are more cautious when shopping online, because they can’t physically try out the product. UGC helps soothe this uncertainty, providing plenty of detailed, trustworthy information that ensures shoppers know what they’re getting.

But simply including information is not enough to stand out in a crowded space like Walmart.com. Instead, brands need to provide unique, trust-building content that showcases their products in the best possible way, which is why UGC is so important. 

Whether ratings and reviews or high-quality images of real customers using products in real life, UGC helps create a distinctive brand experience and make shoppers trust your products. 

It enhances the in-store experience

UGC isn’t just for selling on Walmart.com — it impacts in-store sales too. The distinction between the physical and digital shelf is increasingly blurry. Plenty of consumers prefer to shop in-person, but they still check online reviews to see if products are available in-store and compare their options.

Your PDPs are therefore a pivotal part of the in-store experience. Not only can they help shoppers locate items, the UGC on your product pages helps persuade customers in the moment. Strong reviews, positive imagery, and trustworthy ratings all give customers confidence. Which ultimately translates to increased sales.

How to create excellent UGC for Walmart.com

It’s tempting to treat all marketplaces as fundamentally similar. But research shows that consumers behave differently on Walmart.com to other e-commerce sites. There’s also a different search algorithm, meaning brands must tailor their omnichannel content to maximize success on Walmart.

But how can you refine and optimize content so that it appears in the right non-branded search queries on Walmart.com? The key is understanding Walmart’s Content Quality Scores.

Walmart’s Content Quality Scores

Walmart’s Content Quality Score (CQS) sets a clear, objective standard for brands’ PDP content. Walmart has developed style guides for every category of merchandise they carry. The CQS measures your content against those guides, so you can see which elements your brand is missing and needs to improve.

This means you can systematically improve your content, instead of relying on subjective assessments and guesswork.

For example, WhyteSpyder has found that items with a CQS above 85 are 3x more likely to feature on Page one of search results, and 7x more likely to reach the Top 10.

How to develop a winning UGC strategy for selling on Walmart.com

UGC is a key factor in improving your CQS. But generating and deploying UGC efficiently and effectively requires a systematic approach to.

Establish your goals

The first step is understanding exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have a new product launch coming up, or do your hero products need new content? This will help formulate timelines, establish what kind of content you need to seed and how to deploy it.

Walmart’s CQS is helpful here. Rather than coming up with a detailed strategy from scratch, simply consult the relevant style guides to understand what your campaign requires.

You can also create a benchmark based on how much UGC your direct competitors include on their Walmart PDPs.

Audit your content

Many brands overlook the volume of UGC already generated on social media. Before you start seeding content through sampling campaigns or other methods, thoroughly audit your existing content. Focus on three main areas:

1. Quantity

How much usable content can be extracted from organic user engagement? How does that compare to your direct competitors on Walmart.com?

2. Quality

Are your reviews uniformly positive? Do you have plenty of visual UGC and images of customers who are thrilled with their products?

3. Recency

Studies show that 47% of shoppers believe reviews are no longer relevant after three months. Is your UGC fresh and relevant to today’s customers?

Get a head start generating UGC

Authenticity is essential for effective UGC. It must be trustworthy and created organically because consumers are increasingly skilled at spotting through sponsored content and fake reviews.

Which means you can’t simply ‘order’ some UGC and ship it overnight.

It can take months to acquire and deploy really strong, trustworthy content from users and communities — and that means you’ll need plenty of ramp up time. If a campaign is planned for the holidays, you’ll need to start collecting UGC as early as March. Otherwise, you’ll be reactive — and limit the impact UGC can have.

Luckily, a number of solutions for easily collecting UGC already exist. Influenster is a product discovery platform where 7.5 million members are creating content daily. With Bazaarvoice, brands can tap into this community and activate them at scale.

Do it right, and reap the rewards. Best-in-class sites with UGC see a 190% revenue per visitor lift and a 145% higher conversion rate.

Leverage social media

Social media is often seen as a means of generating impressions and likes. Which it is. But it’s also a vital way to bolster your PDPs and showcase the kind of content that actually increases sales. Our research found that 76% of people are ‘very influenced’ to shop via social media.

Shoppers want to see fellow shoppers using, and loving, your products. Social media allows you to generate exactly that kind of content, using data analytics to really focus on key demographics and build 1-to-1 connections with the right users.

A case study in selling on Walmart.com: Unilever

Optimizing your omnichannel content for Walmart.com helps illustrate the foundations of a strong UGC strategy. But the very best brands take these principles and apply them across the full spectrum of their marketing efforts, which is exactly what Unilever did.

With over 400 brands across over 190 countries, Unilever is one of the largest consumer products companies in the world. Their innovative use of UGC is a perfect case study in how the right UGC strategy can elevate company-wide performance.

By amplifying their customers’ voices and recognizing the role of UGC beyond conversion, they have seen improvements across multiple areas of their business.

Boosting purchase intent

Unilever has Integrated UGC in everything from PDPs and social campaigns to print ads, inserts and in-store displays. This has led to a 20-30% improvement in display ad performance, while customers who read reviews on the Simple Skincare website have a 150% greater intent to purchase. They also use the store locator feature more frequently.

Improving search

As we’ve seen, organic search traffic and engagement are heavily dependent on quality content. Because UGC delivers such rich content, Unilever has seen increases in search traffic of 15-25%. And once users are on-site, they tend to engage with more product pages, spend longer onsite, and are more likely to revisit the website.

Deriving customer insights

Feedback is an essential source of data about how consumers interact with your products. Unilever understands this, and analyzes UGC to derive vital insights about everything from search intent to conversion optimization. Even bad reviews are a source of useful information, empowering brands to refine their messaging sound specific products or improve customer experience.

Start selling on Walmart.com with Bazaarvoice

Walmart partnered with Bazaarvoice, the world’s leading UGC provider (according to G2), specifically to help brand build UGC programs on Walmart.com, and beyond.

Purpose-built UGC collection solutions like product sampling, and the soon-to-be-available photo syndication, enable brands to collect the content that converts — we’ve found that just one review can increase sales by 10%.

Selling your products on Walmart.com can be tricky. But it doesn’t have to be. Learn more ways to optimize your UGC strategy and drive Walmart sales here. Or get in touch below to get started.

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If you want to learn more about how Bazaarvoice and WhyteSpyder can help you build smarter shopper experiences across the customer journey, get in touch here.

Since the rollout of platforms like Instagram Shopping, UGC is the leading form of the interaction with consumers, with products merely attached to it. It’s clear that the future of online shopping relies heavily on content, with 53% of shoppers already saying UGC makes them more likely to make a purchase than professional photography.

For example, instead of filling product description pages (PDPs) with stock imagery, consumers want to see shopper-generated images that provide a more authentic and inspiring portrait of products. And brands can easily shorten the path to purchase by making social content shoppable. 

How to get more reviews on your e-commerce site

Content will continue to lead the way for consumer discovery and purchase of products. Retailers can boost their sales and reach new audiences by getting more of this content on their e-commerce site.

There’s three main ways to collect more content: native review content collection, sampling, and syndication. Here’s how to collect more of all three types. 

1. Native review content collection 

There’s multiple ways to collect more organic native reviews for your e-commerce site. At Bazaarvoice, we’ve made it easier than ever for retailers to collect reviews from shoppers post-purchase. To entice shoppers to take a moment to leave a review, it’s absolutely essential to request reviews in the moments that matter and to make it as convenient as possible.

We encourage our clients to set up a review request email to help support native review content collection. With review request emails, customers will be asked for a review soon after they’ve made a purchase, ensuring they leave feedback when what they’ve just bought is still top of mind. 

With in-mail submissions, shoppers can now write a review within an email and thus without the friction of having to click on any links or navigate to new pages. Retailers can also enable multi-product submissions, where shoppers can leave reviews for multiple products at the same time. 

2. Product sampling

Getting your products into the hands of your ideal customers via sampling is a quick way to collect reviews before a product goes live. Nowadays, you can collect more than just text-based reviews, too, and supercharge your launch with authentic visual content. 

A key strategy to drive review content for products is through sampling campaigns that are designed to supercharge review content collection. By leveraging the right sampling solutions, retailers and suppliers alike not only benefit from the ability to get their products into the hands of hyper-segmented shoppers, but also are able to collect authentic UGC for their e-commerce site (and other channels) simultaneously.

Retailers can benefit from leveraging review-seeding sampling campaigns for their own private label brands and also benefit from encouraging their suppliers to consider sampling campaigns for products sold on the retailer’s site.

Sampling is an ideal option for collecting authentic review content, whether it be for new products seeking pre-launch promotion, seasonal items, older products in need of new reviews, or retailer exclusives. 

Retailer Managed Sampling

Oftentimes, retailers also opt to create their own customized review-seeding programs — also known as Retailer Managed Sampling (RMS) programs. A key benefit of RMS programs is that retailers are able to build their own sampling communities of brand advocates, derived directly from their customer base.

Additionally, all content collected through RMS programs is native and exclusive to the retailer’s e-commerce site only. Some retailers utilizing RMS programs include Walmart’s Spark Reviewer program and Home Depot’s Seed Sampling program.

How does it work? Once a retailer has developed their own RMS program, they invite their suppliers to sample products through the program. Most of the time, retailers will also leverage their RMS program to support their own private label brands and products.

Once products are shipped to the sampling community members, retailers can begin to see an influx of native review content collected through the program on their site within just a few weeks of the shopper receiving the products. 

Sampling isn’t just for new products, though. Got a seasonal or hero product that could use a boost in UGC? Send samples to our Influenster community to drive mass awareness and deliver category level visibility for your signature products.

3. Content syndication 

Collecting more native UGC is great. Supplementing native review collection with syndication is even better. With content syndication, retailers that partner with Bazaarvoice to power their UGC on site get access to reviews collected from their brands/suppliers across from the entire Bazaarvoice Network. This is a win for both the brands collecting the content and retailers receiving it.

Retailers can turn on inbound syndication capabilities to collect both written and visual user-generated content from their suppliers. 

Content syndication takes this UGC and displays on it every channel your shoppers are — whether social media, your e-commerce site, or email — enabling your customers to make confident purchasing decisions wherever they shop.

Boost your e-commerce site with UGC

Consumers who interact with ratings and reviews are 2x more likely to convert. By collecting new UGC from a combination of native reviews, sampling, and syndication, retailers can fill their e-commerce site with content and thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of online shopping.

Start collecting more content now and stand out among your competitors and boost sales with a show-stopping e-commerce site. Want to see more more solutions for optimizing your e-commerce site? Learn more strategies to drive retail growth.

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• Increased brand awareness
• Attracting new customers
• Accelerating technological capabilities
• Driving sales

But what’s not obvious is what a successful partnership looks like to achieve these goals. We’re going to outline the tactics you need to focus on by demonstrating how retailers can collaborate with brands on marketing campaigns and showcasing retailer-brand partnership examples.

Chapters:

1. What are retail partnerships?
2. Types of retail partnerships
3. Benefits of retail partnerships
4. 6 examples of retailer-brand partnerships
5. How to make your retail partnership successful
6. Execute a winning retail partnership by avoiding pitfalls

Hershey’s and Betty Crocker: a combination made in heaven for chocolate and dessert lovers. When it comes to brand partnerships, these kinds of pairings are great for fueling growth thanks to cross-promotions and shared resources. But it’s not just grocery store megabrands. Retail can benefit from brand partnerships, too.

For example, the department store Kohl’s partners with Amazon to process Amazon returns in-store. Kohl’s then ships the package back to Amazon and gives the customer a $5 Kohl’s Cash coupon. That entices people to stay and shop — because who turns down $5 in free money? Not me. Kohl’s gets new business, while Amazon has a simple way to process its returns. And the customer wins twice.

So what can we learn from Kohl’s and Amazon? That a retail partnership brings you new customers, more brand awareness, and more sales. 

What are retail partnerships?

A retail partnership is an alliance between a brand and a retailer that have overlapping target audiences — but isn’t going to lose business to each other. Instead, they work together to attract a bigger, new audience. 

Think of GEICO and Helzberg Diamonds: neither competes with the other. You’re buying diamonds from one, insurance from the other. But it benefits GEICO because it wants to advertise to the consumer who is out there buying high-ticket items like jewelry so that it can get its business on larger umbrella policies. Meanwhile, Helzberg gets product placement in GEICO’s commercials, helping to keep its name fresh in people’s minds. 

Types of retail partnerships

There’s a few types of retail partnerships. The size of your business and your sales goals will determine the one that will work best for your brand. For example, shared ads and cross-selling are great for brands that share target customers, while a co-branded event may work better for a pair of local retailers. 

For already-established brands, like Target and CVS, sharing retail space might be the best option. The only rule when it comes to brand partnerships: both brands and the customer benefit from the collaboration. 

1. Co-marketing with other businesses

When you find a partner to advertise with — like GEICO and Helzberg Diamonds — you’re able to reach new customers while you share each other’s marketing campaigns. This is great for companies that need to be careful with their marketing budget, like small businesses. Brands can afford more ads with pooled resources. However, a shared campaign also benefits larger companies because they get their names out to each other’s target audiences. Customers of each brand transfer their trust in one brand to the other because their brand has endorsed it. 

Joybird and Sherwin-Williams recently partnered for a campaign featuring interior design ideas. Joybird sells furniture for living rooms, home offices, bedrooms, and more. Sherwin-Williams sells paint. The duo collaborated to come up with furniture and paint colors that complement each other. They advertise on each other’s sites and work together to sell their products. The customer gets unique ideas to help them create a trendy new space in their home.

Or have you ever ordered a subscription service? Monthly deliveries contain products and discounts for related brands. For example, HelloFresh sends its customers coupons from other businesses, like a $100 Naked Wines card, that relate to HelloFresh but don’t directly compete with it. It’s an easy way to create brand awareness with an audience that appreciates the convenience of home delivery.

2. Co-sponsored events or pop-up shops

A limited-time event, like a pop-up shop, is another way to share audiences. In 2015, Target sold designer brand Lilly Pulitzer’s dresses, sunglasses, tumblers, and other products — the collection sold out online almost immediately. 

Of course, not every business has the advertising power of Target or the brand reputation of Lilly Pulitzer. But even SMBs or local stores can partner with other local brands for an event. Maybe a wedding dress shop partners with a local photographer and other vendors for a wedding expo. Or create a town art walk with nearby businesses willing to co-host the event. Together, businesses create events that provide value for the consumer and also bring new business to your stores.

3. Branded products 

Walmart carries Better Homes & Gardens products, including furniture, bedding, hand towels, and more. Their partnership began in 2008 and is still going strong. 

Take a page out of Walmart’s book and reach out to some direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands. Walmart also sells various D2C brands, like Dollar Shave Club products and Billie razors, through its store, which means customers don’t have to leave Walmart’s site. Reach out to your favorite D2C brands. They might be interested in partnering with your store and selling their products with you.

Again, this brings in new business to your store through their customers and helps you get your name out to people who use that brand. Your partner gets valuable retail space that their e-commerce shop otherwise wouldn’t have.

4. Share space with another retailer

Yes, we’re using Target a lot as an example — but emulating a big-box store isn’t a bad thing when it comes to partnerships. After all, Target is the king of shared retail space partnerships. Inside a Target, you’ll find a CVS as the pharmacy. These two retailers work together to offer an overall better customer experience. Plus, Target saves on operating costs because CVS manages the pharmacy. And while you’re in Target waiting on your prescription, you might head over to the in-store Starbucks to grab some coffee or browse the Ulta mini-shop in the beauty department. 

Shared spaces might not work for every business, but if you can find a retailer that’s on the same level as your store and complements the products you offer, it could give you more foot traffic.

5. Cross-selling with online businesses

If you’re strictly an online retailer, then partner with other online retailers to advertise and sell your items. This works great for smaller businesses that don’t have as much of an online presence. For instance, a company that sells cat toys could partner with a company selling customized cat food or kitty litter subscriptions. 

Cross-selling campaigns often feature bundle pricing or discounts for new customers. These brands benefit from each other and can help each other cross-sell their products to the same target market. You can also use the opportunity to promote your loyalty program. 

6. Loyalty programs 

Let’s say a customer is redeeming their American Express rewards and sees a gift card for your store on the list. You’ve boosted your brand name. With each redemption, you’ve got a chance to upsell.

You’re also able to share valuable insights with other businesses — and then you benefit from theirs as well. It gives you another chance to get your name out there and expand your target market. 

Benefits of retail partnerships

Partnering with another business may take some extra work to get going — especially if you have creative differences or vastly different products — but there’s lots of benefits, including brand awareness, new customers, increased sales, and fewer returns. Consider how to use these advantages as you choose potential partners.

1. Increased brand awareness 

For both brands and retailers, a partnership can lead to increased brand awareness. OLIPOP, a soda that boasts probiotics and other health benefits, saw huge benefits when it partnered with Target. Yes, we’re seemingly obsessed with Target, but with good reason. A small test program in around 170 Target stores during a three-month test period exceeded OLIPOP’s goals, and it expanded to 1,500 stores across the nation.

“Almost every Target in the country now sells our top-selling flavors. It’s the perfect partnership for us because it expands our reach. While you might not have headed to Target for a healthy alternative to soda, once you’re there, it’s easy to reach for one of our cans in their refrigerated section.”

Melanie Edwards, Senior E-commerce and Digital Product Manager, OLIPOP

Granted, Target already has brand awareness on lock. But if OLIPOP customers know that Target’s selling the soda they like, they might head there to get some. And then purchase other products along the way. You can work with companies like OLIPOP to increase brand awareness and also boost your shop’s presence and average order value. 

2. Attract new customers

Getting customers to your store isn’t as easy as it once was — they’re overloaded with marketing from other e-commerce sites and retail brands. But partnering with those brands means you have a way to bring their customers to you. If you know JCPenney is selling your favorite Sephora makeup, you can pop in and grab what you need and browse JCPenney’s sales while you’re there. 

3. Reduce shrinkage and product returns

Verizon is working with Walmart to upgrade its infrastructure with high-powered cameras that help it monitor shoplifters and even offer more medical services to its customers.

Of course, not everyone is Verizon or Walmart. But you can still find tech partners to help protect your revenue. Augmented reality (AR) uses technology that lets a customer see a virtual example of what your products will look like in their home. Companies that offer AR might especially benefit from a retail partnership. Advertise for them on your product pages with a caption that reads “AR powered by XYZ, Inc.” so that they get a shoutout and get business from your site. 

AR can be a big investment but can pay off in the long run. In 2020, customers returned over $420 billion worth of products. But when you find the right tech partner, you could reduce those returns. By using augmented reality or even virtual reality, you give customers a better view of what you’re selling. In a recent study, Shopify said product returns decreased by as much as 40% when 3D visualization was available.

6 examples of outstanding retailer-brand partnerships

While most of these brand and retail partnership examples are larger, they do offer inspiration for SMBs as they brainstorm possibilities for their partners. Maybe your indie shoe brand isn’t Adidas-level (yet), but you could find a company to help advance your goals — and vice versa.

1. GE and Google

GE and Google recently inked a multi-year deal to create next-gen appliances for homeowners that run on Google Cloud. GE will use Google’s resources in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more to inform the entire appliance-making process from ideation to the end.

Customers will be able to personalize their appliances on a whole new level using insights from their appliance data and can implement energy-saving tactics that the appliance recommends. Both companies recently also joined Princeton on a research project to help develop low-carbon innovation.

2. Harley-Davidson and Marvel

Back in 2016, two iconic brands combined their superpowers to create 25 different custom motorcycles that have superhero vibes: Marvel and Harley-Davidson. Marvel has also gone on to feature Harleys in its movies, including a custom motorcycle that was featured in “Captain America: Civil War.” The LiveWire motorcycle, which got hype in 2015 when Black Widow rode it in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” was finally available for sale in 2020. Harley built up some serious customer suspense for this electric, futuristic motorcycle. 

This partnership gave Marvel a chance to advertise to Harley-Davidson customers, and the motorcycle company got valuable product placement in blockbuster superhero movies, increasing its already-high brand recognition. 

3. Adidas and Allbirds

Popular footwear brands Allbirds and Adidas are working together to create running shoes with a low carbon footprint. On the surface, they may seem like direct competitors. But Adidas and Allbirds are using shared materials like Adidas’ PrimeGreen sustainable, recyclable materials and eucalyptus tree fiber from Allbirds for the shoe.

By using components from each company in the shoe, they’re able to create a sustainable shoe that also only weighs 5.3 ounces — perfect for a runner — that neither company could create on its own. Plus, both brand names are on the shoe, which gives both companies a chance to advertise. And it’s the perfect example of sustainable branding.

4. MAC and Disney

Makeup brand MAC and entertainment titan Disney partner to offer makeup based on different Disney characters. In 2019, MAC released makeup inspired by the live-action version of “Aladdin.” They’ve also released other makeup lines based on Disney films, like “Cruella,” to add hype for the film and give MAC customers more options when choosing makeup color palettes.

Also, the audience who likes Disney and likes makeup are likely to overlap, which gives these companies a stronger target market.

5. Coach and Disney

Disney also partners with luxury handbag and apparel company Coach, which uses Disney logos and characters on its products. Coach also created a special line for Disney World’s 50th anniversary, including a set of Coach Mickey ears that cater to Disney aficionados. Doing this helps Coach stand out from other brands in its space and, in turn, helps Disney to market to the “Disney adult” crowd that’s popular (even a bit infamous) on social media. 

6. Taco Bell and Doritos

Who hasn’t ordered a Doritos Locos Taco at 2am? If you haven’t, you’re missing out. Back in 2012, Taco Bell was looking for a new menu option to compete with Chipotle and other Mexican fast-food restaurants. It also wanted something that would cater to its target demographic of 20-somethings who needed a little boost after a long night out. Enter the Doritos Locos Taco. A decade later, it’s still one of Taco Bell’s top sellers.

At one point, it was also selling Cool Ranch Doritos tacos and now offers a fiery Doritos taco to keep catering to the crowd that loves these tacos. It also benefits Doritos since it gets its brand put all over the taco wrapper and into the mouths of its ideal customer.

How to make your retail partnership successful with brands

The path to successful retail partnerships starts with finding the right opportunity for your company. Do you want a partner who offers a similar product so that you can both up each other’s game? Or do you want a company with complementary products, like makeup and a women’s wellness vitamin? Once you do that, there’s other best practices you can follow to make sure your partnership is successful.

Optimize product pages for search and customers

Keep your product pages looking refreshed and new, especially the ones that relate to your brand partnership. If you have potential customers coming to your store from your retail partner’s site, you need to make a good impression with reviews and other content. And make sure to link back to their site, too — those backlinks only help increase your online presence (and your partner’s, too).

Plus, if your product pages are optimized for search, you’ve got a better chance of bringing in organic search engine traffic. A visual content solution (like the one from Bazaarvoice ) could help you out here. One brand, DSW, saw a 2x uptick in conversions after using this tool.

Solicit and syndicate user-generated content

To keep your new product pages looking fresh, you need to encourage your customers to leave reviews, whether they’re text-based or videos. 

Have your users review you and your brand partner if they buy from both of you. That helps to build up much-needed social proof. About two-thirds of shoppers prefer user-generated content (UGC) — like reviews — over professional content. You can even get UGC before your site launches when you look for customers who are likely to buy your products using a sampling community.

Another added benefit of having UGC on your product pages is that it also boosts your SEO. That, in turn, benefits whoever you partner with since they’re working with someone who ranks well. For example, Australian retailer Andi-Co leveraged syndication and gained 1,400 new reviews in a year, which boosted its products position in Google search results.

Focus on messaging to reduce returns

Returns happen. But you can tweak your product pages and messaging to help reduce those. With the right technology, you can show off your products using augmented or virtual reality to give customers a better picture of the item. 

Also, display that UGC on every product page and provide answers to your most frequently asked questions so that your customers get all the information they need before purchasing. 

If you do get returns, then engage with your customer feedback and use it to help improve products in the future. If there’s something that isn’t working with your product, you won’t know unless you listen to what your consumers are saying.

Use tools like Connections, pictured above, to easily track that feedback and respond to questions. 

Execute a winning retail partnership by avoiding pitfalls

Yes, there’s undeniable benefits to partnering with the right business. But there’s some pitfalls to watch out for too. First, make sure that you and your potential partner align on goals for your partnership. While you likely don’t have the same exact goals, you’ll need ones that help grow your respective businesses. 

Next, examine the value proposition of any proposed partnership. Does it make sense to partner with that brand? Will it bring relevant traffic to your retail store, or will it just be a fruitless endeavor? 

Finally, you need to avoid a partnership that could drain your resources or harm your business in any way. This can happen if you’re the weaker party in the partnership and the other brand starts to take over. But it can also happen if you’re the stronger party and you’re putting in more time and money. Examine all relevant data to make sure this is a partnership that will benefit you. 

Now you know how to implement a successful retail partnership, the next step is winning over shoppers. 98% of consumers value experience over price — so give it to them.

LEARN HOW

A retail marketer’s guide to satisfying experience-hungry shoppers

Read now

When you’re ready to implement your partnership, we’re here to help you avoid potential pitfalls and optimize that opportunity. Contact Bazaarvoice to learn how our tools can help you.

1. Please tell our readers your name, role at BILT, and how you got involved in the organization?

My name is Jenny Tsao and I’m the VP of Demand Marketing at BILT.

I joined BILT in early 2022 and was looking to make a bigger impact with a smaller team of mission-oriented individuals, while stretching my skills as a marketing demand generation and operations leader. In the past, I’ve worked in the transportation/logistics and media research/advertising industries, but while networking with some friends, I stumbled upon this opportunity, met the leadership team, and was drawn to the strong culture in the middle of the DFW metro!

2. For those that may not be familiar, tell us about BILT and how the organization got started?

BILT was born out of a frustrating experience with assembling a children’s sandbox for a toddler. Having seen how 3D instructions are used in the aerospace industry, the idea of creating the same experience for everyday consumer goods was sparked. 

BILT is a mobile app that provides interactive instructions that help consumers and professionals get the job done right the first time. Brands and retailers love it because it reduces assembly-related returns, eliminates costly calls to customer support, and increases product ratings (which ultimately drives higher sales!) And manufacturers are drawn to it because it up-skills their field techs and improves assembly/repair productivity.

3. Product assembly can be challenging and can have an impact on a customer’s overall sentiment with the product and brand.

How does the app strengthen a customer’s post purchase experience? 

Too often, businesses think that the buyer’s journey ends with the sale of the product. But if assembly is required, then that journey continues until the product is in place and in use. 

BILT shields the customer from complexity and frustration. While it doesn’t make the assembly physically effort-free, it makes it cognitively effortless. Many consumers are embracing the DIY process today. So creating an experience that leaves a lasting positive impression will create loyal customers and encourage them to come back to buy more.

And in the age of social media and rating and reviews, they’ll find ways to share their experience and tell their friends.

4. How can BILT help differentiate a brand’s product line?

Two things. On the last step of the instruction set is a two question survey asking customers to rate the product or service and explain their rating. We’ve seen that products have 0.25 to 0.8 higher star ratings after adoption of the BILT instructions.

Additionally, if the user gets stuck during the assembly process, BILT’s analytics can  help brands drive future product design improvements. 

5. What is the significance of this partnership for your customer base?

Our partnership with Bazaarvoice enables our mutual customers to seamlessly syndicate their ratings and reviews captured in the BILT app. This ultimately helps consumers make more informed purchase decisions on the products out in the marketplace.

We’re happy to have BILT on board as a partner and we look forward to creating smarter shopping experiences together. Learn more here.

We’re better together. Our global partner program gives you access to the tools, resources, and insights you need to delight your clients and grow your business. Interested in becoming a Bazaarvoice partner? Apply now.

Our team recently sat down for a conversation with a thought leader from the Cohley team. Here’s what they said!

First off, can you tell readers your name, role at Cohley and how you got involved in the organization? And also, something you’re proud of but never get the chance to brag about 

My name is Casey Murray. I’m the Director of Partnerships at Cohley. I first learned about Cohley after being introduced to the co-founders, Tom Logan and Erik Graber, in February of 2020. From our first conversation, I was brought in on the mission to change the way brands generate and test content to help grow their businesses. I officially joined the Cohley team in January of 2021 to build up the partnerships function. 

Something I’m proud of but don’t get the chance to brag about… I’m not much of the bragging type, but I wrote an album during lockdown via virtual collaborations with other musicians. Will it be released? TBD.

For those who may not be familiar, tell us about Cohley

Cohley is a content generation and testing platform built for marketers looking to establish an authentic connection with both targeted new consumers and loyal customers. In today’s marketing environment, marketers need more content than ever, and even more data to back their decisions about how/when it’s used.

Cohley is changing the way that brands and agencies have traditionally generated and tested content. We connect them with a diverse and vast network of creators, photographers, videographers, and product reviewers to fulfill each and every marketing channel’s ever-growing content needs. Whether the goal is to improve conversion rates on e-commerce sites, click through rates in email or SMS, or improve engagement in ads and social — Cohley has you covered with its content generation and testing capabilities. 

How do you think user-generated content helps brands be competitive in today’s digital first landscape?

Today’s consumer demands authentic and relatable content, from real people, to establish trust in a brand and its products. First-time and life-long shoppers, they all rely on UGC [user-generated content] to make a more informed purchasing decision. UGC needs to be present in the start, middle, and end of their buyer’s journey to establish desired connections and conversions. Brands that actively generate, monitor, display, and test UGC in key marketing channels (website, ads, email, SMS, Social) will always have a leg up on their competition.

Why did you decide to partner with Bazaarvoice?

After countless integration requests from mutual customers it was an absolute no-brainer! Bazaarvoice has been a pioneer and trailblazer for nearly two decades. 

We’re so pumped to integrate and officially partner with Bazaarvoice to activate our mutual customers’ content to their site and associated retailer sites through the Bazaarvoice Network.

What does this partnership with Bazaarvoice mean to your business?

By establishing an integration partnership, our mutual customers can generate custom content (product reviews and visual UGC) at scale, and seamlessly send them to the Bazaarvoice Network to be displayed where their shoppers shop.

Cohley and our hundreds of customers know that content generation and activation is a never ending process. This integration partnership will be paramount for merchants looking to drive traffic, conversion, and sales, and make more informed content decisions 

We’re so excited for this partnership and we look forward to creating smarter shopping experiences together. Learn more here.

We’re better together. Interested in becoming a Bazaarvoice partner? Apply now.

Our team recently sat down for a conversation with a thought leader from the WhyteSpyder team. Here’s what they said!

1. First off, can you tell readers your name, role at WhyteSpyder and how you got involved in the organization?

And also, something you’re proud of but never get the chance to brag about?

My name is Scott Benedict, and I’m the Vice President of Partnerships for WhyteSpyder. While I’ve been employed at the company for just a few months, I’ve been a friend of (and a fan of) WhyteSpyder for many years. I actually first learned about WhyteSpyder at an industry event that I was invited to by a friend at Bazaarvoice!

I was responsible for the UGC [user-generated content] program at SamsClub.com from 2011 to 2014, and had the opportunity to work with and learn from the team at Bazaarvoice during that time.

2. For those who may not be familiar, tell us about WhyteSpyder

Our company was founded in 2010 and is based in Northwest Arkansas, because we believed there was an opportunity to serve the Walmart and Sam’sClub supplier community as they worked to grow and optimize their digital business performance with the world’s largest retailer. 

Today our company utilizes our powerful proprietary SaaS platform SkuNinja, along with the Walmart experts on our staff to help consumer brands, third-party sellers, and agencies to optimize their content, organic search relevancy, and paid search performance on Walmart.com.

In late 2021, we joined the Ascential Digital Commerce group, which allows us to bring the combined expertise of our sister firms with complementary skills and capabilities to help our clients win online across a number of retail platforms.

3. How did the SkuNinja platform come about and how has it evolved over the years? 

SKU Ninja was conceived of as a “practitioner’s tool.” In other words, it was developed to not only analyze and assess performance opportunities on a client’s product detail page (PDP), but enable the user to fix problems with content, imagery, and keywords. We also host rich media modules on the platform.

Although SKU Ninja was originally developed for internal users, we found that it could also be a powerful tool for our clients to manage their own PDPs if they choose.

4. E-commerce has gotten very competitive, how does WhyteSpyder give customers a competitive edge in the marketplace?

The retail market broadly has certainly evolved a great deal during the COVID-19 pandemic, and consumer shopping trends have accelerated toward online and omnichannel shopping experiences far faster than trends would have indicated prior to the Spring of 2020. As the pandemic subsides, omnichannel shopping has moved mainstream, particularly at Walmart.

Now, brands that want to win at Walmart have had to adapt their business strategies to make digital experiences and online marketing more effective to drive their business forward. WhyteSpyder offers our clients the tools, technology, and expertise that is proven to help brands win within Walmart’s unique omnichannel platform, offering our clients a competitive advantage that other firms simply can’t match.

5. What is the significance of this partnership?

WhyteSpyder and Bazaarvoice offer very complementary services to our clients and we’re both committed to enabling best-in-class consumer shopping experiences. We both provide support for elements of the PDP that help consumers make smart and informed purchase decisions while offering our clients and retail partners greater organic search rankings, and ultimately higher purchase conversions.

In short, we both improve the shopping experience for consumers as well as the business results of our clients and our retail partners.

We’re so excited for this partnership and we look forward to creating smarter shopping experiences together. Learn more about this exciting partnership here.

We’re better together. Interested in becoming a Bazaarvoice partner? Apply now!