3 Keys to Maximize Digital Campaign Effectiveness

1. Aligning activities to KPIs

We all understand the importance of aligning key performance indicators (KPIs) with organizational goals, but top-level metrics don’t always map perfectly to a specific initiative or program.

In our experience, we’ve seen both scenarios:

• The client has the right KPIs, but lacked the right campaign activities to achieve them
• The client has the right activities mapped to KPIs outside the commerce team’s domain

In the former case, we work to design campaign strategies and project plans to close the gap between tasks and targets. In the latter, we help redefine KPIs to build a more complete picture of campaign contribution and operational success, and structure activities around these specific metrics.

For example, an Infosys Equinox client’s search team aimed to increase site search usage. But without influence over outbound marketing, they weren’t in direct control over site traffic.

What they really needed to measure was improved usability and conversion impact of site search for existing visitors. Setting targets on reduced null searches and adding feature enhancements was more relevant to success than increased visits.

Measuring microconversions

We also consider how “microconversions,” or “assists” can positively impact broader organizational goals outside of individual campaigns. For example, digital commerce features can reduce overhead for customer service, fulfillment, returns and retail teams, or support marketing with email and SMS marketing.

Keeping guardrails

Project leads should be mindful of any guardrail metrics that may negatively impact the KPIs of other departments or have longer term impact on customer behavior and loyalty. For example, sending offers to the wrong customer segments may train customers to only buy during sale periods. Or the wrong banner creative can compromise supplier relationships.

We audit campaigns we inherit and advise on new campaigns to ensure both department and organizational objectives are protected.

2. Building operational efficiency

In digital commerce, missing deadlines means missing sales. Many ecommerce teams are inefficient due to lack of people, process or technology (often a combination of these).

People

You can always achieve more with more people, but it’s not always optimal to keep headcount high. If you hire enough internal staff to handle seasonal campaign spikes, you’re easily faced with excess capacity the rest of the year.

Working with outsourced help that can scale up and down with your needs can help optimize your budget and ensure you’re not left in a lurch during peak periods.

Process

It’s important to identify efficiency gaps in your process and build new SOPs (standard operating procedures) that everyone will stick to.

For example, prior to working with us, our client was facing a backlog of over 2000 product uploads ahead of the peak back to school season and was suffering from information silos that led to tasks falling through the cracks.

We worked with them to establish new creative delivery SLAs (service level agreements), a task prioritization system, clearer ticket naming conventions and trained their team on the best ways to use their Jira project management tool.

Today, the client enjoys >99% schedule adherence across all programs and a >98% task delivery quality score.

Technology and GenAI

Don’t forget the power of technology to scale productivity. Look for opportunities to offload manual tasks to machines and leverage generative AI to speed creative production.

For example, our ops team uses AI to retouch images and replicate photo shoots, generate creative assets to fit email, social, on-site and responsive specifications, and translate product and marketing copy.

We’ve also built automation scripts for our client to accelerate delivery. Automating synonym file and fusion rule validation for search and discovery reduced null search results by 73%, while speeding up the process by 75%.

Automated SKU onboarding and QA scripts reduced out-of-stock rates by 37% and frees up human time for more strategic tasks.

3. Increasing executional agility

Once you’ve closed your efficiency gaps, it’s time to put process into practice.

Plan campaigns in advance

We recommend you start your campaign prep well in advance of launch (typically 3 months ahead).

This includes:

• Copy and creative for new product uploads
• Compared to building an on-shore, in-house team, outsourcing can save you 30-40% on salaries, benefits, and overhead costs.
• Banner creative for all campaign touchpoints
• Language translation across assets
• New categories and landing pages for seasonal experiences
• Seasonal keywords applied to product data
• Product finders built on top of search and filters
• Promo code development and testing
• Responsive design QA

Plan for potential pivots

Advanced planning doesn’t always predict what happens in real-time. If your KPIs are not meeting targets at any stage of the campaign, the ability to switch up merchandising and offers on-the-fly is helpful.

For example, if you launch a 2-week promotion for 10% off to existing customers, and you’re short on revenue after the first week, you can increase the discount (provided Finance approves).

Having duplicate creative assets on-hand or the ability to generate them quickly enables you to salvage sales and performance.

Optimize workflow

To turbo-charge execution, look for additional ways to stay nimble:

• Determine what creative assets can be templated
• Implement consistent themes that can be used across multiple channels and platforms
• Discuss escalation processes so all stakeholders are prepared for any issues
• Add additional help to offset impending workloads
• Limit the rounds of feedback/approvals or people touchpoints (if possible)

It’s common to find that multiple stakeholders want to have some ownership in the smallest projects. This typically slows down project execution unnecessarily. We recommend limiting approval touchpoints to those who need to be involved, not just want to be involved.

How can Infosys Equinox help you?

Digital campaigns are dynamic and it’s important to remain nimble and responsive to conditions that change while the “ball is in play.” An experienced operations team helps you both set up the play and pivot when necessary to ensure activities track to goals.

If you’re looking to ramp up your productivity, tighten up operations or simply take advantage of a flexible and scalable team, the Infosys Equinox Digital Commerce and Operations team has you covered.

Our experienced group provides specialists across all functions, including:

• Design
• Digital content
• Digital merchandizing
• SKU management
• Searchandizing
• Email marketing

Want to learn more about how Digital Commerce and Marketing Operations can help your business leverage these strategies with 40% cost savings? Write to us at contactus@infosysequinox.com and we will get in touch with you.