6 Take-aways from IAB Canada’s eCommerce Week

IAB Canada spent three days delving into a sector that continues to fuel the digital media economy in Canada and around the world. A wide array of industry experts from all sides of the eCommerce spectrum convened to discuss the accelerated growth of eCommerce in Canada and what the industry needs to know about it.

Six Take-aways from the week:

  1. Covid-19 – The Accelerator
  • More Canadians are making more purchases online and much of the change will be permanent.
  • Billions of dollars of discretionary spending is shifting due to Covid-19. Winners of this sudden shift include home (DIY, gardening, furniture etc.), outdoor economy, pets and groceries.
  1. Consideration Content
  • Reviews enable the flow of eCommerce
  • Online shoppers are information seekers, with 81% of shoppers say that checking reviews is an important part of online shopping.
  1. Now is the time to leverage 1st Party Data
  • Leverage your existing 1P data assets on current programs (i.e. email subscriber lists, recent shoppers, eReceipt data).
  1. Flexible or Bust
  • Successful eCommerce marketers are preparing for uncertainty with agility. Rather than modelling month-to-month many are modeling weekly or even daily.
  1. Loyalty is King
  • Modernized loyalty programs offer dynamic data segmentation and a host of opportunities to develop 1st party data stores while leveraging “network effect”.
  1. Stop Playing the Wrong Games – Get Organized
  • Organize the chaos by building “ladders” to deal with the snakes of competing KPIs, disjointed user experiences and the elusive blind spots on customer understanding by implementing site tagging, CRM Integration, complete measurement

IAB Canada is so grateful to have received full coverage from our community correspondent Melody Lin who provided in depth notes on the event. Presentations are available in the Knowledge Centre for those members who would like to access the materials.