In recent years, brands have been racing to stay relevant and top-of mind—all while navigating mounting pressure to improve profitability. With inflation, tariffs and rising advertising costs reshaping the landscape—margins are tightening across the board.
The upside? E-commerce growth hasn’t slowed down—it’s ramped up. According to Forrester, global retail e-commerce sales will reach $6.8 trillion by 2028.
As we head into 2026, a year marked by rapid change and new opportunities, several key trends are emerging that will define how brands set themselves apart as leaders. E-commerce managers with a website strategy built to strengthen retention, manage rising customer acquisition costs and consistently meet customer expectations, will be met with deeper customer loyalty and stronger returns.
That said, you already have a powerful performance driver fully within reach: your website. Coupled with a leading website personalization platform, you can unlock key insights that will lay the foundation for growth and increased loyalty while amplifying your brand voice.
For e-commerce brands seeking to flourish in 2026, you have to unlock the potential you already have. Which means, instead of reacting to market conditions or trying to anticipate what trends lie ahead, focus on personalized web experiences that drive better outcomes instead.
When your website flows and adapts to your customers in real time, you can speak directly to their interests—and revenue follows. Strategic tactics like tailored reminders, timely recommendations and targeted reengagement campaigns renew interest, reduce friction and prevent churn.
If you're looking to boost revenue in the year ahead, here are few ways to start:
These tactics work because they ensure every customer interaction on your website delivers what customers need, drive repeat purchases and builds loyalty.
Traffic comes from everywhere—organic search, social media, email campaigns and paid channels—but with a platform that drives personalized experiences, you don’t have to depend on increasing ad spend in the years ahead. A powerful website personalization technology puts you in control.
It unlocks value from the visitors you already. With a solid data foundation—and a website personalization platform to activate it—you can maximize existing traffic and boost growth without having to allocate additional resources on advertising spend.
Customized website experiences create relevance, making every interaction meaningful and allowing you to:
Essentially, when you maximize the resources you already have—owned channels, website personalization and first-party data—you significantly improve customer lifetime value by offering people what matters to them on every page, no matter what drove them to visit your site.
Let’s address the primary objective—the customer.
When you create website experiences that prioritize shoppers and meet their expectations, you stand out in ways that are distinct from other brands. In fact, analysts note that customer-obsessed organizations report 41% faster revenue growth, 49% faster profit growth and 51% better customer retention than those at non-customer-obsessed organizations.
Shannon Aronson, senior vice president of digital solutions consulting, explained in a recent 2026 marketing outlook webinar hosted by Epsilon, "To be competitive in this really high-cost environment, it's making sure that the consumer experience is right on target…that we're showing value and that we're also meeting the values that our consumers expect out of you as a brand."
Investing in a proven technology will help you lift AOV and drive engagement by curating experiences informed by what your customers need—allowing you to reduce the friction points blocking their path to purchase—and ultimately, lead the way to increased conversions.
The year ahead promises major opportunities for e-commerce managers to reengage lapsed customers and acquire-new-customers. The key lies in leveraging personalization tools that signal customer intent, adapt experiences instantaneously and drive impact across all touchpoints.
A flexible, scalable solution, like Epsilon Accelerate, unlocks deep behavioral insights that reveal how customers shop and what they value in real time. It offers a full-funnel website engagement strategy you can leverage for better decision-making about what communications your visitors see and how their path to purchase is orchestrated.
A unified platform built for growth, provides actionable data, analytics and an easy-to-use interface that makes launching personalized campaigns effortless. With advanced technology, you can deliver relevant, meaningful experiences to everyone that visits your website—converting visitors more often.
Eighty-two percent of consumers recently surveyed stated they make a point of looking for sales, deals or discounts in response to rising prices. As consumer behaviors shift and competition intensifies, having a solid data foundation will be critical.
When data is paired with a proven technology, it gets cleansed and unified, offering a clear view of your customers that you can act. Instead of executing campaigns from assumptions, it reveals emerging patterns, like how customers navigate your website, what motivates purchasing decisions and where on-page messages slow them down or create friction.
"Where Epsilon comes into play is actually giving marketers and giving brands the ability to create that connection much earlier in the customer journey to—from that very first moment—identify who somebody is...such that that first experience hits that expectation that customers have for personalization," said David Salvay, account director, speaking during the same webinar.
In the evolving landscape, the key will be understanding that data and websites work hand in hand—first-party data informs the intended experience, and your website delivers it. This is what makes your first-party data a valuable growth driver.
What role does data actually play in personalizing experiences, and how does that translate into growth for businesses? It helps to see the process as a continuous flywheel, where data, personalization and insights reinforce each other in an ongoing loop—helping brands anticipate customer needs and boost revenue.
E-commerce brands that leverage data and insights for smarter decision-making will reduce the cost of customer acquisitions and increase customer lifetime value by designing journeys people want to come back to time and again.
When done right, this cycle builds the momentum needed to fuel on-site customer experiences that resonate—increasing loyalty, retention and positioning your brand to grow faster and more sustainably.
Momentum is only effective if it’s applied the right way, and even the best revenue-driving tactics will fall short if operations aren’t optimized.
Establishing operational efficiency will allow you to create strategies that deliver consistent results. By ensuring every click, every scroll and every interaction is optimized at key moments on your website, you can shape experiences that flow smoothly.
Leveraging the right platform, with advanced testing capabilities built-in, allows you to answer a question, meet a specific need or pique an interest—generating a response in real-time. Effective testing is critical to maximizing conversions, enhancing your site’s performance and aligning your marketing efforts to your brands’ overall business goals.
The table below highlights how website personalization tactics can make these principles actionable, improve the customer journey and create measurable business outcomes.
When executed thoughtfully, website customization provides clear messaging that moves customers forward to the next best action—turning insights into a better overall customer experience.
As we look ahead to 2026, the convergence of these trends means e-commerce brands have one clear directive: make personalization the core of your brand's website experiences. As consumer expectations rise—and having unified first-party data becomes essential—positioning your brand's website to identify returning visitors in real-time, tailoring content, offers and experiences will enable you to seamlessly deliver value.
Rising above the noise of a hyper-connected digital landscape with personalized website experiences is where brands can drive revenue at the lowest cost—especially as tariffs, inflation and rising acquisition continue to squeeze margins. Epsilon Accelerate can help.
More than a platform, it’s a solution that connects data with action—turning anonymous visitors into known customers, known customers into brand advocates and brand advocates into high-value repeat purchases. Our industry leading technology will allow you to evolve with your website visitors, meet their expectations and deliver experiences that feel genuine, building growth that lasts—in any economy.
For a deeper, expert-led look at e-commerce trends and what's ahead, watch our on-demand 2026 marketing outlook webinar.
