In a MarketingSherpa case study, Edible Arrangements used customer service to increase sales.  The e-commerce team increased same-day delivery orders on the Web 8% with simple promotion in a handful of channels (Sutton, 2013).    Who is Edible Arrangements? Edible Arrangements (www.ediblearrangements.com) has been offering same-day delivery for its fruit baskets, fruit bouquets and other sweet gifts for more than a decade. While they had extended the deadline for same-day orders to 5 p.m. a few years ago, only to the people knew about it. "It's kind of our hidden gem," said Kaitlin Reiss, Vice President of E-commerce, Edible Arrangements International. "A lot of people don't realize that we have same-day delivery, even though it is not something new for us, so we realize that we still need to do even more to promote it." (Sutton, 2013) Same-day service is not an option for every company or even every franchise location. Edible Arrangements has more than 1,100 storefronts worldwide, which makes it easier to expedite local deliveries. Most stores offer the 5 p.m. deadline for same-day orders. Some go even later, Reiss said, but the extension was impossible at some locations. The team chose to make 5 p.m. the standard to attract business from commuters who might want to pick up an order on the way home (Sutton, 2013). Because their consumer is changing, there are a lot more last-minute orders, so the company wanted to make sure that they were available when consumers needed a last minute birthday, anniversary, or any other special occasion gift (Sutton, 2013). When the ecommerce team decided to focus on promoting this offer, they achieved the following impressive results as reported by Sutton of Marketing Sherpa:  · 8% increase in same-day orders on its website since promoting the service · Slightly higher open rate and average order value for emails with same-day messaging The MarketingSherpa case study provides an excellent case study of how the team raised awareness and increased their orders and highlights 2 major contributing tactics:

1.  Promoted the Offer on the website

Before Edible Arrangements spread the word, it promoted the service on its website to reinforce the message to visitors. This was done primarily on the homepage with a countdown timer. The timer ticks down the hours and minutes each visitor has left to place an order for same-day delivery. The counter adjusts for each visitor's time zone and uses 5 p.m. as a universal deadline. 

They used a timer and not a clock. The timer is expressed more in words than digits. Below the top portion of the homepage — which has a logo, navigation bar and search box — visitors are greeted with large text that clearly expresses the offer:

"Want it in today? Order in the next [X] hours and [X] minutes."

The image below shows the countdown clock and can be found at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm

 2.      Provided Instant Gratification

Edible Arrangements also incorporated a display ad on their own home page that hovers over the right portion of the homepage's "hero shot" shows a graphic of a speeding truck and the words "Instant Gratification" in large capital letters. Below in smaller text is this message: "Same-day delivery is our specialty." The image below shows the “hero shot” and can be found at

 http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm

 Testing the ads

The timer and the graphic have been tested to help optimize clickthrough rates, Reiss said. For example they tested a textual format of the timer against a digital format (i.e., "12:00"). In additional, the "Instant gratification" message was tested against copy that emphasized the company’s refrigerated delivery trucks (Sutton, 2013).

Promotion off page helped raise awareness as well

While the promotion on the homepage helped Edible Arrangements connect with current customers and prospects, they went one step further and included social media as well. The team has active profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Pinterest. It occasionally mentions the same-day service in posts, hoping to catch the interest of someone who has put off gift shopping for too long. They also run ads on search engines and websites. Soon, the team will test messaging to promote the same-day service in the PPC and display ad networks it uses (Sutton, 2013).

Using Web Analytics
The headline conveys a clear deadline and message. It creates a sense of urgency for the consumer that can overcome inertia and gets the prospect to act immediately. Seeing the tangible time available in a simple headline is enough to get your attention. Providing the “Instant Gratification” image and offer on the right side of the homepage also helps reinforce the service as a differentiator in the market for gifts and arrangements (Sutton, 2013). 

Edible Arrangements understands that transaction data is a vital piece of information when analyzing online business performance (Wells, 2013). They also appreciate that while promoting customer service is a vital differentiation, revenue is much more tangible to many business owners and being able to report an 8% increase in same day sales is a solid metric. In order to report this revenue and order metric, Edible Arrangements must be utilizing ecommerce web analytics on their website. Having the e-commerce data in your web analytics application makes it easier to perform the analysis and also provides quantitative results on their testing. This has allowed Edible Arrangements to test different ads and ad copy, and optimize the offer that provides the best results in terms of click throughs and ultimate orders.

Visiting the web site at www.ediblearrangements.com showed that the Immediate Gratification “hero shot” was still present, but the time clock was no longer there. Using their metrics, Edible Arrangements would be able to see if the 8% increase in same day sales held up over time, or if the offer turned out to not have staying power. The fact that it no longer occupied the main headline would infer that they had used their web analytics to test out of this offer. 

In researching their website, I spent a considerable amount of time on the home page and after approximately 2 minutes the following prompt below appeared from http://www.ediblearrangements.com/fruit-baskets.aspx?ArrangementID=2174:

This shows that Edible Arrangements is tracking time on site for visitors and is prompting consumers who linger for a specific amount of time to provide additional information that can be captured in their database, while also promoting the next step in the conversion funnel. It could be assumed that through web analytics, the company has found that consumers who enter their Zip Code and the Date that they are looking to send their gift is a logical path to conversion. By providing this prompt, Edible Arrangements can capture higher ecommerce conversions. Additional web metrics tools to consider

Edible Arrangements also provides an “order by phone” option on the site. They should consider adding a call tracker tool that allows them to track phone orders that originated from their website such as Easy Call Tracker.This would be an excellent way to add additional analytics and measurement to their ecommerce results. Jane Clinton, WVU IMC Master’s Student provides a few of the Easy Call Tracker options as including:

Dynamic Call Tracking: This is the basic, traditional way of tracking phone calls. It uses a specified phone number for a campaign and integrates reporting data to Google Analytics

Visitor ID Tracking: This option can use existing phone numbers. You must add a widget to the website to display a six-digit Visitor ID. When a person calls, the call center asks the caller for the Visitor ID number and connects the transaction with the visitor profile in Google Analytics. As a result the order can be tracked through the entire transaction process.

Click to Call: Visitors click a link on the website to have a customer service representative call them. The unique visitor ID can be tracked.

Attribution Solution: This is for companies that require an offline (phone) purchase with an online confirmation.

Lastly, Edible Arrangements could incorporate retargeting tools to help them with consumers who leave the site without making a purchase, by serving up a banner ad to get them to return and place an order.

References:
Clinton, J. (2014, February 21, 2014) Easy Call Tracker. Discussion Week 7. Retrieved February 24, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu
Countdown headline. Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm

Edible Arrangements Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: www.ediblearrangements.com

Hero Shot web page. Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/heap/cs/ediblearrangements/1.htm

Sutton, A. (2013, October 24) Ecommerce: Edible Arrangements Countdown Ad Lifts Same Day Orders 8%. Retrieved February 23, 2014 from: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/countdown-ad-ecommerce-same-day-orders

Wells, M. (2013, October 21) Lesson 7: Advanced Google Analytics. Retrieved February 22, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu

Is Google the Evil Empire or a Benevolent Monopoly?

Wells reminds us that Google owns

• The top-ranked search portal
• A wildly popular e-mail service
• A leading feed reader
• The top-ranked feed management system
• The top-ranked analytics product
• The largest distributed ad network
• The most widely-distributed traffic monitoring toolbar 
• The largest video content hosting site

With the ubiquity of Google in all of these forms across the digital world, they now collect data from millions of its accounts every day (Wells, 2014) which creates a double edged sword for this behemoth that can be summed up in these two quotes:

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton)

and

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals. (Robert Caro)

Whether we view Google as the evil empire or the benevolent monopoly depends on your perspective, and can be argued both ways. But it does beg the bigger question:

Since Google has ultimate power, are they capable of protecting consumer privacy and can a private enterprise be held to a higher standard in society?

THE EVIL EMPIRE

Recent news stories would suggest that Google may not be conducting business for the common good. According to Eric K. Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School Google definitely falls into the camp of abuse of power:

“Power corrupts. I don't know if absolute power corrupts absolutely, but it certainly provides the opportunity for some pretty spectacular abuses. Absolute power also provides mechanisms for hiding your abuses, or at least provides some mechanisms for avoiding significant punishment. Bank robbers go to jail; after the major DOJ "drug smuggling scandal" Google was allowed to return the profits it illegally obtained in exchange for having all the DOJ's evidence sealed. This is a much better deal than the treatment offered others who might be guilty of repeated felonies (Clemons,2011)”.

Professor Clemons states that Google Analytics (GA) violates EU laws on the privacy of data regarding individuals since the product reports back to Google the IP address of all visitors to these businesses, allowing Google to track the Internet traffic of individuals all over the world, regardless of whether they, or these businesses, had agreed to this tracking. This practice has been ruled illegal in Germany, and there is also other functionality within GA that utilizes behavioral tracking without obtaining prior consent from all visitors to their website (Clemons, 2011).

However; Professor Clemons goes even further in his concerns over Google and its overreaching strategy:

“The company's new privacy policy goes beyond anything the world has seen before, in which Google asserts the right to combine all the information it can obtain from any sources, including those never authorized by the provider, like the sender of email to a Gmail account … Somehow, the combination of no adult supervision, unlimited access to private information, and a sequence of questionable behavior causes me to wonder if Google's present governance model may simply be unacceptable” (Clemons, 2011).

Mike Schuster, writing in the USA Today, also expressed concerns regarding Google’s intentions after the recent acquisition of Nest saying “If you were already worried about the scope of Google's data mining, news of a recent buyout may have you ready to rip that glowing thermostat from your wall” (Schuster, 2014). But there may also be more disconcerting behavior beneath the surface. Privacy advocates are concerned about Google's involvement with devices that already monitor consumer behavior and presence. For example, Schuster says that the Nest thermostat has a motion sensor which activates the screen and changes temperature settings when it registers someone walking past. This has caused some privacy advocates to worry about what Google could potentially do with this kind of personal information that has been stored in the Nest product (Schuster, 2014).

THE BENEVOLENT MONOPOLY

On the other side of the argument are those who feel that with supreme power comes the opportunity to do great things. In addition, society’s definition of privacy has changed vastly in recent years. We live in an age increasingly shaped by our attitudes to, and our definition of, privacy and in many ways our changing relationship with technology is at the heart of this. In reviewing the privacy controversies of the last few years, Jemima Kiss reclassifies the argument as an "inversion of privacy" and not an “invasion of privacy (Kiss, 2014).  Writing in The Guardian, she states that the boundary between the public and the private is porous and one person might be happy to over share baby photos publicly, while another person would be loath to being included in a Facebook semi-public "friend" discussion (Kiss, 2014).

As privacy and our willingness to share in a connected world is being redefined, Google is simply acting as a facilitator of consumer behavior. When challenged, Eric Schmidt of Google reassures us that Google relies on trust and when you lose that trust, Google stands to potentially lose the consumer (Kiss, 2014). But just as privacy is no longer absolute in today’s age, neither is trust. We find different levels of appropriate privacy and, as consumers, we need to decide for ourselves if we can trust a company enough to give it precious data about ourselves.

So, certainly, if absolute power provides both the ability to commit spectacular abuses and the ability to hide them, then absolute power demands absolute integrity (Clemons, 2011). It may however be too much to ask our institutions to protect public interest while forwarding private gain. When this happens and the lines become blurred, we will need serious oversight including internal corporate governance matched with governmental or regulatory overview.

THE BOTTOM LINE

While Google Analytics itself may not fall within the guidelines and EU restrictions, companies using Google Analytics can still stay within the EU laws by being more transparent to their end users. Optanon provides ICO guidance that says: "If the information collected about website use is passed to a third party you should make this absolutely clear to the user.  You should review what this third party does with the information about your website visitors." Therefore in the instance of "benchmarking" it is clear consent must be achieved for a website to pass information to Google”(http://www.cookielaw.org/google-analytics-eu-cookie-law).

When an all-powerful company acts honorably, then regulation can be done without a heavy hand, and without being especially intrusive. But if the company demonstrably has failed in its own oversight, by demonstrably violating cultural, ethical, and legal norms, then it's time for more serious government intervention (Clemson, 2012).

Google sits at a fulcrum in their history where they need to choose which side of the great divide they want to embrace. Battling the Department of Justice in a flagrant violation of privacy violates our trust, but they can also use their power to do tremendous good for society in the name of freedom of speech and knowledge sharing.  

I hope that Google will take the advice of the sage Bob Dylan:

"But to live outside the law, you must be honest
I know you always say that you agree"

Want to learn more? Visit these references:

Optanon. Google Analytics EU Cookie Law. Retrieved February 17, 2014 from: http://www.cookielaw.org/google-analytics-eu-cookie-law/

Clemons, E., Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School "Say It Ain't So, Joe, Again, and Again, and Again ...": A Legacy of Continued Bad Behavior at Google. from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-k-clemons/google-privacy-case_b_1522874.html

Clemons, E. & Wilson J. (2012, October 9) Can Google Influence an Election? Retrieved February 17, 2014 from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-k-clemons/google-election-2012_b_1952725.html

Bob Dylan, "Absolutely Sweet Marie," Copyright © 1966 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1994 by Dwarf Music. Retrieved February 16, 2014 from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-k-clemons/google-privacy-case_b_1522874.html

Kiss, J. (2014, February 8) Worried about your privacy? Wait until the drones start stalking you. Google's Street View and Facebook push the private into the public. Now watch out for tiny flying cameras. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/09/privacy-concerns-google-streetview-facebook-drones

Lord Acton Quote. Retrieved February 16, 2014 from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/power_corrupts.html

Mike Schuster (2014, January 16). After Google's acquisition of Nest, privacy advocates are weary of what Google will do next. Retrieved February 17, 2014 from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/01/16/google-acquires-nest-privacy/4518317/

Robert Caro Quote. Retrieved February 16, 2014 from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/power_corrupts.html#LhtFCb3LDfWZApux.99

The Google Analytics Vs. Adobe SiteCatalyst Smackdown

Web analytics is neither child’s play nor impossible to learn, but like most things in life, it is a complex journey (Kaushik, 76).  Getting analytics right requires that you start with basic tools and then you can move on to more sophisticated analytics. With experience and practice, Kaushik states that even a novice can become a powerful analytical Ninja! (Kaushik, p. 76).

Whether you’re looking to boost sales, capture more visitors or identify a new market segment, data analytics software provides a near endless supply of information and insights to help you maximize your marketing ROI.

If you are new to web analytics, it is important to understand what the key dimensions and metrics are and how they will help you understand how analyzing and tracking behavior will help you meet your business and marketing goals. Web analytics can help you to understand both the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and provide deep insights into your target audiences.

Figuring out how your website is being used, and using that knowledge to make it better, starts with knowing who is coming to your site, how long they spend on the site and each page, and how many pages they look at before leaving or buying can give valuable insight into improving your subscription or checkout process” (Hill, 2011). Because they are foundational to all web analytics, there are six key metrics that any tool needs to be able to provide robust reporting. Kaushik states that these metrics include:

• Visits
• Unique visitors
• Pages per visit
• Average time on site
• Unique visitors
• Bounce rate

Overview of Google Analytics and SiteCatalyst

Two of the most commonly used analytics software programs are Google Analytics and Adobe SiteCatalyst. Each has benefits and drawbacks, but deciphering between the two and choosing the best tool is essential to getting the best visibility into your key metrics.  Both if these tools can do an excellent job in providing the foundational analytics above, but they do it in different ways.

Google Analytics is a common tool that is free and will process up to 10 million hits per month. There is a Premium version that offers a number of enhanced features such as processing 1 billion hits per month, more customization, and strong technical support which can cost a flat $150,000 annually; but for most marketers, the free tool can provide you with plenty of insight without paying.

Google describes their Analytic services as follows:

“Google Analytics shows you the full customer picture across ads and videos, websites and social tools, tablets and smartphones. That makes it easier to serve your current customers and win new ones”  (www.google.com/analytics) and since no two customers or companies are alike, Google Analytics helps you analyze visitor traffic and paint a complete picture of your audience and their needs, wherever they are along the path to purchase (www.google.com/analytics).

Site Catalyst is offered by Adobe and they state that their tool, like Google Analytics, can “create customized dashboards and reports and share them in a variety of formats and channels. Using Adobe® Analytics, you can quickly identify the most profitable paths through digital assets, determine where visitors are navigating away, and identify critical success metrics for online marketing campaigns (http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-analytics/marketing-reports-analytics.html). You can learn more about the Site Catalyst tool and view 6 short video demos at: http://success.adobe.com/en/na/programs/products/digitalmarketing/amc/1310-22066-digital-analytics-solution-featurettes.html?s_osc=701a0000000ngd0AAA&s_iid=701a0000000nXVRAA2

Unlike Google Analytics, SiteCatalyst does not start out with a free model and is estimated to cost well over $100,000 per year. Cost varies according to traffic volume and the service level, and depends on the needs of your company (Chianis, 2013).

 

Start by Understanding their Business Models

Brian Katz, Senior Web Analyst at Cardinal Path tells us that to understand which tool is best for you, you need to start by understanding each of their business models. He explains it as follows:

The Google Analytics business model has always been to encourage the use of Google AdWords. The notion was that if website owners could measure the success of their websites and marketing efforts, they would optimize them and advertise more. Rather than being a free tool, Mr. Katz considers Google Analytics to be a tool made available free of charge in order to support and promote AdWords. Google Analytics is easy to implement, giving you more than enough functionality to measure and gain insights into your website to figure out how to optimize your AdWords spend. It’s also an effective conduit through which AdWords may be advertised to a highly targeted segment of Internet users.

Adobe’s SiteCatalyst is powered by Omniture (Adobe acquired Omniture and its suite of products in 2009). The Adobe/Omniture business model is to maximize revenue by selling a customer at least one product from a suite of products, and then up-selling additional products, features, tools and processing, as well as professional and engineering services. The power of this Software as Service model (SaaS) is in the very wide scope of activities and attributes it can track and the sheer volume of data that Adobe’s Omniture division collects. Omniture data supports other tools, including Warehouse, Discover, Insight, Recommendations and SearchCenter. Your data, as stored by Omniture, translates into revenue potential for Adobe.

Let us look at some specific functionality and dig deeper.

Ease of implementation

Google Analytics is easily implemented on your website, and requires no IT skills. Even a marketer can add Google Analytics to any website by copying a simple Java Script to their site. You can get started right away by visiting www.google.com/analytics and choosing “access Google Analytics” in the top right corner.

The Adobe SiteCatalyst solution demands the skills of a trained professional and requires a significant amount of upfront work (Chianis, 2013). This might be a better solution for the sophisticated marketer in the long run since implementation is highly customized and the data SiteCatalyst gathers can be tailored to their specific metric needs.

Dashboard Reporting

Availability of dashboard reports is critical to providing real time and longitudinal analysis for the marketer. An excellent Slideshare presentation from www.jimmypad.com compares the two solutions and shows the strengths of each solution across different functionality requirements. Based on the needs of the analyst, both solutions can provide strong support. 

Google Analytics can email daily reports in PDF, XML, CSV, and TSV however, the tool limits each user to one default dashboard/report per site while SiteCatalyst provides much greater flexibility by providing hourly email reports in a wider selection of formats including Excel, PDF, HTML & Word

Custom Variables

Google Analytics allows you to set custom variables, but only allows up to five per page. Variables can be set to expire at different times, such after a page view, completion of an event, or at the visit level.

The Adobe SiteCatalyst product has much more robust customization and also allows for up to 75 traffic variables, plus 100 event variables, and 75 conversion variables. Similar to Google Analytics, variables can be set to capture whatever data you want and can expire after a specific time but they can also be stacked on top of each other, giving you the chance to identify a sequence of events (Chianis, 2013).

How long can you keep your data?

Google analytics will keep your data up to 25 months while Adobe SiteCatalyst keeps your data indefinitely, as long as you are a customer.

What is the bottom line?

At the end of the day, choosing the platform that works best for you depends on your business goals and matching those goals to the individual tool. If you are a novice at web analytics, or if you are a marketer in a small department with no analysis support, Google Analytics provides an exceptionally powerful solution that is easy to use and free of charge. As your company grows and includes more sophisticated strategies and analysts, an investment in a tool such as Adobe SiteCatalyst may provide the enhanced solution required.

Would you share your experience with these tools?

 

Want to learn more? Visit

Chianis, A. Google Analytics vs. Adobe SiteCatalyst — Which Data Analysis Platform is Better for Business? Retrieved February 8, 2014 from: http://www.businessbee.com/resources/news/operations-buzz/google-analytics-vs-adobe-sitecatalyst-data-analysis-platform-better-business/

Jay, Jimmy (2011, May 20). OMNITURE VERSUS GOOGLE ANALYTICS. February 7, 2014 from:  http://www.slideshare.net/JimmyJay/google-analytics-vs-omniture-comparative-guide

Katz, (2011, June 22) SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics comparison, conceptually speaking: Part 1. Retrieved February 9, 2014 from: http://raventools.com/blog/sitecatalyst-vs-google-analytics-part-1/

Kaushik, A. (2010) Web Analytics 2.0. Wiley Publishing, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana

Hill, C. (2011, October 28) 3 Metrics Google Analytics Beginners Should Watch. Retrieved February 4, 2014 from: http://searchengineland.com/3-metrics-google-analytics-beginners-should-watch-98663

Wells, M. (2014, January 6) Lesson 5: Google Analytics. Retrieved February 1, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu