In today's ultracompetitive retail environment, particularly online where your competition is one click away, consumers have shown that brand loyalty is quickly becoming a thing of the past. They're shopping primarily on price; having a seamless and hassle-free shopping experience is a given. With this dynamic in place, retailers are being forced to work harder to keep the customers they have. Retention tactics such as loyalty programs and personalization work, but they can be difficult to manage and execute properly. Enter marketing automation, which could be the answer to your customer retention struggles.

In a phone interview with Retail Online Integration last week, Pini Yakuel, co-founder and CEO of Optimove, a customer retention automation platform, discusses the top ways online retailers are using marketing automation, the biggest data-related mistakes retailers are making, and how to use data-driven marketing to get customers to buy from your brand over and over again.