Building better business with data and AI

Seizing an ad opportunity

Imagine you’re a small business owner using a huge e-commerce platform to sell your products. The platform provides access to a much wider audience than you could reach on your own—but how do you break through the noise to reach your customers? An e-commerce giant wanted to help its small and medium-sized business (SMB) sellers answer this question and reach a wider audience. Many of the merchants on the platform were unfamiliar with the processes and benefits of targeted advertising—so the company’s existing self-service portal wasn’t making the requisite impact.

Together, Accenture and the company created the technical infrastructure, tools and a team necessary to bring its advertising business to new heights. Blending personalized support and advanced technology solutions, including generative AI (gen AI), brought impressive results. Vendors have seen exponential growth in return on ad spends and an increase in overall revenues.

Expanding team and capabilities

At the beginning of their engagement, most of the e-commerce company’s sellers were spending little to nothing on advertising. So, the company set out to fix the issue by upgrading their self-service ad portal. With help from Accenture, they made the portal more user-friendly and educated sellers about leveraging advertising to grow their business. Designed for the e-commerce sector, the new solution taps into the power of data, AI and gen AI to provide real-time, customizable strategies for advertising optimization and seller interactions. Targeted advertising suggestions are regularly sent to sellers to help maximize returns on ad spending. Sellers also have access to a suite of tools to boost confidence in advertising investments, while AI and gen AI initiatives offer post-call summaries and real-time campaign insights.

Tech meets touch

We also deployed One CRM and OneGlass solutions to help the ad team seamlessly manage conversations, activities and follow-ups with the accounts. By strategically automating emails, campaign recommendations and WhatsApp messaging, the ad team could easily send personalized communications to sellers. But the solution isn't all tech. It’s the human touch that makes the real difference: Regular interactions with agents build trust, and multi-channel connectivity keeps everyone engaged. With Accenture’s help, they built out and trained a dedicated team, including campaign strategists, media managers, data analysts and agents for daily support. The team was equipped with sales acceleration playbooks and predictive modeling resources so they could provide top quality service to merchants.

Rapid growth and improved experience

The new advertising initiative has proven popular with sellers and profitable for the company.

The partnership with Accenture has resulted in more than 30% year-over-year growth in ad spending, and a significant number of zero-spenders have been converted into active advertisers. These outcomes demonstrate the value AI, analytics and automation can bring to e-commerce. Sellers are reaching their end customers with ease and insight, and the company has found a solid and steady source of revenue that will continue to grow. Most importantly, the program has empowered thousands of small and medium businesses to get maximum value, helping ensure more significant growth and prosperity.

Learn more about how Accenture is empowering platforms to support small to medium businesses and reinventing ad sales and marketing to boost revenues.