In the eyes of French cosmetics brand Lancome a robust digital strategy is achieved only by mapping out customer interactions but Lancome’s mapping travels well beyond the shopping cart.

Instead, Lancome has mapped out seven years of the consumer lifecycle. The aim? “It is really all about connecting the dots,” Alessio Rossi, vice president of interactive and e-business marketing for L’Oreal’s Lancome, said.

“Success is truly connecting all the digital touch points across the entire lifecycle and we took seven years of lifecycle.

“So we said, ‘ok if in seven years what happens?’ How does she enter into the brand, how does she leave the brand what does she do?

“If you are able to map that then you can really plan for the right actions, at the right time, in the right channel.”

Rossi, who was a keynote at the eCommerce Conference & Expo yesterday, has more than ten years experience in luxury online retail and marketing having worked with Gucci and Ducati as well.

Lancome’s focus is firmly set on using content to create engagement that both acquires and retains consumers.

The luxury cosmetics brand launched its new mobile and tablet commerce sites in December 2012. In 2013 the label’s acquisition was up 23% on the previous year and retention had increased by 27%.

Rossi says the aim of Lancome’s content is to position the brand as an authority in skincare and cosmetics, but also to forge an emotional connection between the consumer and its products. He pointed to a review in which a customer said a Lancome perfume made her feel beautiful, not smell good.

“It is about enriching that emotion into the consumer,” he said, and giving them something “which visually triggers an emotion”.

Rossi prefaced his presentation with the caveat that “not everything that we do has been immediately successful”.

“What is successful is this constant search for perfection and being always focused on innovation.”