'Net Features : baynote

A Merchant's Guide to Meaningful Metrics

Linc Wonham — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:00:00 GMT

Baynote and the e-tailing group have collaboratively researched the current state of e-commerce analytics, and the findings show that more needs to be done on the part of most merchants.

For starters, more than half of respondents reported a conversion rate lower than 3 percent on their retail websites, while about 1 in 4 cited rates above 5 percent. While nearly all of the retailers polled said that their evaluation of analytics was a top priority for retaining customers, the majority admitted to falling short of achieving optimum data analysis.

The most significant hurdles cited by merchants include information silos, limited data access across organizations, and a lack of education about which metrics are the most valuable.

"Data will be the driving force behind growing businesses where gaining a clear picture of one’s customer will suggest ideal marketing and personalization strategies," says Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group.

Findings from the research can be found in this infographic and in this white paper, and lead to the following conclusions about meaningful metrics for merchants:

Pure Profit
While conversion may get the most attention from many merchants, gross profitability was seen as the top metric, especially in low-margin categories where profitability percentage points can have a major impact on overall performance.

Getting Personal
Retailers increasingly value, and are investing in, personalization technologies, yet they seem to agree there is an industry-wide need for more sophisticated measurement tactics.

Mobile Madness
Traffic and conversion rates have exceeded expectations across mobile and tablet channels, and a better understanding of key metrics will enable retailers to drive significant growth. Retailers appear to be following a “same metrics/different device” approach, which can work in the short-term but will become problematic for long-term strategies.

Is Social Stuck?
Retailers’ metrics are still focused on the number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers -- 78 percent and 61 percent, respectively, according to the merchant survey -- and not real ROI. Retailers cited measuring interactivity and customer preferences as their top goals.

Holistic Thinking
The ultimate horizon for retailers is to have a 360-degree view of the customer across all touch-points that takes into account interactions and transactions and provides understanding of the most cost-effective ways to reach customers and drive conversion for life.

Three Areas of Focus for Retailers in 2012

Allison Howen — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:30:00 GMT

A recent report from Baynote, a provider of personalized customer experience solutions for multi-channel retailers, suggests three areas where retailers should be focusing more than any others right now.

The Marketplace Model
E-commerce giant Amazon has created an online retail model that proves to be a great example for any retail business starting out on the Web. In fact, 30 percent of all consumers who make purchases online begin their shopping on Amazon.com, according to the Baynote report.

Retailers can take note of Amazon’s success and apply it to their own business model by incorporating their products into online marketplaces. This will provide retailers with more visibility and can lead to an increase in customers and conversions.

Additionally, merchants should take note of Amazon’s aggressive pricing model. By obtaining a clear understanding of your business's pricing flexibility and ability to price match, retailers will be able to stay competitive and gain an edge over their competition.

Average Order Value
According to the Baynote report, most of the online shopping growth is coming from consumers spending more of their money online rather than new shoppers making online purchases. This is why retailers must take steps to attract consumers and increase their average order value (AOV).

One way to increase AOV is by adding suggested product functionality to your online store. For example, after a consumer adds earrings to the shopping cart, a suggested product window could appear that gives the consumer complementary suggestions like a necklace or a ring.

Other ways to increase conversions are by maintaining a strong social media presence, getting listed on sites like Google Places, and including customer testimonials and product ratings and reviews.

More Mobile
Although 91 percent of retailers had mobile strategies set in place by mid-2011, it is important that this channel isn’t neglected in 2012, especially with the rising usage of tablet devices.

Retailers should be offering more elaborate m-commerce functionality, including enabling their mobile sites or apps to support store shoppers and associates. According to the report, many retailers claim that in the near future their mobile strategies will include information about in-store events, real-time store couponing, and store maps.

Additionally, 14 percent of the surveyed retailers want to provide selling tools for store associates on their mobile sites.

Tablets are gaining momentum, and many users are utilizing these devices for online shopping – with Forrester Research claiming that 70 percent of tablet owners browse or research products, and 47 percent place purchase orders. This makes it increasingly important for retailers to utilize the tablet in creative ways, either in brick-and-mortar stores as a sales tool or by providing unique and interactive apps.

Tablets More Important Than Social to Merchants

Pete Prestipino — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:30:00 GMT

The idea that social networks will revolutionize the ecommerce experience has yet to materialize. But tablets? That’s another story.

Baynote’s 2011 Online Holiday Shopping Experience report, which surveyed 1000 consumers between Cyber Monday and Christmas Eve, revealed that 80.2 percent of shoppers said that personal connections on Facebook or another social networking site did not influence their shopping decision. Just 9 percent of consumers purchased something from a retailers Facebook fan page. Keep in mind however that it is not always easy to measure "influence" as the sales cycle can in some cases be exceedingly long for social media.

For merchants that have optimized for the tablet experience however, Baynote's data looks very promising. 48.6 percent of tablet owners made a purchase through their device. And it's not just applications; responsive design presents a low-cost, high impact means to optimize for tablets.

One of the most interesting data points in the Baynote study was the relevance of personalized product recommendations by channel, and the usefulness of promotions. In both cases, email was the channel cited most frequently, beating out both search and social for the top spot.

Additional findings from the study, as it relates to retail websites in particular, include:
- 59% of all consumers purchased a product on a retail website.
- 93% of all consumers researched a product online and then purchased in a store.

Related content on Baynote from Website Magazine:
- A Perfect Pair: Personalization and Conversion
- Personalization in Daily Deals & Flash Sales
- Baynote and Monetate Announce Partnership

Personalization in Daily Deals & Flash Sales

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:30:00 GMT

Ecommerce personalization provider Baynote and marketing application provider Crowd Factory have joined forces to provide a solution that will allow marketers to develop and deploy contextual flash deals, referral offers and group deals.

What makes the announcement newsworthy is that instead od displaying offers and incentives in an arbitrary (non-targeted) way, Baynote allows Crowd Factory offers to be presented to individual visitors based on their interests and “frame of mind”.

"Flash deals and referral offers are an exciting area of innovation in e-commerce, but they often dismiss a crucial element: what a customer is actually interested in buying when they see an offer," said John Kelly, chief operating officer at Baynote. "If a visitor is interested in buying a fleece jacket but is offered a daily deal on a swimsuit, that deal will almost never convert. We're thrilled to be working with Crowd Factory to make social offers much more relevant to shoppers."

Baynote and Monetate Announce Partnership

Allison Howen — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:00:00 GMT

A new partnership between Baynote and Monetate aims at creating a more engaging and personalized shopping experience for site visitors, while also improving conversions for e-commerce brands.

The new partnership, between Baynote, a provider of e-commerce personalization solutions, and Monetate, a provider of testing, targeting and personalization solutions for websites, integrates Baynote’s personalized product recommendations with Monetate’s testing and targeting solutions.

The partnership gives e-commerce companies the ability to test how product recommendation information is displayed while ensuring that recommendations are relevant and based on visitor’s real time interests.

"Monetate's testing and targeting platform combined with Baynote's product recommendations have enabled us to provide a truly personalized online shopping experience to our customers that is making a significant impact on increasing conversions, sales, and site revenue," says Holly Devine, Director of Ecommerce, Urban Outfitters.

The partnership provides online retailers with a platform that helps with marketing and website improvement. It delivers the top recommendations for the best spots on websites. The platform compares results from different personalized on-site search configurations and helps the understanding of how to optimize landing pages, which are both improvements that can have a major impact on revenues and operating margins.

"Creating the best kind of site experience for visitors that is also optimized for conversions does not happen through intuition; it comes from ongoing strategic improvement and testing," says Monetate founder and CEO David Brussin. "Each customer is unique, and Monetate and Baynote are working together to help online retailers determine the best way to reach them on an individual level in a way that will increase engagement and conversions."

Baynote to Power E-Commerce Recommendations with Endeca

Mike Phillips — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Baynote, a well-known recommendation and social search engine, has partnered with Endeca through Endeca Extend to provide a deeper user experience for e-commerce sites and publishers.

Those participating in the Endeca Extend partner program will have the ability to leverage Baynote to provide product and content recommendations to site visitors. Baynote's Collective Intelligence Platform (CIP) uses the collective intelligence of site visitors to engage future site visitors, based on past behaviors and/or transactions. Baynote claims that e-commerce sites using product recommendations, e-mail recommendations and social search through CIP see an average of 20-30 percent increase in revenues.

Endeca touts some of the largest websites and retailers on the Web using their systems for both customer-facing functions and internal management. Endeca Extend helps websites build a total experience through the use of "cartridges," using tools and data from partners like Coremetrics, Omniture, Webtrends, Bazaarvoice and more, including now Baynote. The result is the ability for merchants and publishers to customize their customer-facing offerings based on their user's preferences and behaviors.

"Baynote is thrilled to add Endeca to our growing list of prestigious technology partners," said Kaushik Ghate, Baynote Product Manager. "By joining the Endeca Extend partner program we are able to combine Baynote's technology, which taps into the collective wisdom of the silent majority of site visitors, with the efficiency, speed and ease of Endeca's Commerce and Publishing Suites. It's a winning combination that we are excited to offer our joint customers who want to maximize their online revenues and overall customer experience."