It’s well known that when we go to a supermarket we are being influenced in our decisions at all times. The store layout is
structured to maximise profit and the way a customer moves, stops, sees, smells and thinks are not left to chance.

Giving optimal positions to products with the highest profit margins, grouping complimentary products together to persuade users to buy more and even pumping the canned smell of baking bread 24 hours a day through the entire store are just a few of the well tested tactics employed by the supermarkets to maximise the value of each and every shopper.

How did the
supermarkets get to this point? One word; DATA. Many ideas about shopping
habits have been generated over the years but the theories that are in use now
are the ones that were tested, analysed, refined, tested again and then
implemented.

So what can digital marketers learn from this?

Take control of who owns the
conversion process

It is still a
very grey issue as to who owns the look, feel and layout of the site, with IT departments
still in control of the majority.

However, would
the Supermarkets have uncovered the optimum aisle placements, pricing strategy
based on location and product grouping techniques if the construction team that
built the store were making the decisions?

Unearth how visitors use your site

There is a
wealth of tools and tactics that can be used in ecommerce to deliver the sort
of key insight that drove the decision making when planning the layout of a
supermarket.

Heat maps, customer surveys and usability audits are vital in
telling us how people are using and navigating around our sites, in the same way
it has been identified how supermarket shoppers navigate the aisles. “Understanding
the customers’ shopping behaviours is critical and should form the basis of all
ecommerce strategies” John Brodie says.

Identify and remove customer journey
roadblocks

Reviewing user
feedback and analysing site data can help uncover where the conversion barriers
sit on a website and what is preventing visitors turning into customers.

We
need to identify and remove these roadblocks in the customer journey whilst
displaying key messaging and pushing core, high margin product lines in the
same way that supermarkets do not block shoppers’ way, but do push the products
that they want to sell.

Position products to maximise sales

Whilst it
needs to be easier for users to find what they want online than in a
supermarket (it’s a lot easier to abandon an online store than a physical
supermarket when you already have a half full trolley), ecommerce sites can
take a lot from the meticulously planned positioning of stock on supermarket
shelves and the method of giving prominence to the most commercial products
that have the highest profit margin can be easily employed.

“Also, the
concept of positioning complimentary items next to each other can work
incredibly well for ecommerce sites. In the same way a supermarket shopper
buying flour to bake a cake needs eggs and sugar, an online customer buying a
dress can also be cross sold the shoes and accessories they need to make a
complete outfit” Fiona Low says.

Test, refine, then test again

Whilst there
is a multitude of best practise layout and merchandising rules that should be
followed online, it is vital we test and subsequently optimise the key customer
journey points throughout ecommerce sites, just as the supermarkets tested
their instore concepts.

Even testing small elements of web pages, such as
colours of messaging and positioning of calls to action, can have a huge impact
on user behaviour. Research shows that simple things such as improving your web page loading times will all have an impact on your overall conversion rate.

And with
tools such as Google Website Optimiser that are completely free to use, the
testing process can be carried out with minimal costs, hence delivery massive
returns on investment.

There are
also, however, offline principles that simply do not work when used online, and
in a purely practical sense we obviously can’t use the supermarkets famous
smell aids (although I am sure someone out there is working on a scratch and
sniff usb).

But on
balance and despite these differences there is a lot that ecommerce can take
from a supermarket’s persuasive manner of making shoppers not only buy, but buy
more than they intended to.

With the average retail conversion rate around 3%, 97%
of visitors never buy anything. How would a supermarket or any bricks and
mortar retail store survive on that return on footfall? E-commerce still has a
lot of work to do to.

Broadly speaking, customers want apps with a purpose, and that reflect the values of the brand, according to a new benchmark study of iPhone apps.

The eDigital App Benchmark study looks at 46 iPhone apps, using ‘mystery shopper’ surveys. These include mobile commerce apps, travel apps, news and media and directory and guide apps.

The study provides some useful information about the kind of features users are looking for from apps…

News apps

News apps achieved the highest overall scores from users in the study:

What was good about these apps?

From news apps, users were looking for simple and easy to use navigation and up to date content, while video content was well liked by reviewers.

The Sky apps, which both feature in the top four, have plenty of video content, and the Sky Sports app was praised for its use of video and image to enhance the articles.

Drawbacks

Users disliked having to open up Safari to view articles in full, as was the case with the Yahoo app. It also means that they had to reopen the app after they had read something. Articles should be available to view within the app.

Another criticism was the lack of content on offer. Users want to see a broad range of articles across a number of topics.

There are some good news apps missing from this category though, such as those from the BBC, Guardian, and Telegraph.

Directory and information apps

These apps are potentially very useful for people on the move, but this turned out to be the lowest performing category.

What are people looking for from directory apps?

The reviewers appreciated features such as maps which plotted the positions of businesses and services they had searched for.

They also want shortcuts that make searches easier and reduce the amount of typing they need to do, such as using the iPhone’s GPS to search for services near the user’s current location.

Detailed information and descriptions of businesses and locations, along with user reviews helped people to make a decision.

What are the problems?

Slow loading times was a major issue for the mystery shoppers. The nature of directory and guide apps means that they are used when people are out and about, and this perhaps means they are more vulnerable to variable connection speeds.

Among the worst marks were for those that used the apps merely as a portal to mobile sites, which defeats the purpose of an app.

The RAC Traffic app was marked down for poor usability, difficulty searching for traffic updates by postcode or city, and the lack of traffic alerts.

Mobile commerce apps

What did users like about mobile commerce apps?

Customers were looking for a similar experience on apps to that on desktop e-commerce sites, meaning the same stock availability, product information, and the ability to make a purchase.

Mobile usability is crucial, and the best apps were praised for ease of navigation and good filtering functionality.

Not surprisingly, Amazon was the top rated retail app, and this is because it ticks most of these boxes. The product pages are detailed, and most items contain plenty of reviews, while it has an easy payment process. If you already have an account (and plenty of its customers do), then making a purchase is very quick.

People also like the barcode scanning features on some of these apps. Amazon’s has this, as does the recently released Debenhams app.

Drawbacks of retail apps

The Sainsbury’s app received the lowest score, and this is because people are not able to make a purchase, just view store details and offers.

As the report points out, people who have downloaded a retailer’s app are more likely to be engaged with the brand, and not providing a route to purchase is a missed opportunity.

Other criticisms included limited stock, in the case of the House of Fraser Gift app, and a lack of product photos and information on the Interflora app.

Hotel apps

What did people like about these apps?

Booking.com was the top app here, thanks to an attractive design, good usability, and the ability to actually make a booking through the app.

Users want good information about hotels, including clear photos and customer ratings. These features help people make a decision about which hotel to use.

Geo location features which show nearby hotels on a map and provide directions were valued by users.

Where are these apps going wrong?

The lack of customer reviews and contextual information about the local area (things to see and do, restaurants etc) was a common criticism.

People also wanted to be able to make a booking through the app. One of the reasons that the Hotels app was marked down was that it directed users to an external website. It also didn’t show availability.

To see more, download the App Benchmark study from eDigital Research (registration required).

What do advertisers want to see from their affiliate programmes?

Generally speaking, they ask two things: firstly, that the largest
possible proportion of their affiliate base is active in driving sales
revenue; secondly, that there be a constant feed of good quality new
affiliates coming onto the programme to actively promote them.

The affiliate divide

Traditionally though, a divide is noticeable on most affiliate programmes between the top performing affiliates, those that drive over 90% of the programme’s sales, and a sizeable long-tail of affiliates joined to the programme but which either bring in very few sales (and only infrequently), or which are sometimes entirely inactive.

In some respects, this picture is completely natural. Many factors go into making a good affiliate and some will always be better than others. But why do we see this pattern emerge so quickly after a programme launches and remain the case sometimes for years after?

Even if the emergence of a two-tier affiliate programme is a natural evolution, how does the way programmes are usually managed entrench the divide between, on one hand, large, established, affiliates which receive all the advertiser’s attention, and a long tail of small revenue drivers or entirely inactive affiliates on the other?

More widely, what can it tell us about the state of the affiliate industry, and how it has developed over time?

In some ways it should not be a surprise that the top affiliates in the UK are likely to be the top affiliates on all kinds of programmes. But some have viewed this as a lack of variety or an over-reliance on certain types of affiliate models (cashback and voucher codes are often cited).

However, surely this is true only to the extent that the advertiser wants it to be. Credit should be given to any affiliate that has succeeded in building their business into a brand that is, in some cases, bigger than the advertisers they promote.

Is there is a deficit of good quality new affiliates?

Given the growth of the web and the way affiliates bemoan the number of competitors saturating even the smallest niches, this seems unlikely.

Rather, could it be that the focus is concentrated on the existing big players, perhaps something which networks could do more to challenge, which serves to ingrain the divide between the top performers and the long-tail.

One of the effects of this divide is to encourage some advertisers to either abandon the long tail and focus on the top players (sometimes through an in-house programme rather than via a network), or to remove the long tail from the programme entirely to give the appearance that the proportion of active affiliates has increased.

There are of course internal reasons why an advertiser might take these approaches. The temptation to sacrifice the long tail, rather than attempt to engage and mobilise them, might put the affiliate manager in a better position to make the case for the channel as a whole.

There are also, so the argument goes, fewer relationships to handle, which means fewer potential issues, especially in the face of an anticipated increase in scrutiny from the ASA following a recent extension to its remit. But there are also good reasons why advertisers should avoid forced choice.

The divide between affiliates could be symptomatic of a problem at the level of how the relationship between advertisers and affiliates is forged. Specifically, in the way that affiliates are identified, engaged with and recruited onto a programme.

It will no longer be enough for the network to help maintain existing relationships with large affiliates but to provide insight into the value of the long-tail, from where advertisers will expect future growth on their programmes to come.

Earlier today I was asked a question in the office: “What’s that tool for checking out your follower velocity?”

The tool, which I couldn’t immediately remember, is TwitterCounter. It’s not the newest kid on the block but it’s something that we use every month or two, to benchmark our Twitter performance.

As such I thought I’d make a note of it by writing a quick reference post on Twitter tools, which features a few new ones that we’ve recently started to play with (or are about to).

TwitterCounter

How quickly are you increasing your follower count? Use TwitterCounter to figure out how you’re getting on, and when you’ll hit certain milestones, and to compare your Twitter activity against your peers.

The Archivist

The Archivist scans a chunk of your tweets to unearth some kay facts and figures, including ‘Top Users’ (people you converse with or who retweet you a lot), ‘Top Words’ (common words found in your tweets) and ‘Source’ (popular Twitter clients used by your followers). You can use this tool to look up information on your competitors.

dlvr.it

Dlvr.it pushes out your content onto Twitter (as well as other social platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn, if required). It provides various additional tools to help you enhance your content, as well as stats to give you audience insight.

Tweroid

Tweroid shows you when the best time of day to tweet is, based on when your followers are most active. It can take a couple of hours to process the results, but it’s worthwhile as it may inform when you should be posting to Twitter for maximum exposure.

TwileShare

A simple Twitter-focused app for sharing files. Upload a file and tweet a message via the TwileShare interface. It is currently in beta but there is an email link if you’d like an invitation.

 

Hope they come in useful…