Gartner defines digital commerce as the technology that enables customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service or assisted experience. The platform provides necessary information for customers to make their buying decisions and uses rules and data to present fully priced orders for payment. The commerce product must support interoperability with customer data, product content (e.g., price, availability) and order functionality and data via APIs. Digital commerce is commonly delivered as single or multitenant SaaS, or as single-tenant hosted or managed hosted (PaaS) applications. It could be offered for on-premises implementations in some circumstances. Digital commerce enables customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service or assisted experience, providing the necessary information for customers to make buying decisions.
Gartner defines multichannel marketing hubs (MMHs) as software applications that orchestrate personalized communications to individuals in common marketing channels. MMHs optimize the timing, format and content of interactions through the analysis of customer data, audience segments and offers. MMHs are foundational for multichannel marketing, customer journey orchestration and next best action programs.
Gartner defines personalization engines as technology that enables marketing professionals to identify, set up, conduct and measure the optimum experience for an individual based on knowledge about them, their intent and context. Personalization engines apply context about individual users and their circumstances to select, tailor and deliver messaging such as content, offers and other interactions through various digital channels in support of three use cases: Marketing: Delivering the right message to the right audience and in the right context (i.e., tone, timing and channel) to maximize marketing and advertising performance. It involves behavioral inference, segmentation, testing, targeting and optimization of marketing campaign content, messaging and engagements across marketing and communication channels. Digital commerce: Tailoring content, offers, recommendations and experiences across digital sales channels. It includes personalized site search and navigation and customized content across homepages, category landing pages and product detail pages, with the goal of increasing conversion and delivering online revenue growth. Service and support: Using customer insight, journey context and user feedback (i.e., surveys and stated intent) to customize online and offline experiences across business functions to reduce customer effort or increase customer satisfaction and advocacy.