How to Use Reviews to Collect Zero-Party Data During BF/CM

In 2020, over 100 million people bought their Black Friday products online—no surprises really, considering that much of the world was staying at home. The influx of new shoppers during the pandemic and the holiday season last year has created a huge opportunity for merchants to attract and keep new shoppers this year. 

Getting information on these customers is crucial if you want to serve personalized and enjoyable experiences. And, the more customers you get, the more review requests you can send out, resulting in more zero-party data to leverage in the future.

Why Collect Zero-Party Data?

Zero-party data is optional information handed over by shoppers to improve their experience. It could be them showing their interest in a specific product line or extra information about their age or location. 

And, when you consider that 76% of consumers will happily hand over data in exchange for personalization, it’s a no-brainer to use the resources you have to collect zero-party data. 

The changes to Apple & Google are making it harder to collect third-party data, thus making zero-party data even more important to collect this BF/CM. Shoppers willingly hand over crucial information about themselves and their interests when they submit a review. Tap into this information to:

• Personalize marketing campaigns: target specific audience segments with ads and offers they’ll be interested in 
• Upsell relevant products: increase AOV and customer lifetime value by offering products consumers will be interested in
• Send out product recommendation emails: keep customers coming back by showcasing products they have expressed interest in
• Create unique customer experiences: let shoppers create their own journey based on their unique interests and needs

Increasing Sales and Review Requests During BF/CM

It’s not difficult to work out that the more sales you get on BF/CM, the more review requests you can send out. There are plenty of ways you can raise brand awareness and get more eyeballs on your products at this time of year. 

You can try: 

• Running social media campaigns or Google Shopping campaigns to attract new customers
• Optimizing your website for sales, including populating product pages with reviews and creating a slick and easy checkout
• Creating coupons and discounts to give new customers 
• Reward existing customers with an incentive to come back and buy from you 

Once you’ve established some sales-generating techniques and the sales start rolling in, you can use Okendo to send out review requests to happy customers. Add an extra incentive by offering a 10%-off coupon for people who leave a review and 20% off for people who leave a photo along with their review.

Collecting Zero-Party Data From Reviews

Next comes the task of extracting key information from the reviews themselves. Think about exploring things like: 

• Attributes: find out tangible information about customers, such as their clothing size, age, and location
• Photos and videos: adding photos or videos to a review demonstrates added commitment, which means these customers might be more loyal than those who just leave a text review
• Product preferences: dig into the products a customer has bought and their past purchasing behaviors to see if there are any patterns 

Leveraging Zero-Party Data Post-BF/CM

Once the chaos of BF/CM is over, you can start to use the zero-party data you’ve collected to improve your campaigns and increase customer retention. 

Personalized Marketing

Segment customers based on their product preferences and past purchases. You can also use information from review attributes and the level of review commitment to determine customer loyalty levels and serve social ads and email marketing campaigns based on those levels. 

Product Recommendation Emails

Beef up your product recommendation emails by adding the latest set of reviews you’ve collected during BF/CM. More reviews mean more social proof and a chance to convince on-the-fence shoppers to continue to buy from you post-BF/CM.

UGC Campaigns

Use the reviews you’ve collected to level-up your campaigns and build trust with new shoppers. Dog food brand WAG used information gathered from review attributes to send out personalized emails based on the customer’s unique interests. They populated these emails with reviews and customer photos for an extra layer of social proof. 

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Using Zero-Party Data Moving Forward

BF/CM is one of the biggest shopping holidays of the year, and it presents a huge opportunity for merchants to attract and retain a wave of new customers. Leverage the influx of sales by sending out review requests and using the collected zero-party data to inform your future campaigns.

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