The churning of new marketing technology on your Shopify store

Technology can advance fast.

Even if you avoid the cutting edge stuff, things get outdated quickly. Especially online.

I don't think you should always be chasing the new thing but you should be aware of general trends so they surprise you.

For example right now those "spin a wheel and win a prize" opt-ins are all the rage. Give them a few more months and they'll be ignored and replaced with the next thing.

(Just like how a year ago the top banner bars were popular, at least until customers became blind to them. Before that was the on-page pop-ups...)

One piece of advice is to stay a bit back from the leading edge when it's not a core competency of your business.

Let something become popular (a fad) first and then adopt it after everyone has switched to the next thing. By that point it'll be really easy to use and you wouldn't have wasted a lot of time chasing the lead. Maybe even wait a bit longer.

Now if there's something you really want to chase or it's a core competency, then go ahead ride the leading edge. You'll risk resources but there's the potential of greater reward.

This is part of why Repeat Customer Insights has the reports it does.

I could build something that would tell you the likelihood of your Instagram followers to like you on Facebook and then show up in your remarketing campaigns. But how does anyone know if that would even work? Today or next month?

The core algorithms I use have been tested decades ago buy the huge catalog and retail companies. It's just that now the technology makes it easy enough to give the same power to even the smallest stores.

Anyways, if you're interested in learning more about how your customers actually behave (and not what a social network sells you on), take a look at Repeat Customer Insights. Or if you have a question about how it works, reply and send me an email.

Eric Davis