Pasta maker Barilla has acquired a decent grasp on tough-to-analyze Amazon data using a system that tracks its product sales at the stock-keeping unit level. Skullcandy, the marketer of headphones and other audio equipment, has gained a sense of its market share on Walmart’s site. And brands are now able to track what their rivals are doing on Instagram through a customizable mobile app.
That all might have seemed like a minor miracle not so long ago. Where traditional retail data providers such as IRI and Nielsen had long made it relatively simple for marketers to see how they stacked up against the competition on store shelves, e-commerce had complicated the picture tremendously. Between a lack of standardized measurement systems among online sales partners and an unwillingness among many to share data, online retail threatened a new Dark Ages for marketing executives.
But marketers are now finding a host of intermediaries that have arisen to shine light on their e-commerce performance, and that of their rivals.
Source:: AdAge – Digital