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AdRoll Blog: A Beginner's Guide to Cohort Analysis in Digital Marketing

Cohort analysis empowers marketers to move beyond simplistic or generalized conclusions in their data analytics, offering valuable insights that enable digital marketers to make informed decisions based on customer motivations and behaviors.

A cohort represents a subset within an audience segment, united by a shared experience or characteristic that transcends basic demographics. The definition of a cohort group can encompass various "experiences," including significant life events like military service, marriage, divorce, having children, or relocating to a new place.

Additionally, technical factors such as email subscription dates, social media likes or shares, or event attendance can also define cohorts. Companies often leverage cohorts to deliver highly relevant and personalized content and advertisements to small groups of users. Moreover, cohorts help deepen the understanding of audience behavior and enhance strategies and campaigns.

AdRoll: The Future of Ecommerce: Sustainability, Social Selling and Other Trends for 2022

The e-commerce industry is continuously evolving, making it difficult for marketers to keep up. This blog discusses the future of e-commerce trends, including sustainability and social selling.

AdRoll Article: E-Commerce Marketing Strategies for 2019 & Beyond

Author’s Note: This is an SEO-style blog adapted to the client’s preferences in terms of keyword usage and possible variations in spacing/spelling.


E-commerce is a rapidly growing and increasingly competitive segment of the retail industry. Keeping up in this fast-paced marketing environment requires responsiveness and forward-thinking strategies. As consumer needs and expectations change over time, and new platforms and technologies become available, it’s critical that your e-commerce marketing strategies continue to evolve and adapt as well. 

Global retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2021 according to a report by Statista. Though this translates to an immense opportunity for brands, new challenges are constantly arising. Digital ad costs are increasing (5x faster than inflation), influencers are charging more while reaching less, and competition is on the rise.⁶ So, how will your brand stand out from the crowd? What e-commerce marketing strategies will you employ to establish and maintain a competitive advantage in 2019 and beyond? 

In our e-commerce marketing guide, we focus on the top 5 strategies that your brand can deploy in 2019 to increase consumer engagement, build trust and loyalty, and boost sales and ROI. Our primary focus areas include customer-centric content marketing and SEO, leveraging technology to boost ROI and conversions, social selling and video marketing, Amazon advertising, and mobile.

Customer-Centric Content Reigns & SEO Evolves

Content continues to wear the crown in 2019 as it plays a critical role in every successful e-commerce marketing strategy. If you feel like you’ve been left behind in the heated race to become content creation champion, now’s the time to dive in. Here are a few ways to optimize your strategy or get started from scratch:

  • Launch your blog or increase blog production
    Blogs help to build a loyal, long-term audience, while creating an entertaining experience for your customers. Beyond providing a terrific opportunity to connect with consumers and build trust, posting blogs regularly helps keep your site fresh, which is essential to boosting SEO.

  • Optimize online content for search engines and consider voice search.
    Quality on-page SEO increases rankings and attracts new visitors to your website. Though search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, three factors remain important to rankings: consistency, quality, and relevance.

    The first step to good SEO is establishing a keyword strategy. Identify keywords that make sense for your company and products, and remember that in the modern age of voice technology, you must also consider the way that people search when speaking to Alexa and Siri. As Susan Engleson of ComScore stated, “Voice technology is poised to permeate all aspects of our lives—at home, at work, and on the go.” ComScore also predicts that 50% of all searches will be made via voice by 2020.⁸

    Once you select your keywords, find a natural way to incorporate them into your blogs, web pages, and other searchable content, paying special attention to titles and headings. However, the days of over-stuffing pages with keywords are over (and punishable by poor rankings). So, ensure that your words flow and that your content continues to be enjoyable for your readers.

    It’s also critical to create original content throughout your website—even on product descriptions. Pages that are too similar may be considered duplicates, which would split the SEO value and result in lower rankings for both pages.

  • Create content that speaks to your buyer personas at all stages of the sales funnel.
    In addition to attracting site visitors and building interest in your brand, fresh website content helps to move consumers through the sales funnel. When developing and updating your website, ensure that you have interesting content that speaks to the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.

  • Capture lead information with enticing, high-value content offers.
    Once your new blogs and web pages attract visitors, it’s critical to capture those leads so you can nurture them through to sale. Identify the types of content that interests your audience and gate it behind a wall that gathers email addresses and other information about your website visitors. Also, consider what format your content offering should take to appeal to your customers. Should forms live on certain pages as CTAs? Should you use lead generation pop-ups? What about exit inquiries? The list goes on.

Leverage Technology to Enhance Customer Experience and Boost ROI

To encourage online sales, it’s important to embrace features that increase buyer confidence and make it quick and easy to find the products they’re looking for—like adding filtering options & improving searchability.

  • Interactive Product Visualization

E-commerce brands that can overcome the downsides of purchasing online will surpass competitors. By leveraging technologies like interactive product visualization (IPV) that enable zooming into details and viewing products from 360°, your brand can help consumers eliminate the guesswork involved in shopping online, make informed decisions, and increase conversion rates.

  • Product Demo Videos

Product demo videos can also support this process by showing how products work. For example, watching a video of a model wearing a particular outfit helps consumers visualize how an outfit might fit, move, and cling to the body during normal use. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in their online purchasing decision.

  • Artificial Intelligence
    Artificial intelligence (AI) is having its moment in 2019. Though it may sound futuristic and intimidating to many brands, AI is the secret weapon to staying competitive in the modern era of marketing. The term “AI” encompasses a wide range of technologies that substantially increase efficiency and provide meaningful and actionable data—which marketers can use to dramatically increase revenue and ROI.

    Modern marketing must leverage data to continually improve and meet the ever-changing needs of consumers. AdRoll enables marketers to launch complex campaigns across multiple channels, then leave the platform to do the work for them. The AI tools continually analyze the effectiveness of campaigns across ad types and channels and automatically adjust bids to maximize ROI and optimize for campaign goals. With machines doing much of the manual and complex data analysis, your team is free to pursue other aspects of your marketing strategy.

    In 2019, AI will continue to grow and expand in its application, improving everything from the tracking of customer traffic online to inventory management and even automation. E-commerce brands can use AI to see which products appeal to which consumers, analyze how consumers engage with their websites, and determine which types of products are more likely to convert each individual consumer. AI is the key to skyrocketing ROI results and getting the most value out of your marketing budget.

  • Retargeting
    92% of first-time website visitors are not ready to buy and leave without making a purchase. Those opportunities and any related advertising dollars are wasted if these visitors disappear forever. However, retargeting enables e-commerce brands to capture these opportunities and market to them until a sale is made by following visitors across the web on all of their favorite sites—including social media. Visitors are reminded of items they expressed interest in, and receive recommendations of similar items they are likely to enjoy.


    If retargeting is not part of your current marketing plan, it should become a primary strategy in 2019, as it runs automatically and requires little effort from your team. However, it carries the immense potential to significantly increase ROI.

  • Automate your email marketing workflow.
    91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis; making email the number one communication channel.³ When done well, email converts more successfully than any other marketing method and results in higher average value per sale. For every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $38.

    Though email automation is not a new technology, it is a necessary one. By automating your workflows, you can nurture leads and strengthen customer relationships while you work on other aspects of your marketing strategy. By letting the software work for you, you save time and resources, while getting more for your money.

Social Selling and Video Marketing

We can’t talk about marketing in 2019 without including social media. Social media is quickly taking over as the primary method for communicating with consumers, attracting new audiences, and selling products. The ability to shop directly on Instagram has changed the game for e-commerce and has made Instagram a top-priority platform for brands. 

To step up your social media efforts in 2019, consider adding more video content, leveraging user-generated content, and launching influencer campaigns and collaborations with other brands. Partnering with companies that share a similar audience to you to create giveaways and run contests can help to increase page likes and followers through cross-promotion. 

Personalized video messages and 360° video can also deepen engagement with your audience. Forbes predicts that live streaming will become even more popular this year, so consider experimenting with live video on Instagram and Facebook. Remember that every audience is different, so continue to experiment, analyze, and revise until you strike the right balance of content type and frequency of posts for your particular audience.

Amazon Advertising

New reports indicate that 68% of American shoppers head directly to Amazon when browsing for products. In addition, 80% of shoppers who plan on purchasing from a different site still visit Amazon first to read reviews and check prices. Amazon’s ability to attract eager shoppers at their first search attempt is why experts are predicting that the future of advertising is at Amazon and the future of Amazon is advertising. In order to increase visibility, your brand may want to include Amazon in its advertising plans.

Mobile

Experts predict that by the end of 2019, the majority of all purchasing may tip toward mobile. In fact, 2016 saw the majority of e-commerce sales made on mobile devices, and eMarketer estimates that 72.9% of online purchases will be made on a mobile device by 2021.⁸ Add to these predictions the fact that shopping through social media platforms like Instagram is quickly becoming the norm, and you can safely say that mobile is a critical focus for e-commerce now and into the future.

As consumer behaviors, social platforms, and technologies continue to evolve, your marketing techniques will need to adapt as well. Though there are many approaches you can take, by focusing on the critical components in this e-commerce marketing guide, you will be well on your way to taking your brand to the top in 2019 with responsive and successful marketing strategies.

AdRoll Article: 7 Highly Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for 2020

Author’s Note: This is an SEO-style blog adapted to the client’s preferences in terms of keyword usage and possible variations in spacing/spelling.


Modern digital marketing strategy is anything but static. As technology continues to advance, so too must your marketing strategies if you are going to compete and thrive. In 2020, learning how to leverage various technologies to respond to changing consumer behaviors and preferences will be critical to staying ahead of the competition. Here are 7 highly-effective strategies to implement to reach your marketing goals in the new year.

1) Use Insights-Driven Marketing

There are a vast number of tools available to marketers to track, analyze, report on, and automate marketing efforts based on real data from customers and target audiences. Gone are the days of blindly guessing and testing advertising, hoping for good results. In the era of big data, AI, and machine learning technologies, marketers can understand what their audiences want, how they shop, what messaging appeals to them, and where to find them, unlike ever before—all with real-time information! 

A study by McKinsey found that “intensive users of customer analytics are 23 times more likely to outperform their competitors in terms of new customer acquisition than non-intensive users, and nine times more likely to surpass them in customer loyalty.” This is likely why 41% of survey respondents said that data analysis is the most desired skill for new hires in 2020.

2) Employ Chatbots & Conversational Marketing

As technology develops and big companies like Amazon provide more real-time, 24-hour support to consumers, the general shopper’s expectations have changed dramatically. Consumers expect immediate service, with 42% of people expecting a response within 5 seconds and 36% expecting a reply within 5 minutes. To meet rising demands, companies are starting to exchange inbound phone support, call centers, and other human services for AI / Machine Learning chatbots. Unlike humans, these bots can provide quick communication with potential customers 24/7—answering questions, helping to find website content, and even upselling—all while saving costs!

3) Build Trust and Transparency

Trust is a crucial component of any brand and should be a priority for every digital marketing strategy in 2020. In every interaction with your audience, focus on building trust, and emphasize transparency. As mistrust for technology companies and concerns over private data usage continue to rise, it’s never been more critical for brands to build open and honest relationships with their audiences. Companies producing transparent and easy-to-digest information are likely to retain 94% of their customers.

4) Focus on Customer Retention

Existing customers contribute massive value by becoming repeat customers, leaving helpful reviews that boost buyer confidence, and bringing in new customers through their referral networks. In addition to the fact that new customers cost 5 times more to acquire than it costs to keep an existing customer, repeat customers also spend 300% more money and tend to purchase more expensive products with confidence. 

While customer retention has always been a valuable part of marketing efforts, the importance of healthy, long-term customer relationships continues to grow. Luckily, greater access to customer data also makes it far easier than ever before for marketers to understand their customers and provide offerings that will entice them to become loyal patrons and 5-star references. Happy customers are essential to creating a healthy referral program. These programs are vital to every modern digital marketing strategy since consumers are more likely to make purchases based on recommendations from friends, family members, influencers, or other forms of social proof.

5) Continue Working with Influencers

The influencer marketing industry is expected to hit $10 billion by 2020, in large part because of the massive impact that social media has on today’s consumers—with 74% of people trusting the information on social media to make purchasing decisions. So long as 86% of women continue to use social media for purchasing advice and 49% of all consumers depend on influencer recommendations to make purchases, this will continue to be a major focus for digital marketing teams.

Influencer campaigns also help to circumvent ad-blocking technology, which has become a serious issue for brands. 40% of customers use ad-blockers on laptops and 15% on mobile. As ad aversion continues to rise and ad-blockers become more popular, partnerships and creative approaches to marketing will help to overcome these new hurdles. 

If you’re not working with influencers, you may be missing out on a huge opportunity to gain credibility, broaden your reach, and acquire new customers. Though the cost of influencer campaigns continues to increase, brands are still gaining strong ROI from these marketing activities, earning an average of $6.50 for every dollar spent. If you don’t have influencers as part of your digital marketing strategy, it’s time to update your approach in 2020.

6) Optimize for Voice Search

Voice is one of the biggest online marketing trends for 2020. Over ¼ of all US adults own a smart speaker, and 31% of smartphone users around the globe use voice-activated search. This demand for voice technology is only predicted to grow, with analysts estimating that 50% of all searches will be conducted by voice in 2020. 

So, how does this affect your digital marketing strategy? Primarily, it means optimizing your website content and SEO strategy by considering how people search by voice. The most critical change to make is to include long-tail keywords in your plan. When a consumer types a search, they will often shorten a query to just “instant pot recipe,” for example. However, when they use their voice, they tend to ask a complete question like, “what is an easy instant pot breakfast recipe?” That change should be reflected in your keyword choices to compete for those search results. 

7) Leverage AI Technologies to Boost ROI

Automation and AI are trends that will continue to grow and evolve as technology advances. For now, one of the key technologies to focus on is the AI-driven ad-serving tool. These tools provide a single platform for all of your advertising efforts and use AI technology to continually optimize your advertising efforts based on real-time data. 

Key features, like retargeting campaigns, leverage data to personalize campaigns for individual ad viewers in a way that boosts CTR and conversions. Smart bidding features work even when your team can’t to automatically allocate your budget based on ad performance. 24/7 campaign optimization results in massive value to your company through cost savings and a significant boost in ROI. Technologies like AdRoll enable you to get the most for every dollar spent with minimal effort and resources, making this technology a must-have in 2020.

Digital marketing strategy is continually evolving to meet consumer demand and the new requirements placed upon marketers by updated algorithms, new social media channels, new consumer technologies, and the like. Though it can sometimes feel nearly impossible to keep up with all of the changes and best practices, these 7 high-performance strategies will help you get a jumpstart in 2020.