Nordstrom is a department store that is known for their impeccable customer service.  In addition to their dedication to customer service in their physical stores, they have also extended to various offshoots of the original department store.  These include their discount store, Nordstrom Rack, and related NordstromRack.com and Hautelook, their online flash sale webpage that requires membership.  This online store offers sales on products for a limited timeframe.  Trunk Club is another Nordstrom related platform, where the items are picked out and shipped to the customer’s door by a personal stylist via a subscription service. 

The Nordstrom Instagram account is set with a separate platform with Like2Buy, where users can click on an item and instantly be linked to purchase the item.  With this technology, it makes the purchase process even easier for customers as they admire an item on Instagram.  It also helps the brand’s SEO with multiple links placed in their social media.

With all these various forms of Nordstrom, the brand is able to build a more robust profile of their customers.  They are able to collect data via the web but also combine it with point of sale systems, social networks and various other shopping tools such as the texting.  They did try an experiment of tracking actual customer movements in their store via the WiFi signals, but that got a generally negative response with people feeling that this tracking was too intrusive. 

One unique use for the data that is collected is a project where program manager for product reviews and ratings at Nordstrom Inc. is leading a team that is analyzing the reviews of products, customer questions, surveys, etc. to look for commonality.  The team is, “trying to tie all of this together to get a better understanding of what our customers are saying -- what are the themes and trends in the areas that are working great and in the areas that aren't working great” (Laskowski, 2014) to benefit the customer.   This proactive research is looking to help customers before they even realize that they need help. 

Sales Associates are also benefitting from the data collection with the ability to build the customer profiles.  A Sales Associate can understand a customer based on their behavior shown by the data from web analytics. 

One issue that many e-commerce pages struggle with is truly tracking the customer as an individual.  For example if a husband and wife share a home computer, they could potentially be tracked as one consumer when in reality they are two completely different consumers.  Having the ability to track these two as separate entities would be helpful to an e-commerce page, specifically one like Nordstrom that sells products for males and females.  Additionally, the knowledge of if a purchase or search is for the customer or for someone else would be helpful.  A consumer may be searching for something as a onetime purchase, but may have other interests.  This onetime purchase and search still counts in a profile for them, but in reality does not reflect their interests.  If web analytics systems could have a way of understanding personal purchases versus purchases for others, this would be helpful. 

References:

5 SEO Tips for 2015. (2015). Retrieved November 21, 2016, from https://www.bigfin.com/blog/5-seo-tips-2015/

Beath, C. M., Ross, J. W. & Sebastian, I. (2015). Why Nordstrom's Digital Strategy Works (and Yours Probably Doesn't). Retrieved November 21, 2016, from https://hbr.org/2015/01/why-nordstroms-digital-strategy-works-and-yours-probably-doesnt

Laskowski, N. (2014). Nordstrom digs into 5-star customer reviews and finds a shipping problem. Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/feature/Nordstrom-digs-into-5-star-customer-reviews-and-finds-a-shipping-problem

Van Rijmenam, M. (2013). How Fashion Retailer Nordstrom Drives Innovation With Big Data Experiments. Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://www.smartdatacollective.com/bigdatastartups/140826/how-fashion-retailer-nordstrom-drives-innovation-big-data-experiments

Wolfson, R. (2013). Retailers Using Big Data: The Secret Behind Amazon and Nordstrom’s success. Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://www.bigdatanews.com/profiles/blogs/retailers-using-big-data-the-secret-behind-amazon-and-nordstrom-s

You have all the information from Google Analytics.  Demographics on your customers’ locations, ages and event interests.  Now what do you do with that information?   You can rewrite content, rework some of the pages, and even choose how you market and what social media platforms.  Now you can even customize your email marketing campaigns for your audience.  MarketTraq is an email marketing system that integrates Google Analytics for customization of email messaging.  Ben Lavely, from Endai, parent company of MarketTraq, has a brief description below:

In his description, Ben explains that while Google Analytics is a great tool for webpage consumer behavior tracking, MarketTraq is able to track customer behavior via email.  Tracking the registration conversation rate for consumers that receive the newsletter after signing up versus those that did not is an example of the information MarketTraq is able to provide according to Ben. 

MarketTraq providers marketers with the ability to customize email copy, subject and images based on Google Analytics.  M-blocks are the “intelligent rules-based dynamic content technologies” (MarketTraq) that allow the system to create the specific content on a per viewer basis.  The marketer is able to create one email, but use the M-blocks to personalize each email based on the user’s specific segments.  This makes the emails relevant to the reader and in theory, increases the chances that the reader may open and react accordingly to the email.  Personalization is key in successful email marketing programs and MarketTraq uses real time API Google Analytics integration to create the pertinent messages.  MarketTraq also tracks all emails and sales with Google Analytics to create a customer history.  Marketers can then use this history in future campaigns for that consumer. 

The system also has its own funnel system, Email Engagement Score, which helps marketers quantify which leads should have higher sales efforts.  This score is measured by consumer reactions to emails sent and subscriber behavior. 

MarketTraq also offers some additional services such as newsletter and survey management.  The system can also manage the mailing list for a company.  With the option for assistance from email marketing experts and support offered 24/7, MarketTraq seeks to provide additional aides for system optimization.   Going beyond the simple customization of emails, MarketTraq collects the information in order to build a database history. MarketTraq’s SitePreserver allows the marketer to email the consumer if the cart is abandoned and remind them that they have potential purchases waiting.  Clients of MarketTraq include WeTv, citi, Ruth Chris Steakhouse and Mitchell’s Fish Market. 

MarketTraq would be helpful for a company that is using Google Analytics and is looking for an email management system.  This systems helps the user translate the findings in Google Analytics into measurable actions while also building a client database based on behavior.  Rather than just seeing the information in the dashboard and perhaps making a few website changes, marketers are able to concentrate that information for an email marketing push.  With the influx of email messaging that consumers receive on a daily basis, it is important for a company’s emails to be meaningful and impactful.  With MarketTraq, companies are able to personalize their email messaging, benefitting both consumer and marketer. 

References:

MarketTraq. Retrieved November 14, 2016, from http://www.markettraq.com/

MarketTraq Email. Retrieved November 14, 2016, from https://www.google.com/analytics/partners/company/6567874860679168/gadp/5693417237512192/app/5766466041282560/listing/5754903989321728

MarketTraq·Email for Google Analytics. (2009). Retrieved November 14, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T3ZHzeJqQc

Review of MarketTraq Email. Retrieved November 14, 2016, from http://www.capterra.com/email-marketing-software/spotlight/97808/MarketTraq Email/Endai Worldwide

Is Clicky the way to track?

Clicky is a popular alternative to Google Analytics that has many similar features, but also some unique reporting that sets it apart.  Clicky prides itself on real time analytics on every report that is run.  Similar to Google Analytics, Clicky can provide reporting on various parts of analytics with times and actions for users.  Segmentation of users is available, along with segmentation by multiple variables.  This is helpful for marketers that are looking for common similarities among the brand’s website visitors.  Goals and conversations along with campaign tracking are also available in Click, similar to Google Analytics.  This feature helps with the tracking of campaigns and measurement of webpage successes.  Marketers can also look at multi day tracking in both systems, which helps spot trends in the data over a specific period of time.  One of the other similarities is that both have customizable dashboards for easy marketer use.  These dashboards can be pre-populated to give the important statistics and data at first glance.  While both are free initially, Clicky does have a charge for a webpage over 3,000 views or for any additional webpage.  Additionally, there is a cost for additional features and higher webpage views with Clicky, including options for monthly and yearly plans.  Clicky provides a breakdown of the comparison with Google Analytics on their webpage, a snapshot of which is seen below:

In addition to the features listed above, Clicky also has some additional assets that a marketer could find helpful and insightful.  Clicky’s tracking allows for custom data to be connected to visitors along with historical tracking.  This really creates a detailed profile of the visitor for the marketer.  Another feature of Clicky that marketers may like is that it blocks spam, to ensure that statistics and measurements are accurate with real users.  Additionally, Clicky features heatmaps tracking user sessions for those that complete a goal.  These heatmaps help Clicky users understand their visitor’s path through the webpage for individual visitors as well as a per page view. 

Click also notifies the client when the site is offline for any reason.  This reduces downtime of pages and lost data because of a possible malfunction with the page.  Proactive efforts like this can lead to more accurate data and no loss of revenue.  Clicky can notify the user of a downed page in various manners, with client’s choosing the quickest mode of communication.  In addition to downtime alerts, Clicky informs,”users of specific events, based on triggers, so you never miss out on important information. Triggers include new visitors, goals, campaigns, searches, referrers, IP tags and custom data” (Angeles, 2014), allowing the users to be notified of the events they deem important. 

 Clicky is also very easy to view in mobile form for analytics on the go.  Again, this is mode allows the client to pick and choose the way that they are seeing their analytics and allows them freedom to view their information on different devices.  There are four different mobile apps that can be used for viewing Clicky on the move.  Additionally, Clicky has a few plug-ins for popular blogging platform such as Wordpress.  Many of Clicky’s features such as this are geared towards client convenience.  Clicky seems to be more user focused that Google Analytics which is information focused. 

As with every comparable analytics tool, Clicky has some drawbacks.  The main issue with Clicky is that many of the premium features are additional costs.  Spy, where a marketer can in real time watch people that are on their webpage, is one of these unique features that is an additional cost.  Heatmaps are another innovative feature that are only included in the paid account types.  Custom account aside, the highest cost for Clicky is $159.99 or $19.99 per month for the Pro Platinum account that includes all the features.  Most marketers could find easy justification for this price based on their revenue gained from the analytics insights Clicky provides. 

One feature mentioned is posed as a negative for Google Analytics.  Google Analytics leaves a footprint that can be viewed, “anybody can do a View Page Source from their browser and find out what your GA UA code if you have Google analytics installed” (McFadden 2015).  It would be interesting to test this to see if this is verified.  It would be up for debate if this could be a negative as analytics tracking is generally accepted or understood.  With Google Analytics as the main analytics tracking system, there are many tutorials and guides.  Clicky isn’t as popular so the support material is more limited for this system. 

Overall it is important to research and understand a web analytics system before purchasing.  It may be worth testing one and then testing the other, weighing the pros and cons of each.  This is the best way to understand if the web analytics tool is right for that webpage. 

References:

Angeles, S. (2014). 3 Google Analytics Alternatives (and Why You Should Use Them). Retrieved November 06, 2016, from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6090-google-analytics-alternatives.html

Clicky. Retrieved November 06, 2016, from https://clicky.com/

Connell, A. (2015). 8 Google Analytics Alternatives. Retrieved November 06, 2016, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/9-google-analytics-alternatives/92071/

McFadden, K. (2015). Why I use Clicky Instead of Google Analytics. Retrieved November 06, 2016, from http://smartbusinesstrends.com/clicky-review/

Social Media Overload

New social media platforms are constantly popping up and fighting to be the next Facebook or Twitter.  As the original platforms developed, brands began to recognize their use for the business world in advertising and marketing.  As these social media platforms evolve and businesses recognize their uses, it is important for business to determine their ROI versus their effort.  Businesses need to look at what platforms are successful tools for accomplishing their marketing goals.

Social media platforms are a great tool for connecting and communicating with a brands customer.  In a report from Boston Retail Partners, it was found that retailers could use social media in various ways to improve customer relations.  Most importantly, retailers are collecting customer feedback via social media as, “59% of retailers utilize social media comments as a means of measuring customer satisfaction” and “60% of retailers capture customer feedback and insights from social media and online comments” (Parry, 2016).  In order to connect with different customers, different platforms should be used.  This array of platforms will give the business an array of feedback.  Additionally, multiple social media platforms gives customers multiple ways to connect with a company.

Multi-platform marketing can be successful for a business if a few a key guidelines are followed as outlined by Kristin Hoyde (2015):

Consistency – Instead of posting when you have time, post something at the same times every day so your audience knows when to expect it.

Quality content – Don’t just post content to post it. Have something meaningful to say that your viewers will want to read.

Engagement – Interact with your audience through social media, whether it’s by answering questions they post or by asking questions yourself.

Images – Don’t just post links and text. People love pictures and infographics. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Businesses that have used infographics have grown in traffic 12% more than those that don’t.  

Businesses should also consider their business type and what social media platforms portrays their business accurately.  For example, a salon may want to maintain a Facebook page for business to detail their important details such as hours, location, etc.  Facebook is a great anchor page for a small business that may not maintain a separate business webpage.  Facebook is also a great visual medium.  A salon would want to show off their final product in the way of photos for potential customers to see their body of work.  Businesses that want a simple landing page for their business with the basic information such as hours and location can use Facebook for this simple information in leiu of a sophisticated webpage.  Facebook is also appropriate for businesses that want to display their products in order to entice customers. 

Facebook has recently upgraded their Page tools by adding booking and ordering for social recommendations; and local event discovery.  As seen below, a salon is able to use the booking feature to allow customers to book appointments via Facebook:

 (image from Sterling, 2016)

These call to action buttons allow customers to further interact with the business and make the Facebook business page a one stop shop for a customer.  Facebook Messenger acts as the confirmation communication, starting a one on one conversation between business and customer.  With these improvements, businesses can be benefit from a, “more useful and utilitarian for local discovery and commerce” Facebook platform (Sterling, 2016). 

Instagram would be another recommended social media platform for a business looking to display its work visually.  Users could be encouraged to share their successes with the product via this platform by tagging the location as well as business specific hashtags.  Instagram’s reach is important as it is a mobile based platform.  As users move toward more mobile access, Instagram’s relevance for a business increases.  Luckily businesses have the opportunity to integrate the two platforms for easy use. 

As previously mentioned, it is important to plan the implementation and use of a business’s social media platforms.  This will ensure that the correct platforms are being used and accomplishing the appropriate goals.   The following elements help a business plot out their social media platform and goals (King, 2014): 

The Channel (For example, Facebook.) Continuing with the example, we could look at Instagram for a local salon.

The Persona (Who are you specifically targeting? Please choose one.)  The salon may be looking to recruit younger clientele.   

The Goal (Is it a sales goal, cost-savings goal or are you trying to create a better customer experience?)   With younger clientele, the salon hopes to increase sales.

Primary Content Type (Textual, video, infographics?)  Photos will be the primary content.

Structure (What does a general post look like?) A post could contain a photo of the finished hairstyle with location tagged as well as applicable hashtags.

Tone (Playful, sarcastic?) A playful tone seems appropriate for a younger clientele.

Channel Integration (How will this channel work with your other channels for maximum impact?)  The salon could integrate its Facebook and Instagram accounts. 

Desired Action (What user behavior do you want to achieve?)  The salon would like interaction with new clientele and hope for bookings by these new followers. 

Editorial Plan (Every channel needs its own editorial calendar.) A calendar for the salon would follow. 

By plotting out the goals, use and schedule of social media platforms, it will ensure that a business is efficiently using the platforms and accomplishing set goals. 

Social media platforms can act as the frontline for a business.  They can introduce customers to their product, act as an engagement tool and continue to cultivate a relationship.  “Connection is the first step. The first 50%. Conversation is the second step. The second 50% “(Brown, 2013), making the engagement with the customer just as important as the initial contact.  Social media platforms are important for a business in terms of advertising as well as social interaction.  A company should look at their business and goals to understand what social media platforms work best for their brand.  Finally, a business needs to be interactive with their social media platforms, simply posting information will not accomplish a brand’s goals. 

References:

Brown, J. (2013). Connection vs. Conversation. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/connection-vs-conversation

Hovde, K. (2015). Why Every Business Should be Using Multiple Social Media Accounts. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://www.business.com/social-media-marketing/why-every-business-should-be-using-multiple-social-media-accounts/

King, C. (2014). 20 Social Media Marketing Tips From the Pros : Social Media Examiner. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-tips-pros/

Parry, T. (2016). 5 Key Areas to Use Social Media to Improve the Customer Journey. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://multichannelmerchant.com/marketing/5-key-areas-to-use-social-media-to-improve-the-customer-journey-23082016/

Sterling, G. (2016). Facebook adds new tools for local discovery and commerce. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://marketingland.com/facebook-adds-new-tools-local-discovery-commerce-pages-195336

Underrated – Event metric

Event is yet another misunderstood metric that if comprehended correctly, can provide insightful information on the visitor and visitor behavior.  The success of the using the event metric does require some user interaction.  An event represents a specific action that can be assigned a time and date to be recorded.  The user will need to setup event tracking within the analytics measurement service, indicating the specific event that the user would like to track.  For example, these “events” can include newsletters signups, blog comments, or rewards program registrations.  Similar to the entry page metric previously discussed, event can also be used to track specific campaigns.  For example, if a campaign was set to encourage rewards program signups, event tracking could be setup to count the number of successful events.  This tracking along with other metrics such as entry page (if a specific page was setup) or referrer (tracking the referring link) could indicate the success of such a campaign. 

Other ideas for event tracking include:

1.      External links

2.      Downloads

3.      Time spent watching videos

4.      Social media buttons

5.      Widget usage

Any element that your visitors interact with can be tracked with events (4 Google Analytics Goal Types That Are Critical To Your ... , 2012).

The event metric can be used as, “transactional triggers and is intended to reveal the status of "live" business process, (Bielski 2007) following the step by step of the visitor in the event process.  An example of this would be event tracking to find if a visitor has read an article.  As Virgillito outlines, this is not a simple event setup and done.  Each action that would indicate the visitor is reading or has read the article would call for its own event with related tracking setup. 

As seen in the above Google Analytics examined by Virgillito, each step has been assigned as an event:

·         ArticleLoaded – tracking a viewed page

·         StartReading – tracking reading of a page

·         ContentBottom – tracking finishing reading a page

·         PageBottom – tracking reaching the bottom of the page

As the viewer completes each event, it is indicated in the tracking.  At the end, only 15 finished the article of the 26 that started reading the piece.  A lower completion rate could indicate that the article is not as popular while the opposite could be said for higher completion rate.  Event can indicate what content should be placed on a webpage.  An engaging video on a webpage could be tracked in a similar fashion with events tracking the start and finish of the video and the time that it actual takes the viewer to get from one of those points to another. 

Events have a specific date and time detailed and these timestamps can indicate how long it takes the visitor to complete the action.  Events could even be setup within a registration or questionnaire.  In examining the timestamps and any patterns, difficult or confusing questions could be indicated.  Events can also be related to conversions to understand how many started conversions are actually successful.  If an event was setup at the start of an e-commerce transaction and looked at in comparison to the conversion rate, this could indicate trouble that a visitor might be having in completing the transaction.

Event is a tricky metric in that the benefits of setting up and examining it are not out rightly obvious.  In taking some time and thought, event can be a helpful metric in many instances. 

References:

4 Google Analytics Goal Types That Are Critical To Your ... (2012). Retrieved October 24, 2016, from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/critical-goal-types/ ..

Bielski, L. (October 01, 2007). KPI: Your metrics should tell a story. American Bankers Association. Aba Banking Journal, 99, 10, 66-68.

Virgillito, D. (2016). How to Track User Engagement with Google Analytics ... Retrieved October 24, 2016, from https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-track-user-engagement-with-google-analytics

Website Analytic Formulas – KPI’s - Contractor Gorilla. (2013). Retrieved October 24, 2016, from http://contractorgorilla.com/website-analytic-formulas-kpis/

The Misunderstood Web Metric

In the world of web metrics, one that is commonly misunderstood is the metric of entry page.  Even in the research done for this post, many sources confuse this metric based on its name.  Entry page is literally the page where a visitor enters the website, as the name indicates.  However, many confuse this metric with the landing page, which is the first page of a website.  The entry can be the landing page, but it is not just limited to the page that is supposed to be the first page visitors see.  Initially, this metric does not seem as important as some of the other, more obvious metrics.  However, it is a great indicator on its own as well as providing information for calculations. 

First and foremost, the entry page metric will help to, “quickly figure out if visitor behavior is differing from the patterns you expected or intended,” (Bager, 2016) which can be a negative or a positive.  The entry page can be bringing visitors into what is most searched, perhaps a specific product’s page.  This metric can indicate that perhaps this product should be featured more prominently or at the very least, direct visitors back to the main page in some way if that is the preferred path.  On the negative side, if the entry page is not as clean or branded as the landing page, viewers may be seeing a poor representation of a company.  This is why it is important to monitor all pages so that they have a smooth cohesive look and are all up to date. 

Looking at entry page in conjunction with bounce rate could indicate if users are coming to the page and finding what they are looking to find.  If a specific page is often the entry page and has a high bounce rate, perhaps users are being incorrectly directed to this page.  Browse rate is another indicator that is impacted by entry page in conjunction with how many pages are browsed.  If entry page was a suitable first page for visitors, the browse rate would be able to indicate the effectiveness that, “pages are at pulling people into the website” (Fishkin, 2006). 

Entry pages can also indicate the success rate of a specific campaign.  For example, Kate Spade is having a surprise sale and sent out email invites.  Based on the number of visitors using that surprise sale specific link (surprise.katespade.com) as their entry page, could be an indication of the success of the email campaign.  Another underrated metric, event could pair with this metric to provide a call to action for the specific campaign (more on this metric later). 

The entry to exit ratio could also be examined to understand how often visitors enter, browse, and then exit.  Similar to bounce rate, one could look at the entry page and see how often it is the start of a multi-page visit.  It would be worthwhile to look at this in more detail, deciding if that action is what is wanted of that entry page.  Does it perhaps lead to a desired conversion? 

Entry page is an often overlooked and confusing metric.  When it is understood to be the first page that a visitor encounters, landing page or not, it gains importance in reporting indicators.  As “each piece of a Web site has a particular function and that its effectiveness in this function can be measured by using statistics that are highly tailored to its role” (Angel, 2006), lesser metrics like entry page gain importance in reporting.  By using the entry page metric on its own and in combination with other metrics, visitor behavior can be further analyzed.   

References: 

Angel, G. (2006). A better recipe for Web measurement. B to B, 91, 11, 11. Retrieved October 24, 2016, from http://search.ebscohost.com.www.libproxy.wvu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsh&AN=24718033&site=ehost-live

Bager, I. (2016). How are people entering my site and why does it matter? Retrieved October 24, 2016, from https://siteimprove.com/blog/website-entry-pages/

Fishkin, R. (2006). Tracking Browse Rate - A Cool Stickiness Metric - Moz. Retrieved October 24, 2016, from https://moz.com/blog/tracking-browse-rate-a-cool-stickiness-metric