9 ways to differentiate your brand and achieve omnichannel success in 2024

With Profitero’s research finding that 8 in 10 shoppers seek validation from digital content during their purchase journey, building an effective omnichannel strategy is essential. Is your team positioned to succeed in this fast-moving omnichannel world? 

Our latest eCommerce Benchmark Study highlighted persistent gaps in many brands’ core eCommerce capabilities, with fewer brands feeling ahead of the competition than ever before:

But those gaps also mean significant opportunities for brands to get ahead of the curve in their people, partnerships and practices in the coming year. The question is: with so many potential levers to pull, and limited budget, what actions should you prioritize? 

Last November we were joined by brand leaders Arjan Vuik from Hero Group and Jessica Menis from ABInBev to highlight key omnichannel focus areas heading into 2024. We delved into the major themes from our 2023 Benchmark Study and shared exclusive insights from the data that informed our report. (If you missed the webinar, you can access the full recording here.) 

Below, we’ll dig into some of these key findings and present 9 tips for omnichannel success this year. Plus, you’ll learn how Profitero’s tech ecosystem helps brands succeed at every step of the journey.

People: KPIs are essential for success, but significantly underappreciated

Most brands have undergone some form of reorganization around eCommerce over the past two years. Unfortunately, the failure rate of those reorgs has been pretty high:

What differentiates successful and unsuccessful reorganizations? Brands told us that clear (or unclear) roles, responsibilities and KPIs were the #1 factor. But we found that KPIs are still underappreciated when brands think about eCommerce teams more broadly:

Exclusive Benchmark Study insight: Only 31% of brands believe eComm-inclusive KPIs and incentive shifts are essential to an integrated eCommerce team. 

If you’re wondering why your brand’s structural changes aren’t translating into behavioral omnichannel practices, there’s a good chance that incentives haven’t been properly adjusted to drive the desired outcomes. What can brands do to bridge the gap in the coming year?

• Tip #1: Use the crawl-walk-run approach to set your KPIs, and keep them simple. Setting targets that are too ambitious or complex for your current level of maturity can be counterproductive. Andrew Pearl explains it here:

• Tip #2: Upskill across silos, not within them. If you want behavioral changes to stick, the first step is getting all relevant teams in the same room. A key example is paid and organic search. To effectively reach today’s omnichannel shoppers, brands need holistic search strategies – which means that when upskilling search teams, paid and organic need to be on the same page and working in harmony. Learn how Profitero’s Advisory team helped a global CPG brand craft a winning paid & organic Amazon search strategy across multiple markets.
• Tip #3: Benchmark your KPIs to establish jobs to be done. KPIs should be tailored to country and retailer-specific benchmarks (e.g., Profitero scorecards). Setting up regular intervals to review digital shelf data and assess progress against these KPIs is the most effective way to fine-tune JTBDs and orient teams towards eComm excellence.

Partnerships: Work with retailers to win the digitally influenced shopper 

Teams that have been aligned towards omnichannel success through eComm-informed incentives are in a perfect position to synthesize brand & consumer insights that drive better retailer partnerships. Hero Group’s Arjan Vuik believes JBPs are key to standing out from the competition: 

• Tip #4: Scorecard your retailers: Just as brands need to know where they stand on eComm maturity in order to tailor their next best actions, so too, retailer partnerships are more likely to be effective when brands come to the table with an understanding of what eComm capabilities retailers can offer and what features they’d like to see added. When framed in the context of driving growth for both brands and retailers, this approach is engaging and productive. 
• Tip #5: Talk to retailer partners about the digitally influenced shopper: The rise in dedicated eCommerce roles – particularly in category management – presents an opportunity to bring category experts into JBPs to share their insights on digitally influenced shoppers and nudge retailers in the right direction.
• Tip #6: Come prepared with specific digital shelf priorities for each retailer: This is where omnicausal analytics capabilities earn their keep. With Profitero data, brands can monitor content performance across every retailer they track to identify areas for improvement. But our integration with Circana also allows brands to correlate in-depth digital shelf metrics with sales & market share data across multiple retailers, so brands can come prepared to JBPs knowing not just how they’re performing, but why – and what actions they can take to drive growth.

Practices: Get your money’s worth on retail media

Retail media is a hot investment area right now, and 1 in 2 brands expect to increase their budget for retail media in 2024 (Profitero). But more spend doesn't guarantee growth, especially when competition is heating up. Brands that want to maximize the ROI of their retail media spend will need to differentiate themselves – like category leader Philadelphia Cream Cheese. They achieved an incredible 28% jump in new-to-brand orders through intelligent media buying informed by Profitero’s product availability data. 

With any retail media strategy, success starts with clear and relevant (i.e., retailer-specific) goals and KPIs.

Exclusive Benchmark Study insight: Retail media KPIs differ widely by channel, with new brand buyers playing a much bigger role in pureplay media strategy assessment. 

These differences speak to the importance of understanding how different channels affect the type of buyer your media strategies are targeting. 

• Tip #7: Identify the shoppers you’re aiming to target at each retailer, and set KPIs accordingly: On Amazon, you might be aiming to stand out from a crowded sea of advertisers to drive brand awareness and inspire shoppers – in that case, you might choose to assess performance on new brand buyers. At an omnichannel retailer, the goal might be incremental sales. However brands choose to set their KPIs, it’s important to consider the types of touchpoints your buyers will encounter at each retailer and how to measure progress in reaching those shoppers.  

• Tip #8: Make sure your product listings can capitalize on the media spend: Any media-driven sales growth will magnify existing bottlenecks or pain points in your operations, so it’s important to think about what support tools – such as Profitero Autopilot – your product lineup needs behind the scenes for your media strategy to pay off. For a free audit of your Amazon portfolio to see how much revenue Autopilot could be recovering for your brand, click here. 

Finally, brands can stand out in 2024 by testing and learning with innovations, such as AI, that can significantly streamline the content creation process. 

• Tip #9: Experiment with AI: AI solutions can help streamline workflows, generate content, and extract insights from large datasets. A year after the release of chatGPT, only 4% of brands have adopted AI processes that accelerate eCommerce performance, so any brand that successfully integrates AI into their eComm strategies can instantly stand out. Our Ask Profitero generative AI solution, currently in closed beta, allows users to quickly extract insights from our digital shelf data as well as create and push new content. 

Get a boost heading into 2024

Implementing all of these best practices is easier said than done. That’s why, in our latest study, we created an Omni Transformation Model – available within the full 2023 Benchmark Study – as a resource for your teams to identify their level of maturity across key eCommerce levers and identify the next stage to work towards. 

And don’t forget, you can always take our quick eCommerce maturity assessment to find out how your brand measures up against the competition. 

Need help reaching the next level of maturity? Our global Advisory team helps leading brands identify their critical capability gaps and craft custom action plans to address them.

Whether it’s team workshops, retail media strategies, or another area of growth opportunity, we help your brands drive the right behavioral changes to unlock sustainable omnichannel success. If you’d like to see your brand lead the way in 2024, reach out to schedule a meeting.