Rakuten Marketing Focuses on the Omni Experience

Allison Howen
by Allison Howen 25 Sep, 2014

Rakuten Marketing is putting a focus on omni-channel marketing, as the division of Rakuten Inc. is introducing its newly unified and restructured business and branded website.

The new initiative, dubbed the omni experience, maintains Rakuten Marketing's core services including the Rakuten Affiliate Network (formerly LinkShare), Rakuten Attribution (formerly DC Storm), Rakuten Display (formerly MediForge) and Rakuten Search. The omni experience aims to go beyond the operational view of omni-channel marketing by viewing the experience through the eyes of the consumer and displaying the customer experience across all channels so that it is integrated, consistent and can be easily tracked. 

"The consumer experience has been largely overlooked. Consumers don't perceive your brand in channels; they perceive the overall experience with your brand. Advertisers need to market to consumers during each phase of their sales journey thinking about the best way to influence consumers at each touch point," said Tony Zito, president, Rakuten Marketing. "This requires streamlined insights across channels, devices, social networks, and offline performance that enable marketers to make better decisions and drive better performance. Our mission is to inspire better marketing by empowering our clients with uncommon insights and a deeper understanding of the consumer path to purchase, so they can exceed their goals and provide a better consumer experience."

It is important to note that cornerstone to the omni experience is Cadence, the cross-channel reporting platform launched in January, as well as attribution provided by the company's recent acquisition of DC Storm. Through the platform, Cadence provides marketers with a consistent view into real-time performance across marketing communication channels. Moreover, Rakuten Attribution provides deep attribution analytics into specific consumer behaviors and data to drive better performance. With the omni experience, Rakuten Marketing aims to consolidate all channel offerings into a single platform and dashboard for full transparency into the customer funnel, to improve productivity and bridge the gap between processes and profitability.