Customer Interactions influences digital commerce and marketing strategy of brands to focus on right mix of marketing opportunities suitable for their brands. This deck covers most common customer interactions with the brands and opportunities available for commerce and marketing team to act on those leads.

1. How Does Customer Interactions & Behavior Influences
The Digital Commerce & Marketing Strategy?
Eswara K Palakollu@Publicis.Sapient

2. Digital Commerce & Marketing reached a state where I, as a customer, am being
targeted with relevant content online and re-targeted again and again.
As customers we all leave digital foot prints with every interaction online and that
influences commerce & marketing strategists to target us with personalised, unified and
integrated digital experience.
This paper covers what are the common customer interactions in a day to day life and
high level opportunities that can be utilized to deliver unified digital experience and
engaging customers with optimised digital marketing strategy.

3. “As a customer I just want to highlight my interactions with different brands in disparate
channels and the opportunities digital commerce & marketing teams have to capitalize
and deliver best possible personalised and unified digital experiences across all my
interactions.”

4. Print
Search
Mail
Messaging
SMS
Push
Notifications
News
Paper
Offers
Social
Web
Mobile
Brand
Loyalty
Subscriptions
Browse
Purchase
Post Purchase
Wi-Fi
Services
Big
Screen
ChatBot
s
Apps
Ads Relevance
Email
Direct
Mail
Facebook
Twitter
Cloud
WhatsApp
Offers
MWeb
Ranking
Affiliates
Google
Now
In-Store /
Phone
Others..

5. Digital Commerce Strategy is a consolidated view to trade products online using
different channels & devices and to deliver personalized, unified and integrated digital
experience across channels and every customer interaction with brand and improving
brand awareness & loyalty.

6. Digital Marketing Strategy is a consolidated view to capitalize and influence customers
across all interactions, target & re-target customers in disparate channels so as to
improve brand awareness with better return on investment (ROI).

7. Web
Browse
Purchase
Customer starts browsing website and finally buys the product. In this journey customer leaves digital
foot prints for marketers to identify the customer and provide targeted personalised digital experience.
Post Purchase

8. • Browsing - Capture customer behavior and target with relevant content.
• Recommendations – Display recommendations based on profile, purchase history and analytics.
• Cross Sell / Upsell – Display Cross Sell / Upsell products at relevant places.
• Profile – Most Important and powerful. Personalise content, journey, recommendations and offers based on
customer profile.
• Purchase History – Personalise content Based on Past Purchase History.
• Reviews & Ratings – Understand customer feedback and improve quality and customer satisfaction.
• Social Sharing – Encourage customers to share the products they like and their digital experience on website.
• Exploring other options – Retarget customers at real time to influence customers to come back to website.
• Budget – Understand what customers are interested , price range and rank relevant products higher.
• Switched Channel/Device – Identify customer across channels and provide unified and integrated digital
experience.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

9. • Add to Bag / Trolley – Re-engage customers with bag abandonment email & target recommendations.
• Multi Visit – Identify return customers and allow to continue the journey and target personalised offers.
• Not Returning – Target customer with display Ads in Search, Re-Targeting on Affiliates.
• Profile – Personalise offers & recommendations based on profile.
• Confirm Purchase– Cross Sell and influence customers to register if not already registered.
• Social Sharing – Encourage customers to share their feedback on social platforms.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

10. • Purchase History – Personalise offers & recommendations based on Past Purchase History
• Post Purchase– Re-engage customer with post purchase email and Cross Sell offers.
• Social Sharing – Encourage customers to share their feedback on social platforms.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

11. ChatBots
Apps
MWeb
Produce MobileFirst content. Customer expects to all web pages are mobile & touch optimised for
mobile. It is also very critical to produce similar experience as Web to have customers connected across
different channels.

12. • All Web interactions applies to Mobile Web & Touch optimised devices as well.
• Browsing - Produce unified experience with mobile optimised content.
• Purchase - Make it easy to buy products with responsible web pages with simple and optimised customer journey.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

13. • All Web & Mobile interactions apply to mobile applications as well. However mobile apps allows better
personalisation and native experience to customers.
• Browsing - Allow continue customer journey between Web, Mobile Web & Apps for unified & integrated digital
experience.
• Purchase - Native customer journey in sync with web & mobile web customer journey for consistent experience.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

14. • Future opportunity for digital commerce teams to produce interactive AI chatbots for personalised customer
experience and also for marketers to target customers with personalisation and recommendation based on
predictive analysis.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

15. Customers become brand advocates with great buying experience, product quality and serviceability. It
is very critical for brands to maintain continuous engagement with customers.
Brand
Loyalty
Subscriptions
Offers

16. • Follow & Re-visits - Once customer likes the product and becomes loyal to brand it is for marketers to influence
customers to keep them engaged & maintain the relationship.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

17. • Subscribe to recurring delivery - Influence customers to monthly or yearly subscriptions.
• Subscribe to news letters & events - Engage customers with occasional news letters and events to keep customer
connected with BRAND.
•
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

18. • Looking for specific brands - Influence customers to buy products when customers are looking for similar brands.
•
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

19. Search Google & Others
Site Search
Affiliates
Search is the one of most critical part of customer journey. Most customers search online before
buying online or in-store or using any other channel. Web search is one of most critical elements of
marketing strategy to target customers with personalised products and content.
Customer behavior in search influences marketing strategy to build brand awareness, identifying
popular products, and best way to influence customers.

20. • Web Search & Results - Most customers search in google or other search engines to find best deals, offers and
comparisons and product performance against similar products. Marketers have huge opportunity to influence
customers by
• showing products on top of the page
• re-targeting customers via paid search and ads
• detecting cross channel customers and displaying personalized results.
• Voice Search – Asking Google, Siri and Cortana is going to be another standard way to find what we want. Being
on top of relevancy for these services to pick your products is also an opportunity. And also providing voice based
search on your platform may be a necessity in the future.
• Visual Search – Searching for products using an image is another flavor of finding products based on photo. This
is an opportunity for digital commerce and marketing teams to help customers find what they want quickly.
• View Ads-. Marketers target customers with ads with relevancy based on whatever data they have about
customer at that point in time. Customer interaction with the ads is dependent on how relevant the ads are, time
& location.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

21. • Looking for something else – When customers are looking for something else, affiliate websites or in search
results displays products that customer viewed before to influence customers to re-start their journey.
Since affiliates usually have tie ups with thousands of sites, customers are shown recommendations based on
browsing history.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

22. • Site Search - Internal website search is also very critical to influence customers to find the products they want
very quickly. Provide ways to simplify and group the search results for customers to easily filter and find what
they are looking for.
• Display results using personal preferences, demo graphics, purchase history and other profile attributes.
• Display relevant products on top of the list for better customer engagement.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

23. Social
Networks
Social networking revolution caused major disruption in the way we communicate with our friends
& family and colleagues. It also brought marketers a plenty of opportunities to engage with
customers and understand social behavior and brand sentiment analysis much better.
Facebook, Google+,
Twitter, Instagram and
other social & media
networking sites

24. • Social interactions - All social media interactions (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram etc) have huge
opportunity to engage customers, selling products via social channels, spread the word, sales & promotions and so
on.
• Social Commerce & Social Marketing have significant impact on customers buying pattern and intern influences
digital marketing teams to have a strategy covering all social media interactions.
• Likes & Shares – Now customers share the products they like and Not Likes in social media and it influences
other social media users and it spreads faster than any other media.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

25. Mail
Mail marketing strategies are standard way to reach customers offline and re-engage them to have a
interaction with the brand. Some customers may use email or direct mail based on their preference
and it is for marketers to identify and personalize communication with customers using campaign
analytics and customer behavior.
Email
Direct Mail

26. • Marketing Emails – Marketing emails are one of the popular and quickest way to engage customers with the
upcoming sales and personalised offers to persuade customers to purchase products.
• Post Purchase Emails – Post purchase emails are another way to engage customers to buy support, cross sell,
recommendations, reviews and customer feedback. It helps marketers to understand customer feedback and
interests to optimise the process.
• News Letters / Events – Improve customer engagement by informing customers with brand news and upcoming
events to engage customers with the brand via online, instore or offline,
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

27. • Marketing Mails – Traditional direct mails does influence previous generations who used to use direct mail to
find best deals, offers and local events. It is still a popular method to reach certain customers offline.
• Local Events – Informing about local events and conducting the events attracts customers to engage with the
brand and be connected.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

28. Big
Screen
Big screens such as TV, Displays and Malls attract customers and has potential to engage customers
and connected to brands.
TV
Displays
Malls

29. • Watching TV – TV is still one of the primary entertainment and enables marketers to target customers during
prime time or during the programs that attract more people. Analysing the performance of TV advertising will
help identify right channels to optimise and minimize the marketing spend and engagement with the brand.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

30. • Displays all over – Customers are exposed to big displays in commute, in front of shops and in high street and in
many more places. Marketers have an opportunity to choose what’s right for their brand and customers behavior
to target customers at right places at right time.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

31. • Week end shopping in Malls – Customers are exposed to brands and big displays to influence customers over the
week ends and normal days. It allows customers to experience the brands and become customers.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

32. In-Store /
Phone
Buying from physical stores is still fun especially window shopping.  Customers can also order
using in-store ordering for products that are not available in store, self serve Kiosks and via phone
ordering.
These channels keep the customer engaged and influences to buy the product.
In-Store
Phone
Ordering
Customer
Services

33. • Purchase in-store – Physical brand experience can influence customer to purchase and cross sell/upsell the
products. Digital commerce teams & marketers have an opportunity to unify the buying experience in-store and
online.
• Looking for something not available in store – Digital commerce to allow customers placing on-line orders in-store
will keep the customer engaged and provides integrated experience. Marketers will have an opportunity to
measure and personalize customer experience by associating the purchase to online account.
• Self serve Kiosks – Kiosks are self serve large screen devices for purchasing products. Digital commerce teams &
marketers have an opportunity to simplify the customer journey and target customers who doesn't’t find the
product in the store.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

34. • Order by Phone – It provides an opportunity for marketers to identify the customer uniquely, past purchases ,
clicks/impressions, viewed products before calling for phone ordering. With these customer insights the whole
ordering process can be simplified to provide best experience in phone ordering.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

35. • Customer Services – Similar to phone ordering, marketers have an opportunity to identify the customer uniquely,
past purchases , clicks/impressions, viewed products, error pages, broken journey before calling customer services
for help.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

36. Messaging
Messaging services such as SMS, Push notifications and WhatsApp have huge success rate of
engaging customers. However most of the cases the messages are personalised and opted by
customer. Marketers have an opportunity to personalize and target customers wherever applicable.
SMS
Push
Notifications
WhatsApp

37. • SMS Offers – Reaching out to customers via with personalised offers is an opportunity for marketers to re-engage
customers.
• SMS notifications – Notifying customers with abandoned carts or to complete incomplete applications could be an
opportunity to re-engage customers.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

38. • PUSH notifications – Push notifications are one of the powerful way to notify customers with abandoned baskets,
missing information and personalised offers etc. Now with an ability for websites to display push notifications this
is even powerful way to engage customers using website or mobile apps.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

39. • WhatsApp – One of the most powerful & popular messaging service used by a billion people. Upcoming WhatsApp
features to connect with businesses & banks could influence marketers to focus and reach customers with
personalised experience.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

40. Services
Internet Wi-Fi and Cloud services we use opens an opportunity for marketers to delivery
personalised and location based content.
Wi-Fi
Cloud
Google Now

41. • Using Wi-Fi Hot spots – Using Wi-Fi hot spots opens up an window of opportunity for marketers to engage
customers based on location and proximity with personalised offers around that location.
• How often you think that I didn’t know that there was a sale? 
• What if a push notification comes up that there is a sale in a store when you are walking past that store? 
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

42. • Using Cloud Services – Using cloud services across the devices provides marketers to target with personalised
content and offer services . Most smart phone users use one or more cloud based services in day to day life.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

43. • Using Google Now – Google Now delivers right information at the right time. It intelligently reminds travel info,
flight dates & time, deliveries to pickup from stores and most importantly suggested posts based on my
preferences and location.
Being on top of Google search results in one thing and being on top of Google Now to appear in Google suggested
posts in another important thing. I personally go through the suggested posts at least once a day and most often
go
through the posts.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

44. Print
Print is one of the popular channel to reach customers via news paper advertisements, magazines
and printed offers to influence customers offline. Free news papers with advertisements is also a
popular way to reach customers.
News Paper
Magazines
Offers

45. • News Papers & Magazines – Advertisements in news papers is still one of the popular way to influence customers
and increase brand awareness & brand loyalty.
Digital news papers also paves way for marketers to display ads with relevant products based on customer
identification or predictive analysis using demographics.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

46. • Printed Papers – Reaching out to customers with printed offers other than news papers via physical affiliate
stores is also a way to target or re-target customers and influence to buy products and improve brand awareness.
Customer Behavior - Marketers Opportunity

47. This list of customer interactions might help you refine your digital commerce & marketing
strategy to improve your brand awareness & sales.
There could be many more interactions we do online that are not listed but proliferation of
technologies & tools continuously nurture new opportunities and improvements.