Internet Loyalty Cards

Where are they?

I often look for parallels in ecommerce with bricks-n-mortar stores and I've been wondering for a while, where are the internet loyalty cards? cards that would allow you to get benefits by spending at combinations of retailers?

Of course you have the credit cards, the amex's with their airmiles, but I'm more thinking about the likes of Nectar.

I'm pretty sure around the time of the first boom (2000) there were a few options being touted but since then, its never happened. Is this becuase they were never any use to businesses? I dont believe that. Is it because the technology is lacking? I'm not sure. I suppose one thing with a loyalty card is that it cant be replicated or shared as easily as it could on the net, but I expect this could be overcome with various cookies for the majority of customers.

I think the broader segmentation and multi-vendor offers could be of as much use to businesses online as offline, but I just dont think most companies are thinking that way as they dont see online users as "customers" but as "visitors that need to be converted".

Dont know really, maybe I'll come back to this thought later.

New / Returning Visitors metric

Its a good metric / segmentation.

Its not a great metric / segmentation.

Its got everything to do with the webchannel and less to do with your customers (if you're multi-channel)

Is a new visitor

1. someone who's found you via Search but never heard of you before and never been on your site.
2. someone who's used your brand term to find you but has never been on this particular site of yours.
3. someone whose purchase in your bricks-and-mortar shops religiously for the past ten years but who's only just found out how to use the internet.
4. someone who clears their cookies because they are wanted by the FBI.
   

Lets not forget, the technology has its limits - dont be guided by it and be prepared to ask the right questions. For the record I've always be willing to use qualitative data (surveys) on a sample of new customers to find out in particular what proportions I have in my technically "new" segment.

Homepage Conversion and Classic Consulting Recommendations

How often have been in a presentation when a web analytics “guru” has shown you your own homepage and pitched the following scenario:

“You have two banners on your homepage. Banner 1 converts (sells) much more of product A than Banner 2 converts for Product B. However, you get more profit per sale from Product B. If you swap the two banners around and conversion remains the same as the original banner (and why wouldn’t it??) we predict you could make $$$!”


This is what I describe as a “show them the money” pitch. On the surface, it works. Moving things around could produce more money and whilst doing it, you would be seen to be taking action. The guru has done their job and provided “insight” off the back of a couple of conversion metrics.

This could actually be true, moving that banner might be the answer to all your ills, but let’s take a look at a number of things you should consider before making that switch permanent.

1. Test it. Testing is so often the best approach. This will allow you to mitigate the risks of a complete swap whilst gaining all the insight
2. Consider how popular the 2 products are in your other channels. Is product B really likely to sell as well as product A just because it’s in a different slot?
3. Consider any seasonal reasons why product B should not be given top slot.
4. If using Site Catalyst, consider using an ASI slot to understand how frequently those products are purchased online when not influenced by these banners on the homepage. If B beats A hands down, your guru may be onto something!
5. Consider your marketing plan – if most of your impressions are for marketing related to product A, moving that down the page could present substantial risk.
6. Consider the cost of online marketing in the “profit” calculations. Don’t just think CPA (Cost Per Acquisition), think profit or margin per online sale as often these online costs aren’t directly factored in.

So what am I saying? You should get bogged down in a ton of analysis in order to go with what sounded like a perfectly good idea?
No, what I’m saying is don’t let the “guru’s” off the hook by swallowing their first suggestion that may be more based on general opinion than real statistics about your specific website and business.
Feel free to suggest more things in the comment section to consider in this basic scenario!

My First Assignment, Suggesting Action from Insight

I was fresh out of university in 1999 from a Cognitive Science degree and had my first assignment measuring web traffic for an ISP (Internet Service Provider).
I’d got about 3 days to come up with something interesting that could be used by the business to promote web analytics.

I came up with interesting stats about who did what, where and how they got to the site, but found what I thought would be the killer stat.

The ISP had a 4 page registration process and I’d found that about 50% of the time a customer reloaded the 2 stage of the process, not only that, some reloaded 3 or even 4 times with many with many people then dropping out at this stage. I looked at this stage closely, there wasn’t much to it – it was all about selecting your logon details and some minor personal info. I went through the process myself a few times and then suddenly I had my first work related eureka moment. It was very likely that these people are having the page reload once the usernames they originally select are thrown out because someone else has already picked them.

I write up my findings and present this to my business contact indicating that the registration Key Performance Indicator (KPI) could be improved, suggesting they provide customers with recommendations of alternative names they may like once the first try fails. (common now, but not something sites did in 1999!).

My business contact looked at it, considered it and took it away for conversation with his colleagues. A week later I spoke to him asking whether they would be making the changes to the process based on my recommendations.

He responded to me, the young green graduate suggesting that yes, the change would come but not for a number of weeks. When I asked him why it would take so long he said that thanks to my discovery his small team would be spending their time convincing advertisers who place their adverts on these pages to spend more money, because they could guarantee that for 50% of the people who see this page, they would see their advert more than once in a visit – the “fix” would come later...
Analysts often find it hard to suggest actions from their KPI’s and analysis. This isn’t due to those figures not being actionable, in many cases I’ve seen that analysts make good suggestions – just not ones that respond to the needs of the business they serve, and if they aren’t great, people dont listen.

If you’re a web analyst struggling with providing actions from your KPIs and insight, get to know more about the business requirements and strategies of departments that your analytics serves – from there your suggestions will become more relevant and more regularly adopted.

The cycle of analytics [DRAFT]

The Stages of Analytics

1) Guys, we need to report X - give me a trended chart that allows me to compare it over different periods

2) Guys, that was good but what I really need is to understand how to influence the trend, tell me more about it by breaking the trend over serveral relevant dimensions

3) Guys, that still isnt telling me why things are happening, what are you going to do about it? Oh build a multidemensional database? sounds good, here's some cash.

4) Guys, did I not say I wanted these results asap I want to understand 'why'? Where are you with this database thing? Oh, you found some more data and you want to create a "warehouse"?

5) Guys, I really want to start seeing something from my own data, just tell how to increase X. What do you mean too many dimensions? You what? You want to spend money on a fancy front end to display the data looking for insight? jeez, just get me something please!!

6) Ok, I like the sound of this statistical stuff, it sounds very clever. What does it do again? Prevent you from having to manually look at all the different dimensions in the fancy interface I bought you and what? finally shows me how to improve my chart?

7) Right, so this stats thing, its modelling, scoring and I "think" improving my trend, but I'm not sure as it all seems a bit complex and I dont hear anything from you any more. Can't it just tell me something simple about my business so I can do some proper actions myself?

8) What do you mean no one else understands it either?

9) Guys, you've really pissed me off. I've got loads of kit, loads of data but no answers, all I really need is to understand how to influence the trend. I tell you what, I'm going to get an "Industry Expert" in to do some brainstorming and build some decent segment. They might even do some surveying of my customer base instead. That seems simpler...

Best bloggers I've seen recently

I really like the Ad Contrarian and the Grumpy Brit.

Two very strong opinions that make for good reading. There's a general cynicism that I latch onto but on the whole, they talk a lot of sense - also, they dont get bogged down in stupid arguments about "analytics" more about what customers are trying to do and how analytics can be used to back them up!

Check them out!

Ad Contrarian and the Grumpy Brit!

and my favourite video (came via the Ad Contrarian).

Adobe + Omniture

Yeah, I've been quiet for a while.

I then thought better of posting a knee jerk reaction to the purchase by adobe. Although I normally have a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time I actually impressed myself with my restraint and hopefully kept my job because of it.

Needless to say I do have an opinion on the purchase, I think its a good thing but perhaps not for all of the blue sky thinking that seem to bounce around the net whilst people tried to make sense of two companies with relatively different USPs and business models coming together. (btw. adam greco's was my favourite)

I'll I'm going to say is that when one company buys another, its the buyer that sets the agenda. I think there will be a time of reflection whereby Omniture will need to prove its potential growth, expansion and revenue to its new owners before it can set a new future.

I look forward to becoming an Adobe employee!