Inside a Digital Marketer's mind - with Jana Fiaccola (QUISMA)

In our series “Inside a Digital Marketer’s Mind”, marketing experts from various industries and regions tell us their thoughts on the current state of Digital Marketing, including trends, developments and predictions for 2018.
In this interview, Jana Fiaccola, Managing Partner of QUISMA (a GroupM company), gives us her thoughts and tips.

Digital marketing today

"With addressable TV for instance, the person who sits in front of the TV is now much more in the focus."

What developments in digital marketing are you the most excited about?

I am currently most excited about the fact that online marketing strategies are being adopted more and more in classical marketing activities. With addressable TV for instance, the person who sits in front of the TV is now much more in the focus. Based not only on the details about them but also on additional insights like weather and GEO data, TV spots can be more personalized and in turn more successful.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for digital marketers today?

These days, there are so many channels and changes that marketers need to keep up-to-date with. Sometimes this can be hard. And not every change – or impact that it might bring - is being recognized.
There is one particular change this year, which I feel a lot of retailers either didn't really notice or they seem not to have yet reacted and adapted their activities: this is the change on the Google result page for Google Shopping. Since September, Google is required to include listings from competitors in the search results. So, marketers that sell products on platforms like idealo.de or check24.de have their products being placed both as normal Google Shopping listings, and as ads via these comparison shopping sites.
While this is good for marketers, they need to ensure the product listings are consistent in pricing, images and wording. This means it's more important than ever that the individual product feeds for the different channels match. Then, finding out which channel or product is performing best in terms of ROI is necessary.

What in your opinion is the best tactic to reach or convert shoppers today?

For me it is not only about on how to reach potential shoppers by, for example, combining online marketing activities with various retargeting strategies or statistical twins to reach most relevant users.  You need to ensure that they actually convert once they are on the shop's website.
It is absolutely necessary to adopt a user-centric approach and to customize communication based on their needs and interests. Does it really make sense to communicate with every user the same way? Wouldn’t it be much better to take their user journey into consideration? Is the user already known? From which channel did they access the website? Did they, for instance, come over from Google Product Search and want to see additional relevant products? Maybe the marketer already has an idea of their product preferences and could use this information to define and provide ideal product recommendations.
All this information, and much more, should ideally be used to adjust the website to create the best possible experience for a specific user. The more specific and personalized it is, the higher your chance will be to convert them to buyers. Amazon is an excellent proof that a personalized website is key to success.

Digital Marketing tomorrow

Where is online shopping heading to in 3 years’ time?

Marketplaces like Real, Saturn, etc. and Comparison Shopping websites will increasingly gain power. Google will lose their current market power when it comes to product search. Amazon has already overtaken Google Shopping. This is not a big surprise, as nearly everyone who has an Amazon account starts their product research there. In a lot of cases, people only switch to Google if they would like to compare prices.
I also think that in the future, placing orders via voice will increase more and more, with digital assistants like Alexa, Google Now, and so on.

"Google will lose their current market power when it comes to product search. Amazon has already overtaken Google Shopping."

What is your main advice for digital marketers to stay relevant?

Use all available and relevant channels to reach your users. For a lot of marketers, one essential channel might be Amazon. The marketplace's market share will only grow in the next months and years. Marketers who haven’t thought about this channel shouldn't wait any longer and start planning their visibility. Other than looking into which products you want to sell on there and using Amazon Marketing Services to push them, you need to be considering Amazon SEO. I'd say this step is even more important. Build a solid base before using marketing budgets to push products.
Besides this, it will become crucial to focus on the right products, in order to ensure that marketing budgets are spent most effectively.

Marketech

Is there new marketing software out that you plan to evaluate?

In our group we have a new bidding technology with a strong focus on machine learning with great results in Italy and the US. I am really looking forward to getting more insights for our customers here in Germany.

Is there a marketing tool that needs to be developed? What are you missing?

What would really be great to have is a voice reporting app where marketers – and also account managers - can easily ask for the current status of their campaign performance on the go, for example while driving to work.

What you didn't know about Jana

Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?

Well, I am not sure it would be a big surprise for my colleagues, as most of my orders are delivered to the office. But I am a kind of Amazon “addicted.” I already have about 150 orders for this year…

About QUISMA
Founded in 2001 as an expert search-agency, QUISMA developed into a digital Full-Service Agency over the following years. Today QUISMA offers innovative technologies and deep expert knowledge for all digital marketing disciplines.