Wunderkind Report Outlines Biggest Challenges and Opportunities For Retailers in 2024

Wunderkind, the leading cross-channel performance marketing infrastructure, today released a report that leverages historical data from hundreds of retail clients to identify the biggest trends, challenges, and opportunities for ecommerce brands in 2024.

The biggest elephant in the room is the $16 billion in political campaign spending expected this year. While a boon for the ad industry at large, the result will wreak havoc on the retargeting tactics of all but the most deep-pocketed brands. With spending projected to increase 362% this year, brands that rely on retargeting will need to place heavy importance on owned channels such as email and SMS.

Adding to this pressure is the sunsetting of third-party tracking cookies, which advertisers have relied on for years. Brands will have to replace cookie-based data with a strong identity solution, allowing them to capitalize on the unknown traffic their properties garner. The result is a far more powerful ability to recognize who can be reached via owned channels rather than a paid ad using third-party cookies.

In order to turn both challenges into an opportunity, marketers must leverage “value exchange” tactics such as exclusive access or content, to enrich customer profiles with zero- and first-party data. This will enable more personalized content, messages, offers and discounts across owned channels such as email and SMS.

“This is going to be a tough year for brands that have put off implementing alternative solutions for third-party cookies, but it might also be a blessing in disguise,” said Tim Glomb, VP of Digital, Content, and AI at Wunderkind. “With Google finally killing cookies and political ad spend driving CPMs higher, marketers will be forced to adopt identity-driven solutions rooted in first-party data that allow them to take control over their customer relationships.”

To download the full report, go here.