M&S data strategy will deliver insight

It is encouraging to see that Marks & Spencer is making some headway in the development of its independent ecommerce platform to improve its customer insight across multiple channels (MW 25 August).

M&S is setting the right example by building and using a multichannel data warehouse to compile and analyse data on individual customers across all channels, thus transforming the ways in which it can manage and understand individual interactions.

Used effectively, customer data hubs can help retailers enhance their understanding of how their customers behave across all relevant channels, whether that be high street stores, etail sites, call centres or catalogues.

This enhanced understanding ultimately leads to increased opportunities and sales. For instance, using a customer data hub to improve email personalisation helped one leading retailer increase its click-to-buy ratio by over 200%, equating to a ten-fold increase in incremental sales per email sent.

Katharine Hulls
Vice-president marketing
Celebrus