Marketing Innovation in the U.S. E-Commerce Sector: Strategies for Success in the Evolving Digital Environment

Abstract

The blistering development of digital technologies has essentially transformed the way companies in the e-commerce industry in the United States shape, execute and assess marketing strategies. This paper focuses on the implication of marketing innovation on customer interaction, intention to purchase, and the overall functioning of the firm in a dynamic and ever more competitive online market. The research design adopted was a quantitative and cross-sectional study design and data were collected with a structured, validated questionnaire on 250 marketing professionals and managers working in U.S.-based e-commerce companies. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, chi-square tests and correlation-regression procedures were used to test the relationships between the study constructs. The results indicate that marketing innovation, including personalization, targeting based on artificial-intelligence, omnichannel, and data-driven decision-making, has statistically significant and positive effects on customer engagement and firm performance. All constructs had indices of reliability that were above the acceptable level and this proved that the measurement instrument had good internal consistency. The research also has a theoretical contribution in that it expands on the innovation-diffusion and dynamic-capability viewpoints to the e-commerce marketing environment, and a practical contribution in that it provides practitioners with viable strategies that could be used to enhance competitive advantage by adopting innovative digital marketing behaviors. Discussed also are limitations and directions to future research.