Bengaluru Mixer: Using Cross Channel Engagement and Attribution Data to Improve Customer Retention

Introduction

Customer retention is a concern for companies that are growing. In this Bengaluru mixer, Anuj Rathi – VP of Product Management at Swiggy, Sudhanshu Shekhar- VP of Growth and Marketing at Meesho, Gaurav Bhawnani- Head of retention and Revenue at Licious, Nithin Chandra – Head of Product Management at Nestaway, Ishan Bose – Chief Marketing Officer at KreditBee and Ashwin SL – Head of Marketing at MoEngage Inc discuss the utility of cross channel engagement and attribution data to improve customer retention.

Key takeaways from an attribution perspective

Marketing requires a substantial budget allocation. When you plan to look into attribution, marketing plays a key role. Companies need to have an attribution strategy in place. As you move ahead with implementing attribution and marketing strategies, you need to understand your company’s business model.

The company should also identify the goal of attribution. You might want people to download your app or transact more on your app; it should be made clear while setting your attribution goals. Based on the attribution goals, you can define your funnel and then proceed with the operations. Maintaining consistency in attribution is essential for marketers. You cannot keep changing your attribution elements now and then.

What metrics should be measured daily?

A lot of companies measure the number of transactions that are done on a given day. The number, as well as the GMV of these transactions, help you understand the performance of your business. A company should also track activity across the levels of the marketing funnel.

For Licious, they monitor the channels that are driving business for them. They tested out different channels before finalising the main channel. Measuring the LTV (Long term value) of the customer is extremely important. As a business, you should eliminate the model that is not working out well for you. Online companies should focus on easing out customers’ offline workload and give them an alternative to reduce their burden.  

The secret sauce for an excellent retention rate

Understanding the users and the channels from where they are coming from is extremely important. Being a product first company is quite essential if you want to make an impact on the customers. It would be best if you came up with a differentiator that can help your business grow.

User experience has become an inseparable part of online businesses today. If you have your focus there, your customers will most likely return to your platform for repeat purchases. Along with user experience, it is essential to strengthening the business’ core competency. It is also necessary to look at the data quite objectively.

How do you measure customer retention?

For companies like Nestaway, customer retention can be defined by the time taken to sell the offerings. For a pain point driven market, the consumer journey plays a critical role. Re-engaging with your customers is the key to retain customers and make them loyal to your brand.

The metric would change depending on the frequency of purchase. In the case of high-ticket products or services, the frequency reduces to about once a year. However, for a platform like Swiggy, the frequency of transactions is beyond comparison. Hyper-personalising the user experience is going to give last-mile benefits to the business. The time a consumer spends on your app is also an adequate measure of retention. Not only that, but also the number of days the app stays on the users’ phones help businesses understand retention.

Geography also plays a significant role in retaining customers. So, if the business is enormous, achieving personalisation can be extremely difficult. However, based on the consumers’ consumption behaviour, you can divide them into small geographies and personalise accordingly. A business should conduct a what-if analysis of every decision that it plans on taking.

For Meesho, customer acquisition is relatively easy. Once customers start earning money, people keep using the app. Activation is the most significant leverage for an app like Meesho. They try and understand the gaps the customers experience to make the app better.

How do teams evolve with growth?

Team structures play a pivotal role while your business is growing. In the case of Swiggy, a food delivering online business, the team structure evolved in three phases:

• Getting things done and setting up the base for the business. The early members of the company hustled through this
• A 3-way marketplace needed more players. Because of the complexity, more people were onboarded.
• The phase of convenience where expansion is the goal

Companies need hustlers initially as they are keen on experimenting. A sense of ownership should come from within as to where the company should be driven.