It’s a Sunday afternoon and you’ve finally had time to browse for that new home appliance you’ve  been meaning to buy for some time. After doing some research, you find an option, only to be hit with a deluge of pop-up ads, two data collection forms and a maze of pages and questions to get to check out. Testing your patience, you close the page as quickly as you open it: “Fine, I won’t buy it  yet, I might need it, but I just don’t feel good about parting with the cash.” 

It’s a familiar experience – and a warning sign that businesses must improve their ecommerce experiences or risk losing customers. 

Access to information and options is endless in a digital world. The recent NAB Consumer Sentiment Survey revealed that Australian consumers have become more concerned with their spending, with four in ten adjusting their budget. With the cost of living crisis, customer loyalty is wavering, meaning brands must work harder to stand out and keep their customers. It’s clear that the days of impulse buying are ending, and any purchases made must be worth the investment. 

Responding to that by assuming customers will click around and jump through hoops to spend their  money with you is a slack, detached marketing approach that needs to show more consumer  understanding. It also needs to show more understanding of the market, especially given the likes of Amazon have a ‘click to buy now’ button. But it’s not only retail that will be taking the hit of abandoned carts – gyms, ticketed events, and even insurers are sacrificing sales due to cheap digital experiences. 

Our current economic climate could tempt businesses to slash their marketing and digital budgets,  but it’s more important than ever for CMOs to invest in digital, ensuring that it reflects consumer  needs like transparency, ease and speed, and personalisation. 

Companies should focus on enhancing digital experiences and making things as engaging, supportive and easy as possible for time-poor consumers, who are often stressed about parting with their money. Improving the UX of customer journeys can decrease bounce rates by about a quarter and deliver a minimum 50 percent increase in conversion rates.  

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Some brands and companies are getting it right and creating  great digital experiences for their customers. 

The F1 Australian Grand Prix (F1AUSGP) has nailed it when it comes to user friendliness. What sets the F1AUSGP apart? Interaction with its website is easy to navigate, the ticket booking process is a breeze, and it has engaging and easy-to-find tips and tricks as well as frequently asked questions.

F1AUSGP also has an interactive ticket booking feature, where the customer can see how much of the track they can view for the price of their ticket. This level of user friendliness is an excellent example of how a large-scale event can create an easy to navigate ticket booking  process.

Australia’s Four Pillars Gin company is another example of a successful customer journey due to its  personalisation and customisation. It seamlessly continues the experience from digital to physical,  creating a VIP experience for its customers. Online purchases connect to its venues for table  bookings and gin experiences, and Four Pillars offers customers specific cocktails and flavours to match their taste.

Both companies are creating a digital experience that puts the customer first. Whether through  user-friendly interfaces, personalised communications, or customisation options, these businesses  have found ways to make the online shopping experience enjoyable and stress free. And in today’s  market, that’s crucial in building brand loyalty and retaining customers. 

The evolving market and turbulence of consumer sentiment will continue, and the digital world will  continue. If CMOs keep up with the pace of change and adapt quickly to new consumer needs in an  economy in flux, they will be able to stand out to new customers and avoid losing loyal ones.

Without a considered and personal digital experience, consumers leave faster than you can say ‘proceed to checkout’.

James Noble is Chief Experience Officer APAC at WONGDOODY, a Human Experience agency with local roots powered by a global network and digital consulting firm Infosys. The company harnesses insights and creativity to reimagine digital brand and employee experiences, making them more human and better integrated with the physical world. James has been acknowledged as a creative leader, representing Australia for Digital Craft at Cannes Lions, as well as being a UX advisor to Adobe for the XD platform, and a long-standing Webby Awards judge.

As we head into the second half of the financial year, many brands will be looking to lock down their Q3 and Q4 marketing budgets. Smart brands will be seeking to connect with consumers on platforms with highly-engaged, commercially-driven audiences. Platforms that provide inspiring and positive environments. This way brands can offer a way to reach a more valuable customer. Pinterest advertising can add value for both brand and consumer.

The kind of customers who are looking for ideas but are undecided.

Pinterest is the place for Australian advertisers who are keen to reach audiences with intention to do or even buy but before they know exactly what they want. The visual inspiration platform is an intentionally positive place. It’s a place for brands of all sizes to be discovered. It allows brands to showcase products to a ready-made audience in a way that is truly meaningful. It’s this focus on the inspirational value-add that makes Pinterest different. It gives a significant advantage to other online platforms for advertising dollars.

But why should brands invest advertising spend in Pinterest?

People come to Pinterest for inspiration and to shop the ideas they discover

People come to Pinterest to plan, to be inspired, and most importantly, to spend. Unlike other platforms, nine in 10 users are coming to Pinterest with commercial intent. Users are looking for the ideal nail polish or dining set. They are ready to shop for it when they find it. It’s this notion of “inspiration to realisation” that makes Pinterest the ideal place for brands of all sizes to advertise. 

Pinners say Pinterest is where they go to find an idea, product or service they can trust. Users are open to trying something new – and that’s where brands step in. On Pinterest, businesses become a source of ideas and provide solutions when people are still considering buying decision. Brands are there to provide visual, interesting campaigns that take users from “discovery” to “do”. Plus, with 97 percent of searches unbranded, people don’t usually type in a brand name when searching for products. For example: “boho wedding dress” or “holiday packing inspiration”. 

Pinterest is levelling the playing field for smaller businesses, providing a space for emerging brands to reach new audiences too.

Pinterest is a positive, inspiring place to advertise 

With so much negative content on the internet, now more than ever, people are looking for places that make them inspired. Pinterest delivers inspiring, inclusive content, designed to uplift and empower you to try new things. Pinterest is purposely building a more inspiring, positive place online with industry-leading policy and product features.

Pinterest’s proactive stance on banning weight loss and political advertising, providing mental health resources, and implementing a health misinformation policy to block anti-vaccine content, has cemented it as a platform committed to positivity. Additionally, Pinterest has worked hard to champion diversity and inclusivity. The platform ensures content showcases a range of backgrounds and cultures and has introduced skin tone and hair pattern search tools for people globally.

Pinterest is a personalised, taste-driven shopping destination

Pinterest is inherently a shopping destination. For advertisers, Pinterest provides a platform for a full-funnel, personalised shopping experience, connecting brands to customers in a meaningful, dynamic way. The number of Pinners engaging with shopping surfaces grew by more than 20 percent globally. This was both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year in Q4 2021 (Source: Pinterest internal data, December 2021). More Pinners than ever heading to the platform for taste-driven ideas. Using Pinterest and its range of shopping tools, brands can upload product catalogues to create Product Pins and promote them as shopping ads. Boards and Idea ads allow brands to create immersive, dynamic content to enable shopping to feel like you’re browsing in a store made for you. 

Pinterest delivers shopping results

Insights have shown Aussie Pinners generally spend double the amount on Pinterest than on other platforms. Eight in 10 weekly Pinners admitted to making a purchase based on content they saw from brands on Pinterest. Seventy-seven percent said they had discovered a new brand via Pinterest searches (Source: Pinterest internal data, October 2021). 

Pinterest searches tend to be broad. In fact, 70 percent of searches on Pinterest are 1-3 word queries. These can include “summer outfits”, “henna designs hand”, “mothers day cards”, “dinner ideas”. As such, there is an opportunity to get in front of new audiences who are ready to shop what they discover. Pinterest also found that its users are currently spending and buying more. More often, on the platform, making it an essential place for brands looking to harness sales this financial year.

Ads on Pinterest are useful and welcomed by Pinners

Unlike other platforms, advertising and ideas from brands are unobtrusive. Recent data shows video ads on Pinterest have three times higher viewability and two times higher completion rate than other platforms. 

Why? Because they fit in. 

Pinterest ads stand out because they don’t stand out. Ads are additive to the Pinterest user experience. Pinners actually want to see advertising because it provides inspiration – it’s just as relevant as organic content. For brands, Pinterest provides a space to make campaigns for a captive audience, who are more likely to not only see an ad, but engage with it. It’s also an opportunity to make truly visual, actionable content – the most successful campaigns on Pinterest are the ones that are visually appealing and inspiring.

Nearly 8 million Australians use Pinterest monthly

According to Nielsen, 7.8 million Aussies use Pinterest monthly. This represents nearly a third of the population. Additionally, more than three million ideas are saved on Pinterest every day, nationwide. This audience represents a large-scale group of highly-motivated consumers, hungry for ideas, and ready to shop the brands they discover. Pinners are planners too. This means brands can also tap into moments, trends and interests. Allowing creation of ads  specifically for the millions of people coming to Pinterest for in-the-moment ideas.

Pinterest advertising is visual and inspiring

Over the past year, Pinterest has released several new features and ad formats that make it even easier for businesses to reach their target audience. Brands can create Collection Slideshows by selecting a product group from the catalogue. Pinterest’s technology compiles the Pins into a video-like hero, which is then featured in a collections ad. When the ad is served, the tagged items are dynamically selected and ordered, based on relevance to the Pinner. Ideas ads with paid partnership offer businesses the opportunity to collaborate with a creator to produce interactive, branded content. Working with a creator not only enables brands to scale their collaborative content, drive awareness and increase engagement, but to create truly innovative meaningful content.

With proven engagement results, sales and audience growth, plus an ever-increasing Australian user base, brands are providing the solution and spark on Pinterest that your audience needs to decide what to do and try next.