Through its proprietary technology, Rokt enables its e-commerce clients to increase brand engagement and unlock new revenues in the Transaction Moment™, allowing them to stay ahead of their competition while delivering a superior and individualised experience for each customer.
From Covid-19 lockdowns and the growing e-commerce momentum to ‘the death of cookies’, brands are becoming more aware of the challenges facing them as they look to grow customer engagement in the digital arena. And in a $5bn industry growing at around six percent in 2020, marketers are increasingly looking into ways of reaching customers at new and personalised levels.
Recognising the opportunity within the sector, global e-commerce technology leader Rokt entered the New Zealand market seven years ago with it’s AI powered tech to make e-commerce smarter, faster, and better. With its unique closed marketplace platform Rokt unlocks the hidden potential in every single Transaction Moment™ by providing personalised and relevant experiences to transacting customers.
Since then, under the leadership of Andrew Evans in New Zealand, Rokt has grown its marketplace, and powered over 500,000+ online transactions per month.
Given the current market and pandemic induced e-commerce growth, Evans says that providing customers with refreshingly relevant and personalised third-party offers during the checkout experience is more relevant than ever.
“Covid-19 has led to a considerable increase in online transactions across our Retail/ Food & Beverage/ Entertainment partners which has largely offset the declines suffered by ticketing and travel service providers in our marketplace. At the same time, advertiser demand has increased due to the momentum of e-commerce within these sectors,” Evans explains.
In addition to this, Evans says that the industry evolution around the ‘death of the cookie’ is leading to brands wanting to acquire first-party data, which is an opt-in Rokt can facilitate efficiently at scale, without the use of third party cookies and while remaining compliant with security and privacy regulations.
“Given these challenges (and opportunities), we want Rokt to become top of mind as a channel brands use to connect with new active online shoppers whilst they’re in the buying mindset,” he adds.
Rokt does this by allowing advertisers to access new customers during the checkout process via the exclusive Rokt Marketplace. Rokt’s advanced data and analytics has proven success in driving stronger conversions and incremental payback and advertisers only pay for customers that show direct intent for the offer, not impressions, removing any risk of diminishing returns. You can request a demo here.
“1:1 personalisation is at the core of Rokt’s tech. The constant evolution of our machine learning to build more relevance and value for all stakeholders of a transaction is incomparable. On the advertiser side, incrementality is measuring the impact of exposure, opt-in, and nurture of relationships to become new customers. This is a key component of Rokt’s model,” Evans explains.
Through its technology, Rokt has the ability to integrate with many tech providers across the e-commerce, email, and CRM landscape including Salesforce, Mailchimp, Braze, and others. Thus, helping marketers better integrate their messaging and optimise data collection.
And marketers get this.
Evans says that Rokt client Ezibuy is an excellent example of a brand who has grown to utilise both sides of the Rokt Tech.
“Starting with inviting customers across from the Rokt Marketplace to subscribe and shop with them. They then went on to integrate the Rokt Marketplace on their own confirmation page personalising and monetising this moment to earn ancillary revenue on every transaction. Essentially building a self-funding source of new customers.”
“We then went on to expand this relationship across the group with Surfstitch also becoming a Rokt Partner in AU and NZ.”
Finding first-party data
First-party data from the transaction is what drives Rokt’s personalisation efforts. “It is what allows us to increase relevance and optimisation and personalise journeys that increase customer engagement and value for all stakeholders,” says Evans.
But with consumers and marketers increasingly cautious of sharing data in an age of mismanagement, how does such an automated approach ensure the privacy of those sharing data?
Evans responds by saying that Rokt has met the international security standards to be ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified. “Every element of our business and data flow has been scrutinised and proved secure in order to achieve this accreditation and it is audited on an ongoing basis. This is core to Rokt as a business and a breach would be our biggest threat. In addition to this, customers are in full control of where their data goes by explicitly opting-in or out of advertiser offers.
“Rokt Acquire – our advertising product – operates in the closed Rokt Marketplace. Being post-transaction means it is a unique and secure environment. We are massively aware of our responsibilities here. We give e-commerce partners implementing Rokt Commerce absolute control of the brands allowed to engage with their customers, and the data powers the personalising and processing of their customer journey. Similarly, advertisers work directly with the Rokt Tech and our Customer Success team to integrate and optimise their customer acquisition efforts for long term success on the marketplace.” he says.
With Rokt Acquire, clients are also able to identify based on machine learning which shoppers have the highest propensity to become their customers, before it happens. This allows them to bid strategically to acquire new connections to shoppers based on the value they represent their business.
“It’s all about unlocking that hidden potential in every single Transaction Moment™,” Evans says.
Rokt finished 2020 with $100 to $110 million in revenue and having raised $80m in their Series D in 2020 plans to grow from 260 employees today to more than 400 by the end of 2021.
Actioning & creating value through personalisation from data
Evans shares this advice for brands and marketers looking to optimise the customer conversion funnel through greater personalisation:
Build quality connections: “Many brands are right now hustling to settle on a single view of their customers and prospects as cookie ID’s become less prevalent. The challenge is building quality connections via first party data (raw or hashed) with which to build their marketing channels, and attribution models around. We are helping brands understand real customers at scale.”
Use your data: “Big Data was a buzz word over the last decade and I would say the majority of Kiwi marketers have their CRMs and data worlds in order. Now, in e-commerce especially, personalisation is getting a lot of buzz. But there is a distinct lack of unique ways to action on this data and truly personalise for incremental value. Email, retargeting, and product recommendations are basic applications that still aren’t being done well by all. At Rokt, we are challenging brands to think deeper about this and truly personalise elements of the transaction experience at an individual customer level to unlock the hidden value in each relationship.”
To find out more about the Rokt offering: email Andrew at [email protected]
In association with Rokt.
