Complex commerce: navigate your unique needs with a CXDP

Businesses in the commerce space will know that there’s nothing simple about scaling. It requires years of strategy, brand development, and global expansion. For merchants, it can be tricky to combine commerce needs with marketing efforts, particularly when looking for a customer experience and data platform (CXDP). In reality, for your business to scale, you need to embrace complex commerce, and your marketing automation needs to do the same so you can be proactive in your marketing and say goodbye to unnecessary headaches.

But, what is complex commerce?

Businesses that experience complex commerce usually cater to multiple markets, a variety of customer demographics, and several product lines simultaneously. As you grow and expand, so do your commerce needs, often leading to an intricately connected web of requirements and workflows.

Businesses often evolve into these scenarios when their customers’ demands and expectations diversify, or when moving into new markets requires products that cater to multiple demographics and markets around the world. However, while complexities might be challenging at times, it’s a natural indicator of growth and innovation. Just as the best songs have layers of harmonies and gourmet meals require numerous ingredients and steps, complex commerce signifies a drive to stand out so you can cater to an array of customers worldwide.

Rather than viewing complex commerce as an obstacle to marketing, it’s essential to understand that the limitations are likely due to your provider falling short in supporting your growth.

Going global without limits

Most marketing automation platforms aren’t equipped to handle complex commerce. They may lack global reach or aren’t able to support multi-store arrangements, restricting growth for businesses with multiple brands across the world. This can cause issues in a marketer’s day-to-day life which can turn drive and passion into frustration and aggravation.

Inadequate platforms can lead to the inability to manage multiple stores cohesively, creating disjointed data, poor decision-making, and time-consuming reporting procedures. These issues are frustrating and can ultimately hinder long-term growth.

To successfully scale and navigate the world of complex commerce, businesses would benefit from a customer experience and data platform (CXDP) that offers support in these five key areas. 

1. Go big, go global: multi-store and multi-brand support

Seamless engagement with customers shouldn’t have to be a challenge just because you have different brands or accounts. Your ideal marketing automation platform would be able to support this with several essential features with lots of different options that aren’t going to restrict you. 

Let’s say you have multiple regional stores on your commerce platform of choice (e.g. Shopify), and within that, you have multiple brands to manage. Unlike other marketing automation platforms, Dotdigital supports multi-store and multi-brand options with a number of our ecommerce partners. We also offer parent and child account structures which make marketing a breeze when you need to have different subscribe lists for different brands, for example. With Dotdigital, you can mix and match these features however you like so that you can be sure that your platform is a perfect fit.

Parent and child account structures will simplify management for multi-brand businesses. For those with multiple stores globally, catering to international customers is made easier with multi-currency and auto conversion features, as well as the ability to communicate using multiple languages. At Dotdigital, we help you create seamless journeys for your audience in 20+ languages, and easy reporting that supports 35+ currencies. 

There’s no doubt that siloed data across different accounts will be making your life incredibly difficult, and you’re not alone: 98% of businesses state data silos as being a problem. If you’re currently managing all your customer bases in different places, and reconciling data from multiple sources because your provider doesn’t accommodate your needs, it could be time to look for one that does.

2. Cohesive commerce: integrations, commerce modules, and APIs

If your ecommerce brand is built on a headless platform such as Shopify Hydrogen, Shopware, or Commercetools, then your customer experience platform will need to support this setup. If it doesn’t fully support it, you’ll struggle with creating a truly unique customer experience through custom programming. At Dotdigital, we support headless commerce integrations so that complex commerce businesses can customize shopper experiences with full flexibility. 

B2B expectations are rapidly evolving so we support those businesses too, integrating with tech partners like Adobe Commerce and your chosen CRM. Our Adobe Commerce modules mean that you can sync customer, order, product, and quote data to truly leverage prospect and catalog data. Whether you’re B2C or B2B, you can rest assured that we integrate with your tech stack so you’re getting the right data to scale your business.

Your platform should also boast a wide range of API capabilities so that your full tech stack feels right at home with your provider. Dotdigital API lets you do exactly that. Built with developers in mind, our open API and an extensive list of webhooks let you connect your data seamlessly so you can deliver real-time messages.

3. Powerful reporting at your fingertips

Reporting needs to be easy and accessible. No matter how fancy your reporting dashboards look with your marketing automation provider, it’ll be meaningless if your data can’t be reconciled in one place. Without the multi-store and brand capabilities mentioned above, you’ll probably just end up with a headache when tasked with cross-account reporting. With Dotdigital, your reporting will look and act the part. Our cross-account analytics works across multiple stores and our retail and commerce dashboards can be filtered by single or connected stores.

4. Support for your business anytime, anywhere

We all strive for perfection, and the easiest way to achieve that is with the help and support of real-life teams of experts. That’s especially the case if you have complex needs. A helping hand could be the difference between a faulty campaign and a record-breaking month of sales. Most marketing providers only operate 9-5 in their local time zones – and even then it can be impossible to reach a human being. If you’re a commerce business looking to scale, you’ll need to be up and running 24/7. We believe your provider’s support team should do the same. That’s why you can reach Dotdigital’s award-winning support teams anytime, anywhere.

We also have deliverability experts with over 100 years of collective experience, and specialized teams to help you onboard, train, and optimize creative campaigns. They’re even in your region, so it doesn’t matter where you are in the world.

5. The boundless tech that helps you scale

To confidently step into a bright future as a complex commerce business, your chosen platform should have tech that adapts to your needs for continued growth, which you can’t guarantee without a platform that has scalable architecture in place. At Dotdigital, we foster excellent relationships with our technology partners who have built dynamic app blocks in our platform to ensure the smoothest possible experience with your tech stack. What’s more, we’re always working with our partners to make sure we’re evolving at the pace that our customers need us to. Along with robust APIs and custom program extensions, there really are no limits to what you can do to delight your customers as you continue to grow. 

For complex commerce, the solution is simple with a CXDP

To truly prosper in complex commerce, you need to embrace it. That means choosing a robust CXDP like Dotdigital, to support your growth no matter what challenges are thrown your way. Get started with a provider that understands complex commerce to see how you could scale and reach new heights anywhere in the world.