Many brands have found great success expanding into marketplaces like Amazon, Target, Nordstrom and Walmart. These channels can be a source of new buyers and an added convenience for existing customers. But as marketplace sales grow as a percentage of total business, they can quietly distort your core analytics — and the strategies built on them. Here’s what you need to consider:

1. Understand the “Marketplace Data Distortion Effect”

Marketplace (MP) buyers aren’t your typical DTC (direct-to-consumer) customers. Due to product limitations and sold-in-Marketplace contractual agreements, they often:

• Have lower average order values (AOVs)

• Show less brand loyalty and lower repeat purchase rates

• Come with limited or incomplete customer data (Amazon, for example, masks key contact information)

• May be unable to be remarketed to

This incomplete data can skew retention and acquisition metrics. It may appear that you’re acquiring more “new” customers than you actually are, or that repeat rates are declining. In reality, it’s often a measurement issue, not a loyalty problem. That is why it is important to create separate dashboard metric views for core vs. MP.

2. Special Segmentation for Marketplace Customers

Create clear cohorts in your database to identify marketplace customers for reporting and analysis. We fondly coined the term, “OREO”, for fields that CCC creates for each marketplace:

O = Original purchase in MP (Y/N)

R = Recent or Last purchase in MP (Y/N)

E = Ever purchased in MP (Y/N)

O = Only purchased via that marketplace

Segmentation facilitates the process of tracking behavioral trends separately so you can maintain a clear view of MP vs. Core customer performance. This helps you avoid raising red (or green) flags which are actually a result of growing proportions of MP customers vs. a major shift in customer behavior. For example, 2x buyer rates may look like they are decreasing but it might just be a growing number of MP customers who are less likely to repeat. In addition, you may see larger numbers of new buyers who are actually existing buyers who can’t be combined with their prior history due to missing contact information.

Segmentation also enables better marketing campaign performance evaluation as well as remarketing. By separating marketplace customers, you can apply the right contact strategy and measure performance accurately versus your true core. This is particularly critical for direct mail matchbacks.

Additionally, segmentation helps marketing and finance teams make smarter budget decisions, forecast more accurately, and allocate resources based on true performance.

3. Protect Your Core Buyer

When running direct mail or digital acquisition campaigns, exclude marketplace-only customers from your profiled “target audience.” They behave differently and can obscure the performance of the cohorts that truly drive growth.

This is especially important when co-ops or data providers are building prospect models — make sure marketplace customers are excluded from your profile population to avoid skewed acquisition results.

Marketplaces are powerful and should be tested as part of a robust marketing strategy. But with this power comes a great responsibility to anticipate how it is impacting your direct-to-consumer business and evaluation. Don’t be led down a false path. Segment, measure, and act with discipline to keep your core strategy on track.