Content commerce: How brands and publishers are diversifying revenue streams

By Tipser

Data-driven marketing helps brands understand where consumers are within the shopper journey, enabling them to predict better what the customer might do next. And while this data allows brands to target advertising throughout the path to purchase, the method is reactive. Conversely, brands and publishers that allow consumers to shop directly from content are proactive and this immediate gratification approach adds value to the consumer experience.

“We should be designing experiences that are additive rather than being a distraction,” says Dave Lowe, strategy partner at Digitas UK. “Brands and publishers need to have empathy for what the consumer might be wanting to do at the time. For example, if they are flicking through a digital magazine, they should be able to make the purchase without leaving the page,” says Lowe.

Rather than distracting or directing them away from their original purpose with interruptive ad formats that link out to other sites — a tactic that comes with its own brand safety concerns — content commerce differs from other well-known affiliate programs. It creates a checkout opportunity that’s contextually aligned with the content itself; if a consumer is reading about a product they like and want to buy, they don’t have to leave the article, feed or post to do so.

Content commerce provides utility, but it’s also cultivating new shopping behaviors and creating new sources of product expertise online. And the new behaviors and approaches it’s creating are especially timely, as mid-pandemic brick-and-mortar stores remain closed. Additionally, in the digital shopping journey, the content commerce experience is altering online experiences.

The end of bottomless browsing

“Even shoppers with the highest [purchase] intent will get lost and bored browsing bottomless product search results pages,” says Angelica Marden, general manager at PopSugar. Marden advises publishers looking at content commerce to “build audience trust that your shopping recommendations will deliver the cutest, coolest, newest and most useful stuff with a vetted editor’s eye and your audience will come back to you time and time again when they have the urge to shop.”

PopSugar, which is part of Group Nine Media, has launched a curated “content-x-commerce” initiative optimized via consumer search interest, proven and trending products and a portfolio of retailers, with content across fashion and beauty, tech, home (kitchen and food), fitness, moms and gifts. “We approach our curation as personal shoppers, product testers and treasure hunters,” says Marden.

Personalization is an important part of curation — and social platforms have the algorithms to suit. Thomas Høgebøl, CEO and founder at NoA, the Nordic region’s leading network of design, communication and tech-and-data agencies, says the overall shift in society towards highly personalized, easy-to-digest content will prompt even more brands to scale up content on Instagram and, ultimately, TikTok. He says: “Both are visually led and require little to no effort to consume and click through if something appeals. However, creativity will still be a key differentiating factor in outperforming the competition.”

Høgebøl notes that Instagram recently updated its home …read more

Source:: Digiday