We’re here to help you through New Year’s resolution time—today we’re going to look at three tools and trends that we see on the rise for e-commerce in 2018. If growth is on your to-do list for 2018, here are some options to help you get there.

Smart Content

What is smart content? It’s web content that is personalized to the visitor. This can be a personalization token, such as a homepage greeting that welcomes the visitor by name, or can come in the form of highlighted products based on the visitor’s browsing history.

Why is smart content important? Personalized content performs better. For example, HubSpot’s study of 93,000 calls to action revealed that personalized messages performed 42% better than non-personalized.

The goal is to make your communications feel customer-centric, rather than static and company-centric. Automation and segmentation tools make it more feasible to provide this individualized experience, and consumers are beginning to migrate toward companies providing it.

Where do you implement smart content? Everywhere. Think personalization from the top to the bottom of email. Think marketing emails based on purchase history. Even think of different main website content based on different audience groups, such as first time vs. repeat visitors.

Explainer Videos

Think about these stats on video marketing: 96% of B2B organization use some form of video in marketing and 73% report positive impact on ROI; videos on a company website make appearing on the first page of Google search results 50% more likely; and audiences are 10 times more likely to engage with video on social media. Clearly if you haven’t been using video, that needs to change in 2018.

Explainer videos in particular help create a sense of authenticity, which Millennial buyers note is central to their brand choices. A useful how-to video goes beyond a sales pitch by connecting the viewer with valuable information and with your company as a valuable resource.

Added benefits: your Google ranking is increased by content relevant to your visitors and by longer page-views, which are encouraged by video. Plus an easily-sharable video of general interest offers a new avenue for increasing your inbound links.

Streamlined Management with Comprehensive Cloud SaaS

Streamlined management and implementation of e-commerce solutions can reach new levels in 2018 with Oracle Commerce Cloud. If you’re looking to get up-to-date on e-merchandising tools, customer data management, CRM integration, or a host of other e-commerce musts, Oracle Commerce Cloud offers ease of implementation and easily updatable tools.

For example, its drag-and-drop B2C and B2B storefront tools are comprehensive, letting you manage personalized pricing, faceted search, social integrations, and promotions with out of box features. Storefronts are mobile responsive automatically. Everything is customizable and the API-first architecture simplifies integrations.

Staying competitive in 2018 will also mean taking advantage of current technology to improve data capture and management and admin integration. E-commerce firms need to create a customer experience with the personalization and consistency that buyers are coming to expect as standard. A comprehensive SaaS can be the key to not falling behind.