Why SAP Emarsys is the natural next step for SAP Commerce customers

In today's digital marketplace, a basic transactional website isn't enough. SAP Commerce Cloud delivers a robust, scalable foundation that powers exceptional digital storefronts, intuitive product discovery, and frictionless purchasing experiences.

Yet modern customers expect more—they demand personalized, consistent experiences across every interaction with your brand. Many businesses struggle to deliver this seamless experience due to disconnected systems, data fragmentation, and disjointed customer engagement strategies.

Transform these challenges into opportunities by unifying SAP Commerce Cloud with SAP Emarsys. This powerful combination creates an integrated ecosystem where commerce and customer engagement work in perfect harmony, enabling you to deliver personalized, intelligent experiences at scale that drive loyalty and growth.

Operational efficiencies compared to other customer engagement platforms with SAP commerce.

Study of personalization and CX enhancements

Companies excelling at personalization generate 40% more revenue from those activities than average players. (Source: McKinsey)

• Around 70-80% of consumers state they are more likely to purchase from brands that provide personalized experiences. (Sources: Epsilon)
• Companies leading in CX outperform others by nearly 80% in revenue growth during periods of economic downturn. (Source: Qualtrics XM Institute)
• Customers are willing to pay a price premium of up to 13% (and as high as 18%) for luxury and indulgence services simply by receiving a great customer experience. (Source: PwC)

SAP Commerce Cloud and Emarsys for a customer-driven approach 

Here's why they are a strong combination for a customer-driven approach:

Unified customer data foundation

• Commerce Cloud: Captures crucial transactional data (purchase history, order details), browsing behavior and basic profile information on e-commerce website.
  
  
• Emarsys: Acts as a customer data platform (CDP) or seamlessly integrates with one. It ingests data from Commerce Cloud plus data from other touchpoints (email opens/clicks, SMS interactions, app usage, loyalty programs, service interactions, offline data).
  
  
• Result: This combination creates a richer, more comprehensive customer view that helps understand what customers bought, how they engage across channels, and what their preferences likely are. This unified view is the bedrock of any customer-driven strategy.

Deep personalization across touchpoints

• Commerce Cloud: Offers basic personalization capabilities (e.g., showing recently viewed items, some segment-based pricing/promotions).
  
  
• Emarsys: Excels at leveraging unified data for advanced personalization. It uses AI to predict behavior, recommend products, and segment audiences dynamically. This personalization isn't limited to one channel.
  
  
• Result: You can deliver consistent, personalized messages and offers via email, SMS, mobile push notifications, web overlays, and even paid advertising, all based on the customer's real-time behavior and historical data (including their Commerce Cloud activity). 

Product recommendations in email (via Emarsys) can reflect browsing history on the website (tracked by Commerce Cloud).

Seamless omnichannel journey orchestration

• SAP Commerce Cloud: Provides the core web and mobile storefront experiences.
  
  
•  SAP Emarsys: Orchestrates communication around the Commerce experience. It can trigger automated workflows based on actions (or inactions) within Commerce Cloud.
  
  
• Result: You can design seamless customer journeys such as:

AI-powered insights and actions

Both platforms leverage AI, but for complementary purposes.

Result: Together, SAP Emarsys and SAP Commerce Cloud enable intelligent and automated responses to who to target, what to offer and when, enabling more relevant and effective customer interactions at scale. It also allows businesses to efficiently deliver personalized experiences at scale.

Strategic integration: SAP Commerce-Emarsys use cases

Let's examine specialized use cases that showcase deep, native integration between SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Emarsys customer engagement.

These solutions use exclusive data connections that generic platforms can't match without complex customization.

Real-time, variant-aware back-in-stock & low stock alerts

Emarsys directly accesses SAP Commerce's real-time inventory levels at the specific product variant level (e.g., Size M, Red Color). When a customer views or carts an item that is out-of-stock (or low stock), Emarsys can trigger:

• Instant back-in-stock notification: As soon as that specific variant is replenished in Commerce, Emarsys sends an immediate notification (Email, SMS, Push).
  
  
• Proactive alerts based on stock levels: If a viewed/carted item (specific variant) hits a low stock threshold in Commerce, Emarsys can send a personalized message creating urgency ("Only 3 left in your size!").

Hyper-personalized campaigns leveraging B2B commerce structures

Emarsys ingests and understands the complex B2B organizational structures, user roles (buyer, approver), specific catalogs, and contract pricing configured within SAP Commerce Cloud, allowing: 

Role-based campaign targeting: Sending different campaigns or offers to buyers and approvers within the same company account.

Contract-specific pricing in emails: Displaying the exact negotiated price for a B2B customer directly within Emarsys emails.

Catalog aware recommendations: Recommending products only from the specific catalog assigned to that B2B unit or user.

Account health triggers: Automatically notify Account Managers through Emarsys when there are significant changes in the purchasing behavior of specific B2B customers, as tracked in the Commerce system.

Predictive replenishment combining commerce & potentially ERP data

Emarsys tracks how often customers buy certain consumable products in SAP Commerce. It can also use data from SAP ERP, like typical usage or shipping schedules, to predict when a customer will need to reorder. Then, it sends a personalized reminder before they run out, possibly with a direct link to reorder the same item.

Omnichannel promotion & pricing consistency

Emarsys can fetch the exact, real-time price or promotion for each customer—based on the rules set in SAP Commerce—when creating messages like emails, web content, or push notifications. When the customer clicks through, the offer they see in SAP Commerce matches exactly what was offered in promotions.

AI-powered styling/attribute affinity recommendations

Emarsys AI leverages deep behavioral insights—spanning views, cart activity, and purchases—enriched by SAP Commerce’s detailed product attributes such as style, material, color family, and brand category. Rather than relying solely on basic co-purchase patterns, it constructs a sophisticated "affinity profile" that captures each customer's unique preferences. This enables highly personalized recommendations by aligning new and existing products to individual tastes.

As the decision to implement SAP Emarsys with SAP Commerce, it is important to consider the following factors to ensure a smooth transition:

Define business goals and marketing strategy

• Clearly outline use cases, objectives and key activation for channels.
  
  
• Align SAP Emarsys functionalities with marketing needs for maximum value.

Choosing the right implementation partner

• Select an experienced SAP partner with expertise in both SAP commerce and SAP Emarsys customer experience modernization techniques.

• Assess vendors based on industry experience, DXP capabilities and support enablement.

Proof of concepts across domains

• Selecting a partner with proven digital transformation expertise.
  
  
• POCs on various domains with use cases eg. Fashion, automotive, technology, hospitality, fitness, food & beverages, media & entertainment.

Plan licensing & seamless integration

• Map use cases based on business size and requirement.
  
  
• Ensure smooth integration of SAP Emarsys with other essential systems and activation across channels.

Data mapping and validation 

• Provide data mapping of external system utilizing RDS connection capabilities.
  
  
•  Import external content within the system for activation.

User training and continuous improvement recommendations

• Train marketing teams and analytics professional for seamless adoption.
  
  
• Launch in phases, incorporate feedback , and improve process for operation activities.

Closing the Loop: Unified commerce and engagement

By combining these strengths, businesses deliver personalized, consistent experiences throughout the customer lifecycle—moving beyond generic interactions to a truly customer-driven approach. This integration solves a critical challenge: marketing engagement (clicks, opens) is typically disconnected from sales conversions.

The SAP Commerce-Emarsys connection tracks whether campaigns directly lead to purchases, giving marketers clear visibility into ROI and enabling optimization based on actual revenue, not just engagement metrics. This data-driven feedback loop continuously improves customer experiences based on real commerce outcomes.

Want to see what a unified, AI-powered SAP Commerce and Emarsys stack can do for your revenue and efficiency? Let's connect and map your transformation.