Zappos Delivers Happiness By Listening

Zappos utilizes relatively little advertising or traditional marketing. They do not use coupons, promotions or specials, instead they rely and succeed almost exclusively on word of mouth and customer loyalty (Furness, 2012). They do not want customers to buy from them solely on the basis of price – it’s the Zappos experience. To do this, they must know exactly how their customers behave and what they desire and think. Zappos has generated over billion dollars of revenue (Koetsier, 2013), so of course they use web analytics tools to track their ecommerce site’s traffic and its outcomes. As a premier online retailer, Zappos currently manages 20 niche blogs and several social media sites as well as their popular ecommerce site, Zappos.com.

The number of apps and plug-ins available to web analytics solutions like Google Analytics is staggering. Researching what extensions ladder up to your business objectives is key. I am going to outline some marketing tactics and how Zappos has or could be using available software to optimize their data intelligence.

Targeted Enews
For retention programs, Zappos sends out e-mails to customers with information about new styles and new brands. Customers also can sign up for specific, targeted mailing lists, depending on their interests. They have an e-mail newsletter called Shoe Digest, which lets customers talk about shoes with other Zappos.com customers (Quesenberry, 2010). The opt-in e-newsletter discusses different topics every time, depending on what readers are interested in.

Utilizing a tool like MarketTraq can send customized, visually appealing emails to each reader. Each recipient gets their own dynamically customized copy, images and subject lines and based on your user’s behavioral and demographic profile each email is dynamically customized to speak to them in a very personal way.

Ecommerce
Through recording ecommerce traffic Zappos is able to determine how much business is repeat business (75% of their visitors in fact (Quesenberry, 2010)), as well as their popular or trending items, cart abandonment, purchase funnel issues, bounce rates, exit pages, landing pages and more. This information can also help Zappos determine problems or issues that the site is having, causing them to lose sales and create action items to fix the items in a timely manner. Alex Soria says, “Zappos approach to listening is organic” they do not engage with online users unless the user engages with the brand first.

Zappos also has the Associates Program, which allows online publishers to add a simple text link to their website advertising Zappos.com’s shoes. They in turn earn referral fees if the link results in a sale. They can choose one of Zappos.com’s banners and link straight to its homepage, recommend specific shoes and add a search box to their Websites - all examples of opportunities to monitor the connecting activity to understand visitor behavior.

To help understand your ROI, Clicktracks, now a part of Lyris HQ, features robust analytics, ROI tracking, revenue conversion and marketing campaign performance, all merged into a professional, multi-user web analytics package. What differentiates Clicktracks is the flexibly designed Funnel Report that shows you behavior of groups of visitors in your conversion funnel to see which pages are most effective at turning browsers into buyers (Clicktracks, 2014).

Powered by Service
Zappos promotes its toll-free number visibly on the home page and you can talk to someone 24/7 via phone or live chat. Instead of valuing quick time to resolution or processing high call volumes, Zappos looks at the percentage of a time an agent spends on the phone. This metric–personal service level–is a way to “empower the team to utilize their time how they see best promotes customer loyalty,” Carder says. The agent is expected to spend at least 80 percent of their time in customer-facing interactions. It doesn’t matter if that’s one call, or 100. That intimacy creates a special opportunity to build a relationship as opposed to a top of mind impression through advertising.

Easy Call Tracker is a call tracking system that works with U.S. Domestic and International phone numbers and reports call revenue directly with Google Analytics (Power My Analytics, 2014). It uses a specified phone number for a campaign and integrates reporting data to Google Analytics and your CRM. You will know where every sales call originated. A tool capable of handling calls world-wide is essential for a global company like Zappos.

Social Spaces
There are a few core values for social media that everyone at Zappos tries to live by: transparency, authenticity, and value (Kelly, 2011).

Zappos is constantly trying to discover new audiences to target. Tools like XA.net (now Optimal), uses Optimal Keyword to look for fan pages with overlapping Facebook users. Fan-page-user-overlap data helps us branch out from successful audiences we target with ads (Abdonovich, 2012). There are the obvious ones where we are finding success targeting fans of Whole Foods, states Nate Luman, Zappos Facebook marketing lead. It helps Zappos find not-so-obvious audiences.

Sysomos is an all-encompassing social media monitoring tool that quickly identifies the people driving conversations, who they are, their interests, and their relevance to your brand. Zappos has numerous blogs and all the employees of Zappos are on Twitter by the help of which the company has been able to engage deeply with customers. Sysomos integrates with blogs, forums, news sites, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and LinkedIn.

Customers share more often on Pinterest than on Facebook and Twitter, but revenue from Pinterest is significantly lower: $33.66 per order from Twitter posts, $2.08 per order from Facebook posts and only

75 cents per order from Pinterest. Will Young, director of Zappos Labs notes “Even if a person has 100,000 followers on Pinterest and she pins something to a board called ‘Stuff I Love,’ that’s not as big a deal as an endorsement tweeted to 10,000 followers.” Pinterest has given its blessing for the
experimental tool that lets Zappos customers get product suggestions based on Pinterest activity. Zappos suggests ten “featured pinners” on the page and shows Zappos-only products that they’ve pinned. Shoppers can also enter any Pinterest username and PinPointing will analyze his/her pins and boards and make product recommendations from Zappos’ website — even if the pins don’t exactly match what Zappos sells (McGee, 2012).

Outcomes can be whatever a company has determined to be a valuable goal for their business. There are big benefits to integrate applications to your analytic solutions, CRM other marketing platforms to understand the voice of the customer and their behaviors. It can make all the difference in sales growth.

Google Empire: Smart or Scary?

Google, founded in 1998, has quickly evolved into an Internet empire with a series of acquisitions and partnerships beyond their development of its search engine.  Today, Google offers a plethora of products and services such as Gmail, Google Drive, instant messaging, Google + for social networking, Google Analytics and of course the web browser Chrome.  Google has acquired top-ranked products and technologies like Blogger, YouTube in 2008 for a mere 1.6 billion (NBC News, 2013), Android - only the largest cell phone operating system in the world and Motorola Mobility was attained for the largest pay out of 12.5 billion in 2011 (Google, 2014), all examples of how they continue to take on the digital world by storm. 

In January, Google snapped up Nest Labs. Nest's devices take home automation to the next level by actually monitoring users routines. The company's smart thermostat, for example, uses auto-away technology to detect when you leave the house. It then automatically adjusts the temperature to avoid heating or cooling an empty home (Walsh, 2014).  For Google, gaining visibility into people’s habits beyond computers and phones — whether watching television using Chromecast, taking a walk wearing Google Glass or managing their homes using Nest products — will provide a fuller picture of users.  While this seems useful, some people have concerns over the privacy implications of such products -- particularly now that Google will have access to additional information stored by Nest products (Walsh, 2014). 

According to the NY Times, Google Analyst Danny Sullivan states, “the more Google is tied into our everyday life, the more they feel they an deliver products we’ll like and ads.”  If fact, using location services Google knows the precise position of every Android-user’s Wi-Fi enabled device. To put that into perspective, according to ABI Research estimates 798 million people are using Android-based devices.  Positively, Google’s Android Device Manager will help users track lost or stones phones or tablets using your Google account to force them to ring or map them (Gold, 2013).

In 2013, Google faced outrage over changes in their privacy policy, which features comments, names, photos and video from its users in advertisements on website around the world.  Google + members that review and rate restaurants or must that Google + users share on other Google services will be able to be used by advertisers (Swan, 2013).  Are you a Google + user and would like to opt out, go to settings in your Google + account, and edit Shared Endorsements to opt out.

What information does Google Capture?

Google’s privacy policy was last updated on December, 20, 2013, which states they do not share personal information with other companies without opt-in consent of the user for sharing their name, email address or billing information, but there are a series of disclaimers to that statement.  They also state, “We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request (Google, 2014).

Device information: Google says it may collect device-specific information such as hardware model, operating system version, and mobile network information, including phone numbers.

Log information: When you use Google’s services or view content provided by the company, it may automatically collect and store that data in server logs. This information includes what you search for, the phone numbers of friends that you call, and how long you spoke.

Location information: When you use a location-enabled Google service, the company may collect and process information about your actual location, like GPS signals sent by a mobile device.

Unique application numbers: This number and information about the apps you install may be sent to Google when you install or uninstall that service or when that service contacts the company’s servers for automatic updates and other unspecified reasons.

Local storage: Google may collect and store information, including “personal information,” on your device using browser web storage such as HTML5 and application data caches.

Cookies and anonymous identifiers: The company says it uses unspecified technologies to collect and store information when you visit a Google service, possibly including sending one or two cookies or anonymous identifiers to your device, even when you interact with services the company offers to their partners (Castillo, 2013).

Google’s Tainted Track Record 

Google’s track record has been less than ethical. Google agreed to pay $17 million in compensation to 37 U.S. states over tracking consumers online without their knowledge.  The settlement was for Google circumventing privacy setting in Apple’s Safari browser in 2011. Safari blocked tracking cookies by default, but Google overrode the settings to track users both on desktop computers, iPhones and iPads (Reuters, 2013).  In 2012, the company agreed to pay $22 million in to settle a probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission relating to a similar matter. 

Do these fines present Google anything more than a slap on the wrist?  Picture this, in 2012 Google generated over $50 billion in revenue just through advertising (Reuters, 2013),

Too much power?

It’s a double-edged sword.  You don’t hear users complaining that a “free” internet search on Google just provided the exact information they were looking for in a split second because of its millions of servers of indexed data. Google cannot deliver relevant ads without knowing a level of your personal preferences. What you do hear concerns about is the leak of personal information through shared information, or companies on the Internet that have been discriminated in rankings because they are non-advertisers.

Google has more information than we can comprehend on their server logs, and with that power comes responsibility. Hackers, identity thieves and wrong-doers thrive on personal information, so whether intentional or not from Google, if harmful entities are able to get to their information, we as citizens must do everything in our capability to be smart when using monitored devices and limit it when necessary.

The good news is you can take precautions with the amount of information Google has access to.  Google’s privacy policy contains links to services that let you view and manage the information you share with Google. Some of this personal data you volunteer, and Google collects some of it as you search, browse, and use other services (O’Reilly, 2012).  Here are a few steps to manage your information:

Review your Google account
Review your Google Dashboard to access all the services associated with your Google Account (Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, AdSense, and etc).

Manage browser data
In Chrome, cookies (browsing data) are allowed by default (Google, 2014).  To adjust this setting go to Chrome, select Settings, select Show advanced settings, in the “Privacy” section, click Content settings, in Cookies you can; delete cookies, allow/block cookies by default, keep cookies and site data by default until you quit your browser or make exceptions for cookies from specific websites or domains.

Ask Google to remove it
If you belong to any social networks, post picture or write blogs you more than likely have personal information appear in Google search results. To avoid this, ensure your setting are set to limit your information for each site. If there is information you just need to get removed from Google’s search results you can submit a request.

When I will start to worry is when I log onto Chrome to do a Google search and they tell me the blue sweater I am wearing matches my eyes and wondering if I am thinking of getting a Starbucks today.

Google Analytics Premium Vs. Adobe Analytics

Web analytics software can enable a business to slice and dice numerous web data metrics and dimensions so they can analyze it, and interpret it to increase sales, identify a new market segment, test website performance, optimize the user experience, or determine promotion or event success.  Monitoring your web insights will guide you and your business to make continual decisions based on facts and not hunches to maximize your marketing ROI.

There are numerous analytics software programs available, but in an effort to keep it simple I will compare two popular choices; Google Analytics Premium and Adobe Analytics (formerly Site Catalyst). Each platform has its advantages so I have outlined the pros and cons for each, so you can determine if either program aligns with your business and the resources you have to run them.   

 VS. 

When you are looking for a web analytics solution, here are a few things to consider:

• What is their pricing structure?
• How many page views per month can the solution track?
• Do I have the resources to implement and run it?
• Can you reanalyze data if you decide to change something?
• Can you reanalyze subsets of your logs for more focused views?
• Can you accomplish your goals with free web analytics?
• What types of data collection options are available?
• Can you integrate with other sources of data?
• What level of support can I expect?

Price

The basic Google Analytics program is free; however, it only allows you up to 10 million hits per month.  Google Analytics Premium offers a number of enhancements and more customization and will process up to 1 billion hits per month for an annual flat fee of $150,000 (Google Analytics, 2014).

Adobe Analytics cost varies according to traffic volume and the service level and needs of your company and has no monthly hit limit (Adobe, 2014).  You have to call for a quote.

Usability and Implementation:

Google Premium is by far more user-friendly and is intended to be accessible and intuitive for the many.  It is easily implemented on your website and requires no special IT or programming skills. Google Analytics does offer implementation for custom variables and most recently includes custom dimensions and metrics and cost uploads for paid campaigns (Google Analytics, 2014).

Adobe Analytics, on the other hand, is the polar opposite. Adobe’s analytics platform is intended for professionals and thrives on providing depth along with completely customizable experiences, both of which require training to understand anything beyond basic metrics (Chianis, 2013).  Adobe demands the skills of a professional to implement the upfront work and maintain highly customized data reports that can be tailored to the needs of the business, which may considered more valuable.

Functionality:

Adobe Analytics is a true web analytics tool with data capability that runs broad and deep. While the interface is less than intuitive, the quality of data and reporting presentation is high. You can configure custom reports and export large data sets easily into multiple formats through the job scheduling service.  Because the program is so customizable, there is a large degree of flexibility and extensive advanced functionality for conversions, referrals, path analysis and segmentation (Chainis, 2013). Features like Adwords is integrated through Search Center, granular segmentations is accessed through Discover, A/B testing is implemented through Test & Target, raw data access is through Data Warehouse, meaning, they are not automatically integrated into the program.  Adobe Analytics also allows you to track visitors at the IP address level and have unlimited user levels. On the flipside, it takes a high level of effort to implement and maintain Adobe Analytics, there are limitations to multi-session paths to conversion and attribution modeling and you have to pay for training and support.

Google Analytics Premium is user-friendly and intuitive program that provides a lot of the already integrated marketing analytics tools like Adwords, Google Display Network and Media Attribution.  Premium is easily manipulated and will give you a maximum of 50 custom variables (Google Analytics, 2014), however, Adobe Analytics provides 250 custom variables, 75 traffic variables, 100 event variables and 75 conversion variables, which can be set to capture whatever you’d like (Adobe Analytics, 2014). What you don’t get with Premium is a really granular drill down into the data and access to the raw data. Premium is incorporating multi-device tracking while Adobe Analytics already has that capability, but it is cumbersome to setup (McClendon, E. 2013).  While Adobe Analytics has robust report capability, Premium has customized data visualization, intuitive reporting and default variables making reporting simple.

Training and Support:

Google Analytics has an online Help Center and easy-to-follow online tutorials in the Analytics Academy to gain a better understanding of Google Analytics and data analysis.  Google Analytics Premium provides access to an expert in account management for implementation and training as a part of the annual fee.

Adobe Analytics offers online tutorials and fee-based onsite user training support.  They also offer account management support as a part of their service.

This or that?

To sum it up, Adobe Analytics is complex and requires a technical user, which may require costly outside consultative resources to implement and maintain on top of the annual fee. Since it is so powerful and requires specialized responsibility, it can create a bottleneck in the data process since fewer people have the ability to use it. 

While Premium has a flat fee, Adobe’s pricing model depends on traffic and service level making budgeting and cost more of a risk.  It is loved in the agency world, because it ties into Adobe’s Marketing Suite, Test & Target, Digital Pulse and Search Center saving time and money (Singh, 2013). 

To weigh your options, you must consider how much incoming traffic your site receives and what type of reports can be produced.  Monthly hits max out at one billion for Premium. For medium to large businesses that require an enterprise system to track a plethora of events, goals and variables and has the technical resources in place to implement the custom reports and maintain it’s complexity Adobe Analytics may be the appropriate choice.

Bottom line. Premium is nimble, intuitive and user-friendly.  Adobe Analytics is powerful, data heavy and highly customizable.  To decide, you must look at your business today and select the tool that will allow you to grow with technology in today’s landscape of multi-devices.

Words of Caution

The caveat for most analytics solutions is that if a visitor has JavaScript or cookies disabled there is limited data gathering functionality.  Cookies allow you to track returning visitors; JavaScript lets you capture multiple variables about a visitor and the browser they are using.  Without cookies and JavaScript enabled, you will only have limited reporting capabilities (Lee, n.d.).

Facebook, Twitter and Google +, OH MY!

Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare…feeling overwhelmed yet?  With all the social media mediums available how do you begin to understand what platforms to participate to grow your business?  Let’s say I am a new cupcake and treat bakery in downtown Chicago called Yumazing.  Cupcakeries are a hot trend, so how am I going to set myself apart?  I need to create awareness, get customers in the door, generate buzz and then maintain loyalty to keep them coming back.

As a business owner I have to look at my business model, profile my customer base, investigate exactly where my customers are hanging out online, and decide what social spaces are going to reach the many.  What is important to understand is that you don’t have to participate in every social space to be relevant. Participate only with select platforms that you are going to garner the best exposure and do them well. 

The goal is to create conversations that are in line with your business objectives.  Create these conversations by publishing content that is going to get your followers to interact. Remember content without conversation is just broadcasting (Novak, 2010).  For a cupcakery, which post do you think is going to be more engaging?

      A)   We have a new cupcake today

      B)   We have a new chocolate cheesecake #cupcake at @Yumazing, come in today, show us your tweet and try it for free

      When crafting posts, ask yourself if this is a conversation starter.  Try some of these best practices for engagement:

1. Use rich media within your posts to make them engaging.
2. Solve problems with posts – a way to improve their daily life.
3. Use your fans’ content to make them feel part of your brand.
4. Involve customers with a question.
5. Let them fill in the blank –______ will satisfy my sweet tooth today.
6. Photo caption posts with the allure of photos with people’s love of interacting with brands they identify with – do this to trigger emotion.
7. Tie your brand with quotes that support your campaign goals and use visuals with your quotes.
8. Ask your fans to do something.  Come in today.  Vote with like versus share for an option A or B.
9. Use hashtags to categorize terms to increase brand, product and campaign awareness to wider audiences (Bunskoek, (2013).

Allocating your resources

Ideally, the person who is managing your advertising and public relations will be the person driving the messaging with social media sharing - you want your marketing campaigns to run in parallel.  For a small start-up business like Yumazing, social media management might come directly from the store manager or might be best outsourced to a third-party, so bakery management can better focus on running the day-to-day business activities.  As an example for Yumazing, if I get feature story in Confectioners Magazine, I might advertising in that issue, link that article to the News section of my website and share a link to the article on my website via my social channels.  This, my friend, is what we call Integrated Marketing Communications.

What platforms are Yumazing?

More than 500 million people use Facebook globally and almost half log into their account each day (Facebook, 2013).  The ability to connect with your community through your news feed to keep your business in front of people to inform, engage and share. You can communicate the cupcake flavor of the day, or engage by decorating themed cupcakes for holidays, contests or partnering with local events to capture the attention of the community.

Twitter is like a mini blog allowing you to send a message burst 140 characters in length at a time.  People can follow your business on Twitter and your business can follow others.  This allows you to read, reply to and easily share tweets with your followers (retweet).  In a post, you may link content to a URL, video or photo, so it is ideal for driving traffic to your website or blog.  Being a local business, Yumazing can leverage Twitter’s Advanced Search feature to find potential customers that work or live near your business by identifying location by city or zip code.

Instagram is growing at a rate of more than 100 million new users per year (Reed, 2013). Instagram structures content locally through two methods; first, users can activate location through the Photo Map feature. This attaches a geocode to each piece of content, giving users the ability to view their photos and videos on a map and providing vital context to these precious moments and experiences. Secondly, users can “location tag” content, which attaches the explicit place where the photo or video was taken (Reed, 2013).  What does this mean for a small business?  One might share a picture of their cupcake, share an event where they are eating the featured cupcake or take a video of a cupcake review.  These occurrences infuse the content they share with local relevance, and for many, the Facebook page becomes the distribution channel then shares with a wider pool of friends on two platforms.

YouTube, the number one search engine on the web.  What’s the adage?  A picture is worth 1,000 words, however, video can tell you so much more.  YouTube makes it so easy to upload, share and embed video. Yumazing can benefit from YouTube by sharing local or media events, giving behind the scenes footage of how they get that peanut butter center in their chocolate cupcake or a testimonial from someone significant.

Tips for success

Maintaining a social media plan is not small potatoes. Keeping up with the latest features of each platform, understanding how devices work with them and building a content calendar that aligns with your business objectives is a continual, dynamic process.  It is vital that your brand presence across each social platform you participate maintain the same look and feel to help people identify your business and build trust (Kingston, 2013).

Now you have a content calendar, you are seeing likes, comments, retweets and shares and feeling pretty good about your efforts. So you think I have this social media thing in the bag?  We’ll, not quite.  The key to making the most of social media is listening to what your audience has to say about you, analyzing the data and using these insights to know your customers better to improve your marketing strategy (Brandwatch, n.d.). Some free tools include Google Analytics and Wildfire – you can also use HootSuite to automate and measure the engagement of your activity.  If you can get yourself in the routine of building your content calendar based on what you have learned through your analytics, you can identify what types of posts result in the most stickiness and deliver on what your followers desire.