eCommerce Analytics

Do larger eCommerce retailers have more loyal customers than small retailers? Our data suggests maybe.

We dug through web traffic metrics for 520 retailers to see how many times the average visitor returned every month. Retailers with over 2 million unique monthly visitors have 67% more sessions per visitor every month than those with less traffic volume.

One possible interpretation is straightforward: bigger retailer = better brand = more loyalty. Another interpretation is that visitors return to bigger retailers more often simply because big merchants have a large selection of goods where customers can meet a variety of their shopping needs.

These theories are not mutually exclusive, of course. But are there other explanations that we’re missing?

I’ve been rocking HootSuite now for my Twitter posts for some time so that I can get the “enterprise” bells and whistles that it adds (e.g., a still-needs-work user admin piece). But I do see HootSuite as a useful first step in the evolution of Twitter for retailers. Once Twitter can be better tracked, more marketers will come. Today, I want to specifically talk about 3 Twitter analytics that retailers will need to get excited about Twitter (apart, of course, from more total users on the system and some belief that this is more than just a fad).

Read Just Give Me These 3 Twitter Analytics and I’ll Go Away »

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been watching the fallout from two important conferences taking place on the West Coast (where I would much rather be right now given the latest round of snow in Boston.)  The first annual Predicitive Analytics World ’09 was staged in San Francisco on Feb 18th and 19th and eTail West 2009 took place last week and drew in a host of e-Marketers from around the country. One common theme that I seem to be hearing from the blogs and articles I’ve read from both: make sure you’re using your customer data effectively and, most importantly, keep it simple.
Read Simplicity is Key for Marketing Analytics »

I am a bit discouraged today. I am surprised that we have not had more takers on our free customer scorecard application. Granted we have not unleashed the Social Media channel on the tool but I figured that after a week of availability we would have 10% more customers. The customers that have used it are overwhelmingly surprised of the results but I still wonder if the tool’s purpose is clear.

One of the leading, and might I say insightful, retail marketing professionals, Kelly Mooney, recently posted a blog titled: “Myths about online Retail Marketing”. In the blog she does a great job of providing an analysis of several marketing myths and there are a couple of takeaways that directly support how we perceive our tools to add value.

Read How Predictive Analytics Optimizes Frugal Environments »

I have to admit that it’s been a while since I’ve written on this Istobe blog, but for good reason. My wife and I welcomed a little girl into the world (Vivian June) on December 28th and have been battling sleep deprivation and dirty diapers ever since (and yes, she’s definitely worth it).  The bad news is that I just haven’t had much time to read all of the news feeds and blog posts that I would have liked to over the course of the last few weeks. So, as I looked blurry eyed through my blog posts and news items this morning, I noticed a few articles that point out some important marketing trends for retailers in 2009:

Read Marketing Trends For Retailers in 2009 »

I’ve somehow ended up with a copy of Men’s Health in my house as a result of my holiday travels. It’s been a few years since I last picked up a copy and now having checked out the most recent issue I can confidently say that Men’s Health stinks at statistics.

Read Which X-Axis is the Right One? »

Today one of our twitter peers asked us how she could find people of influence for a given region. As I researched the question and solution I found that there is actually a name for what is probably the end-game for this exercise:

Influencer marketing- is a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers.

As I will demonstrate it is possible, using some freely available analytics tools, to narrow the list of influencers. However, as our own Social Network sage Matt Thomson pointed out, the analytics tools fall short in becoming truly useful and further click-based research is really needed to establish credible, influencers who may become evangelists. Read Find your ideal customer evangelists »

(Read the entire Customer Analytics: A Guide to Getting Started series)

In our last installement we tested offers to likely and unlikely buyers to gauge reaction. Let’s now use the results of this test to determine if we are being too timid or aggressive with our probability to buy cutoff percentage.

Read Customer Analytics: A Guide to Getting Started (part 7) »

With today’s news peppered with articles about the possible demise of Circuit City, the sinking Dow, and the continued decline in consumer spending, many companies are concerned about how their customers are going to respond to the tough times ahead. Several online retailers are already going down the discount path to try and get customers to spend their money early– well before their credit dries up. I’m sure many of you have already been hit up like I have with numerous discounts from shops that don’t typically give discounts – I’ve been surprised by the recent emails I’ve received from the likes of JCrew, a company that never seems to discount their merchandise.

Read Finding Customers Who Will Weather This Storm: Customer Segmentation in a Down Economy »

The other day I was flipping through the channels and landed on an episode of CSI.  I forget which flavor, it looked sunny and beachy so it was probably not the one in New York City.   Anyway, in this episode a murder took place and the only evidence seemed to be a passerby’s recollection of a license plate and hair color of the driver.  Not much to start with but as we all know that is enough for the CSI team.  

Read Marketing CSI »