With retailers and online marketplaces continuing to in-house various aspects of their marketing mix, quickly understanding how to make the most of automation tools is critical to optimising performance and boosting transparency. In this Q&A, Dan Chorlton (pictured below), co-founder & CEO, GOA Marketing, explains how his company is helping businesses such as notonthehighstreet do just that.

RetailTechNews: Can you explain how GOA works with retailers, such as notonthehighstreet?

Dan Chorlton: GOA automates a number of essential, but time-consuming, tasks such as budget monitoring. Before GOA was in place, daily budget caps would regularly be hit mid-afternoon, which meant missed traffic later in the day. In terms of transparency, with GOA there is no need to rely on time sheets or high-level optimisation logs. Within GOA, you can see exactly who did what in the account, when they did it, and what effect that had on performance. GOA doesn’t have any blackboxes, which means that everyone understands the account fully, because everyone has access to the same information and data.  

In terms of optimisation, GOA immediately flagged up a number of areas where changes were needed to make the accounts perform better. These included: investing more in Google Shopping ads, restructuring the accounts, optimising match types, and bid optimisation. The immediacy of this information meant that missed opportunities were captured quickly. Finding these issues manually would have taken over 100 hours, during which we’d have continued to miss out on traffic and sales.

With retailers prioritising in-house talent, how does GOA work with internal client teams?

GOA puts internal teams in control and provides full visibility into performance. This allows the accounts to be optimised in real time, focusing on the most important areas aligned with internal business objectives. Furthermore, GOA provides the capabilities required to integrate advanced data sets, which further enhances the performance of paid search activity.

Dan Chorlton, Co-founder & CEO, GOA Marketing

Why are we seeing a rise in retailers in-housing all, or parts, of their advertising? How will it help them better engage customers?

Consumers’ expectations of retailers have changed significantly over the last few years; specifically, brand loyalty is waning and product information is required in real time. For retailers, this means that marketing strategy needs to be highly attuned to the ever-changing demands of consumers, constantly monitored and optimised, and creative.

The problem with doing this through partners is that there needs to be a constant flow of data, continual communication, and a 24-hour presence. In-housing opens up a range of opportunities, such as working with new technologies, like GOA, which reduces the burden on people and frees up time to work on things that can’t be automated like creative.

It’s not about looking at what your partners can’t do, but what in-house teams can add to marketing optimisation and figuring out a path from there, which is different for every business.

With retailers looking to get a better grip on technologies like AI and machine learning, does paid search still hold an important place for e-commerce retail pureplays?

Until consumers stop searching, paid search will still be vital for retailers. Machine learning is already mainstream and providing significant performance uplift for brands. Huge advances are being made towards AI for the marketing industry, but it’s not mainstream yet and won’t be for a while. Even if AI does become a reality and mainstream, it will take time for consumers to trust in those sources; and there will be a long process of consumers using both.

How are retailers adapting to ensure they maximise customer centricity?

At the end of the day, all retailers are consumer-first businesses and this is something that needs to be understood across the entire business organisation. When it comes to technology and marketing, GDPR has helped because it defines ground rules for how to collect and use data. Once you have the business culture, and the right technology, the consumer can’t really be anywhere other than at the centre.