Digital maturity in e-commerce

Article preview: The way we use and understand the data is particularly important for our business because it gives us opportunities to improve the user/customer experience, the marketing and sales strategy and the scaling of the business. In this article we briefly present the Retail Data Maturity platform, an assessment through which you can identify your company’s stage of digital maturity.

The PPC channels we use for our online business and about which we write a lot here (on our blog) have one essential thing in common: they bring us and provide us with data. Market data, aggregate user data, trend data, purchasing behavior data and so on. The way we analyze this data in our business depends on the degree of digital maturity.

In this regard, Google recently launched Retail Data Maturity, a tool through which retailers can diagnose their digital maturity in terms of data analysis and use.

The assessment covers various aspects of the digital transformation, from data-driven decision-making process, optimizing the user experience on the website to product recommendations, segmenting audience lists or customizing promotions. Following the 15 questions, a report will be sent to you via e-mail. This report will tell you where your company is situated and what is the average of the industry you belong to.

Digital maturity stages of a retailer:

• Nascent: organizations that use basic tools for data analysis and have difficulty integrating a data-driven decision-making process. Unfortunately, a very large number of businesses fall into this category and we would not say the financial resource is the main reason, but rather the lack of know-how;
• Developing: companies that have started to rely on data in the decision-making process, but have not yet identified clear ways to take full advantage of it;
• Mature: companies that have adopted more advanced analysis tools and in which the decision-making process is based on the use of data, but it is rather a punctual practice, rather than standard;
• Leading: companies that view data as an essential part of achieving business goals.

Well, what should we look for when talking about this digital maturity in terms of data?

The leadership’s vision

What is the availability at the senior management level to integrate the data in the decision-making process? How much is testing and measuring different initiatives encouraged? 

Tools used

How much do tools help us in the decision-making process? Do we have the know-how to use them? Do we understand them? If not, do we have the resources to hire a data analyst to do this?

User experience

• Do we show all users the same thing on the website or do we use a more advanced segmentation depending on behavior, geographic area, CLV (customer lifetime value) and so on? How much do we use predictive analysis when developing product recommendation modules? How personalized are the advertising materials we use or the promotions we display to users? 

We are sure this is not the first time you have encountered these questions, but we encourage you to go through the assessment because it provides the direction we should be heading in transforming our digital business. We would rather call it an inspirational exercise for a Friday afternoon. If you have more time available, you can also try the complex version of the assessment.

Wishing you a wonderful and productive spring season!

About Optimized

Optimized Agency is specialized in PPC campaigns (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Pinterest Ads, YouTube Ads) for e-commerce. Unlike other local agencies, our portfolio includes exclusively online stores and we work on clear performance objectives (CPA, ROAS, ROI). Our team consists of PPC specialists and Google certified trainers, as well as people with hands-on experience in e-commerce.

Our strategies are not generic, but strictly applied to e-commerce. We work with stores that want to profitably scale PPC campaigns, with clear objectives, aware that marketing is an investment.