While being mobile-first is second nature to every retailer and digital marketer these days, they face another challenge in the online world: how to get the attention of people expecting instant gratification.
“Discovery is something that as marketers, we’ve struggled with for decades,” Eric Edge, head of global marketing and industry relations at Pinterest, told the Dx3 audience in Toronto. “How do you get your brand discovered, how does that happen in the digital and mobile world, and how does it actually become something that’s more personal and more meaningful?”
While Edge acknowledges that discovery is a challenge, there’s an opportunity for retailers to use technology to find opportunities for discovery in creative ways. He talks about turning inspiration into action in the context of the work done at Pinterest.
They key to personalized marketing is to surface the right products that are relevant and meaningful to the person at the time.
"Move beyond the last click. Look at attribution windows"
Eric Edge, Head of Global Marketing Communications, @Pinterest #Dx32017
— Jed Schneiderman (@jedschneiderman) March 9, 2017
“Imagine you’re over at a friend’s house and you love their dining room chair. But you don’t quite know what the name of that is,” said Edge. “What you can do is open the Pinterest app, you can click on the little camera, and it activates the camera on your phone. So you can see the chair and find the name of it. But you can also see dining room ideas, you can also see ideas of the table that it’s at. You could see ideas of how to design your dining room to look like that.”
It’s this bridging of the online and offline world that turns inspiration to action, according to Edge. However, this also presents the challenge of being able to measure the impact of advertisements.
“Measurement is really tough. The reason that it’s tricky is because there’s a reality. We know that shopping decisions or purchase decisions aren’t always made in one moment,” said Edge. “We also know that 90 percent of purchases still happen in store. And so those realities mean that there are a ton of touchpoints that influence somebody before they actually get to a point where they’re making a purchase.”
“Creativity is super powerful and always will be, and it will be on any media that you operate on and so that applies to every single person in this room,” said Edge. “And measuring the right things is what allows us all to have jobs. How you want to be discovered, how do you want to show up in the room? And if you can answer that question, then I think that leads you down the right path.”
Photo via Twitter
