On June 6th, Salsify held the Digital Transformers Summit (DTS) in Boston, MA, an industry day focused entirely on the present and future of commerce for brand manufacturers. Among the roster of leading eCommerce executives, analysts and visionaries on hand to discuss strategies, best practices and case studies, Pacvue President Melissa Burdick led a panel discussion on “Advertising on Amazon for Maximum Impact” (eBook coming soon!). Additional Pacvue team members, including Senior Marketing Manager Monica Gordon, Sales Director East Daniel Harris and Business Development Manager Jonathan Gregory, networked and immersed themselves in the most pressing eCommerce topics today.
Notable Spotlight
Overall, the quality of industry talk tracks and networking opportunities was impressive. One could easily gauge the pulse of eCommerce and pain points affecting different brands as they navigate digital marketplaces such as Amazon and Walmart. One of the more fascinating sessions was Accenture Interactive’s Roald van Wyk’s talk about “Brand Experience in the Age of Amazon,” a discussion highlighting how brands face the challenge of connecting the product detail page to the true brand experience. Thinking about how you control a brand experience on product pages across digital channels and making sure people aren’t left with a wallof white emphasized the impact of GOOD content on marketing performance.
Top 5 Key Takeaways
Amidst all the discussion on brand strategies, channel conflicts, advertising impact and predictions for 2019 and beyond, several top key themes emerged from the DTS conference, including:
1.“Search is the new brand” and “Search is your shelf”.
With 90% of product views coming from search, it’s critical to think about bringing in brand imagery and leveraging technology tools to help you implement that brand experience and scale as you grow.
2. How to Keep Up with Amazon!
This one isn’t a surprise. How do I stay on top of the latest in Amazon advertising? What is Amazon going to do next? What does the future hold? Everyone wants to know how to stay on top of everything that Amazon is doing (or planning to do).
3. We’re All in the Same Boat—At Breakneck Speed.
Everyone is trying to stay afloat with the rapid-fast changes in eCommerce today and implement different strategies and tactics to maximize advertising impact. So, the conversation naturally turns to, what are the latest changes I should be paying attention to? What new strategies should I be thinking about?
4. Importance of Centralization of Information and Use of Technology.
People were overheard talking about interest in aggregating tools together and ultimately finding more things in one place—i.e., How can I have my content, retail and advertising data all accessible from one spot and actionable from that one spot?
5. Amazon: In-House vs. Agency.
There was also a decent amount of talk regarding in-house vs. agency management of all things Amazon. There wasn’t a definitive consensus necessarily, but the tone was that if a brand could bring everything in-house, they’d like to do so as soon as possible.
