Archive for September, 2008
September 16, 2008 by Jim Cain
As an analyst for a vendor, I get a question asked all the time that I am sure all vendors and practitioners work with when dealing with their respective HiPPOs (Highest Paid Persons Opinion - An acronym I use fondly).
“How can I prove your campaigns worked? Show me a nice clean ROI report in my analytics.”
A good question, and a valid one too. I wish that analytics technology had been built in such a way that it answered it easily and properly…
As a product that personalizes a web visit, Sitebrand has a profound impact on the conversion rate of a targeted traffic segment. But what if a given client sends out a huge email blast that touches the segment we are optimizing? What if they redo the SEO on a number of key pages? What if they do multivariate testing on a shopping cart page? Who gets the credit for increased conversions?
The reporting system in our Segment & Serve product is very strong, and has a series of control groups built in to ensure the highest level of data accuracy. However, our reports don’t take into account any other work that is being done by the customer outside our product. And this isn’t a Sitebrand issue: with few exceptions, every other vendor in online marketing software is in the same boat.
In their most recent Web Analytics Buyers Guide, Jupiter Research states that “A resounding 86 percent of analytics clients said attribution measurement capability would be the most beneficial feature for their respective businesses.”
Most of the larger paid analytics vendors have some way of dealing with the attribution issue (Google Analytics does not), but these are still evolving, more abacus – less calculator. So if I click on two different paid keywords for company XYZ.com over my first three visits, and then click on an internal marketing message en route to a purchase, the marketer might get some visibility into those three things in regards to my conversion. But which was the most important? Tough stuff.
I wanted to bring up the attribution issue for two reasons. The first reason is that it drives me nuts, and I felt like sharing. The second is because the concept of attribution speaks directly to one of the core themes of my blogs. Technology will not save a marketer with a weak plan. If you know your web numbers and have confidence in them, you can build a plan to effect significant and transparent change.
Cheers,
Jim
PS. For some nice insight into how attribution works, check out these great videos by Avinash Kaushik and John Marshall from earlier in the year.
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/03/standard-metrics-revisited-5-conversion-roi-attribution.html
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No Comments | Posted in Jim Cain, Web Analytics, online marketing
September 11, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
Sitebrand is teaming up with Marketo for what promises to be a very interesting webinar on Sept 25…
As marketers, we’re all driven by the needs to find leads and convert them. But it’s not always such a simple task….especially when you’re trying to engage with someone who hasn’t even told you their name. And that’s the way it is on websites! But with a little marketing automation and personalization, the game changes.
Get all the details and register for this free e-commerce webinar today!
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1 Comment | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Optimization, Personalization, Sitebrand, Web Analytics, eCommerce, webinars
September 10, 2008 by Alok Ahuja
Web personalization is all about creating a unique experience for online shoppers, being able to speak to a customer on a personal level based on what their looking for and where their coming from. There are several bloggers out there talking about how it’s important to geo target customers and recognize their location, and how it is important to help them when their lost with relevant messaging based on their depth of visit. All are important aspects of communication with your online shopper, but I believe that in most cases we are overlooking one essential customer trait….do they even speak english?? With a saturated market in North American, retailers are turning towards a more global market to help increase revenues making language barriers a prominent issue for online shoppers.
Even though most people compare online and in store prices, most web retailers overlook basic language barriers. Whether I’m shopping in Mexico City, Monaco, New York City, or Honk Kong each city will have their own personal unique welcome in their native tongue as you enter their store. The moment you reply with a North American ‘Hello’ they recognize that they have a foreign shopper on their hands. In most cases online business retailers are not able to appreciate or recognize this hurdle…..well by most I mean the ones who aren’t two steps ahead of the game because of Sitebrand.
Recently I have had the opportunity to employ this concept with one of my accounts to set up personalized welcome messages based on ‘language’. Within the Sitebrand Segment&Serve platform our customers have the ability to setup campaigns based on the language that has been set by that online shoppers web browser. This one particular account has traffic coming from all over the world and based on their analytical data, we were able to determine that foreign customers were a major portion of their overall traffic. Using Sitebrand’s technology they have been able to welcome each visitor based on their specific language from Dutch, Italian, Spanish and even Japanese with a personalized message in that shoppers native tongue. After running these campaigns for several months we have been able to re-visit the analytical data and enjoy the positive increase in conversion rates for language specific browsers.
E-retailers today try so hard to increase their conversion rates through discounts and promotional offers through emails and pop-ups, when sometimes all it really takes is a simple ‘Hello’.
Alok Ahuja
‘The Road Less Travelled’
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No Comments | Posted in Alok Ahuja, Customer Experience, Personalization, Segment&Serve, Sitebrand
September 9, 2008 by Carolyn Gardner
Shop.Org is just around the corner and Sitebrand is psyched to be part of it! We’re exhibiting in booth 335 so if you’re planning to attend, make sure you drop by and say hi. On top of great conversations, we’re also having a draw where you could win a fab Flip Video - we bought the last two in Ottawa because they’re that popular!
If you’re a customer, you definitely need to come visit us. Alok Ahuja - acct manager extraordinaire will be making a few cameos and he would love to meet you in person!
If you’re a reporter looking for a great story, connect with me (cgardner@sitebrand.com) and I’ll give you some great e-comm angles to write about including customers who I can introduce on the floor!
If you’re on the hunt for a vendor offering top-notch web personalization technology that’s backed by outstanding service and support, come visit Jamie O’Hare at Booth 335. He would love to hear more about your marketing vision to determine if and how Sitebrand should be part of the solution.
And last but not least, if you’re interested in meeting the founder and CEO of Sitebrand, drop by and ask for Justin Shimoon.
Hope to see you in Vegas!
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2 Comments | Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Customer Experience, Optimization, Personalization, eCommerce
September 4, 2008 by Darryl Praill
Launching a new website is no easy task especially when you’re a marketing company marketing to marketers! Yowza! But we’ve done it and we’re damn proud.
You see this isn’t just a pretty website. Sure it does a sexy job unveiling Segment&Serve – Sitebrand’s personalization platform that was previously known as the Retail Marketing Suite. But more importantly, this website is an example of modern marketing – one that we can hold up to the world as an example. I know I sound rather cocky saying this, and those who have done this will understand my perspective, but let me tell you why.
So just how are we personalizing the website you ask? Let’s count the ways…
If you do the math, we have 6 campaigns (not counting default), with 9 different options for Skytext (the text on the right hand side of the Billboard), with AM and PM visual backdrops (our control group is night time if you get that image during the day - control groups are presented about 10 percent of the time so that we can measure the actual impact of personalization by comparing results against the control group), which means we have 6 X 9 X 2 = 108 different potential campaigns available to run. And that’s just on the home page alone!
We will be adding more campaigns throughout the entire site as we evolve it over time. For example, our next campaign is to have the phone number listed on the bottom right of every page dictated by your GEO location; hence, a UK visitor would prominently see their toll free number first, instead of a North American toll free number.
What it comes down to is this: the modern marketer is a complex being. They must be technical – really technical. They need multiple solutions to manage the entire lead and customer engagement. They need vision to understand the prospect experience. And they need strategy to drive prospects to the online site where the funnel essentially begins. They need to own the funnel from start to almost finish instead of just handing off a lead to sales as soon as a pulse is detected. This is truly where personalization shines as it persuades visitors to engage further and commit faster to conversion points such as purchases or downloads. And marketers must be number crunchers capable of measuring their progress all along the progress, which only gets more complex when you add multiple marketing tools to the mix, by using pretty little dashboards.
The worst part is – most executives absolutely do not understand the breadth and scope of the talents required to do this job successfully. To all of my fellow marketers out there who live this life daily, and revel in the chaos as I do along with my team, allow me to congratulate you for practicing a noble, if somewhat frustrating, profession. You truly are a special breed.
If you are intrigued by this approach to Lead Engagement, I strongly suggest you check out the upcoming webinar we are doing with Marketo later this month. I think you’ll love it. It’s only 29 minutes long so you have no excuses not to attend.
Speaking of personalization and engaging visitors, you may find the breakdown below somewhat interesting. This is a high level overview of our 108 home page billboard messaging campaigns.
Default Content
-> “Looking to Personalize?…”
First time & Geo-location
US Visitors -> “…Sitebrand says hey!”
Canadian Visitors -> “…Sitebrand says hi!”
First Time & Geo-location & Referrer URL = blog.sitebrand.com
Canadian Visitors -> “Like our blog eh? Sitebrand thanks you…”
US Visitors -> “Like our blog huh? Sitebrand thanks you…”
Returning Visitor
-> “Back for more? Checkout the latest buzz!”
Returning Visitor & Referrer URL = blog.sitebrand.com
-> “Blogged out?…”
First Time Visitor & Search Engine = Google
-> “Google brought you but Sitebrand keeps you”
Returning Visitor & Search Engine = Google
-> “…Still looking?”
SkyText (this is the text to the right of our Billboard)
- To be successful, you need to reinvent your marketing practices. Use Segment+Serve.
- Analytics will only enable you to measure your failure rate - unless you Segment+Serve.
- If your shopping cart abandonment is high, it’s time to Segment+Serve.
- Is your conversion rate too low? It’s time to Segment+Serve.
- If your website visitors are not buying, it’s time to Segment+Serve.
- Can you test your marketing initiatives in real-time? Let Segment+Serve do it for you.
- Need more online transactions? Are your goals not being met? It’s time to Segment+Serve.
- Spending too much money on e-marketing with little ROI? It’s time for Segment+Serve.
- Bounce rates higher than you like? It’s time to Segment+Serve.
Competitor Billboard Content (this is the text if you are coming from a competitor of Sitebrands)
- First Time Competitor Visitors -> “Looking to personalize?”
- Repeat Competitor Visitors -> “Back for more?….”
Competitor Skytext Content
- Sitebrand is the industry leader in Personalization. Care to join our team?
- Checking in on Sitebrand? Join our team and learn firsthand why we’re the industry leader.
- Instead of visiting Sitebrand, join our team and be part of Sitebrand. Now hiring!
- The careers section is part of the Company navigation. Apply now. Join the industry thought leader.
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2 Comments | Posted in Darryl Praill
