SEO News

The emergence of new platforms, multi-screen viewing, real-time advertising and big data (just to mention a few) have profoundly changed the way advertising is seen and consumed.  

Media fragmentation has resulted in complex customer journeys and vast quantities of customer data.   

The importance of reporting

The key to solving the agile marketing challenge lies in accurate reporting. This assumption was reflected in a recent survey of hundreds of marketers to find out what strategies and techniques they were using to deliver ROI.  

41% of marketers surveyed said accurate reporting on all marketing activity was their primary challenge, followed closely by mastering the operational management of marketing systems.

Incidentally, 49% of respondents also stated they were not sure how they currently reward marketing partners such as technology vendors, email service providers and publishers. 

The lack of clarity of advertising ROI by channel is a major barrier stopping many marketers from becoming agile.  

If it’s not easy to measure a channel’s effectiveness across your entire marketing mix then how can you respond quickly and appropriately?

Tech solutions 

Technology solutions that increase transparency into channel activity and enable marketers to easily test and learn create an agile environment.  

When asked if they were concerned about Google’s dominance in PPC advertising?’ 39% of marketers answered ‘yes’.

The view is echoed by Sir Martin Sorrell, who in the past has referred to Google as a ‘frenemy’ or ‘froe’.  This kind of concern can stem from the inability to determine where the sale should be attributed.

Search generally benefits from the most widely used last-click attribution model. Increased transparency into channel performance will give marketers better insights and the impetus to react faster to counteract any existing channel inflation.

Email, which may have lost some if its lustre as a marketing channel in recent years (according to some at least), was picked by marketers as the single most effective channel for delivering sales.

This view is echoed in Econsultancy’s Email Marketing Industry Census 2013, in which 66% of respondents stated that email delivers an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI.

Q: How do you rate the following channels in terms of return on investment?

Boden, which describes its customers as “channel agnostic” says email is still an established channel for the brand. It de-dupes some of the click overlap with affiliates by setting rules to pay commission only where email did not appear in the conversion path or appeared after the affiliate click.

According to Boden’s online acquisition manager Oliver Elliott:

 It wasn’t really about saving money, it was about optimising spend and performance along paths to conversion.

Big data

A dashboard that enables the easy manipulation of data to show which channel delivers that all important sale or conversion event is one example.

Air New Zealand and Vodafone use a marketing data platform (MDP) which uses  customers’ conversion data to link together non-linear customer journeys as well as re-allocate investment to those areas previously undervalued.  

MDP works with an advertiser’s existing systems, such as its CRM database, bid-management and order fulfilment systems and allows easy and effective data manipulation. As Chris Allison, Air New Zealand’s online sales manager says, “big data is only valuable if used and executed in the right way”. 

Collaborative technology creates agility 

Another way in which marketing agility can be achieved is through collaboration between technology solutions. This not only reduces the number of systems marketers have to learn to use but also enables more accurate data gathering and manipulation.  

For example, the integration of a tag management system with social media buying technology helps brands to understand a user’s path-to-purchase and allows marketers to follow customer journeys across any social platform to sale.  

I use social as an example here because of the importance marketers are now placing on this channel.

The importance of understanding the channel’s value was also shown in our survey with 43% of marketers saying they did not think their social media investments were delivering revenue while 32% said they were not sure.  

This shows that, while social can provide marketers with an abundance of customer data and a rich opportunity for effective ad targeting, the reality of acting on this data is not yet being achieved.  

Not because the channel cannot provide it, but because of a lack of accurate tracking and reporting.

Agility is not just about finding the right technology

If modern marketers are to optimise their digital spend then they must have the confidence to employ an agile mentality and embrace the technologies which enable them to do so.  

Only through this approach can marketers transform into the agile professionals who truly understand the value of their channels and react quickly.

You can read the full report here: Marketing Agility: Win the fight against wasted digital spend.

If cheap credit put customers on a pedestal, online retail gave them immortality

Under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 any item you purchase from a retailer should be as described, of a satisfactory quality and fit for purpose.

This means, if a product turns out to be damaged or faulty at the time of sale, or if a fault emerges over a reasonable period of time, you are entitled to a refund, repair or replacement from the retailer. 

Distance Selling Regulations demand that when you buy goods online, over the phone or by post you have seven days grace after placing your order to change your mind and cancel, this can be for any reason.

You will, however, need to notify the retailer in writing within this time frame and return the goods within 21 days if they have already been dispatched. 

The cooling off period given to online consumers seemed sensible, if customers can’t evaluate the item at time of purchase they could be left with a defective or substandard product. It is also a good way to build confidence in a developing sector that initially only added negligible amounts to commerce in the UK.

However, ordering 15 pairs of jeans and sending 14 back seems to be an abuse of a system by the very people that the Sale of Goods Act set out to protect.

Short-term, the company’s revenue is increased but long-term the volume of returns hits the bottom line. Add to this the continuous discounts offered by many sites that can result in the brand premium being massively devalued.  

An article in Drapers (August 2013) highlights the British retail consortium’s latest figures on clothing and footwear, showing a price deflation accelerating over the last six years. This is clearly not a good sign for the industry. 

Here are a few of the tactics that multichannel retailers have actively used to maximise margin and minimise returns.  

Discount duration

Keeping discount periods to a minimum. Companies that are seen regularly discounting their products start to attract deal hunters.

Both Next and Fat Face made brave discounting cuts and saw substantial increase to their profits.  

Postage decisions

Delivery and returns charges should be informed by the finance team and not the marketing division.

There are many instances of companies spending more on delivering an item than the value of the product itself. This might result in the growth of the top line but massively hits profits.  

Ensuring the size is right 

Sizing seems to be a big problem across the industry and an issue specifically related to high returns. Many companies are trying to tackle this by using technology along with more simple tactics.

Metail, a company based in Cambridge has launched a virtual fitting room that provides users with a 3d view of clothes on their body type and is being used by Zalando and Warehouse. The companies declined to comment on the results.  

Donna Ida, a small but premium denim company, has opted for a more simple solution by offering women a visual sizing chart in parallel with a photo uploaded service where someone manually sends feedback. 

Free returns

The returns policy in the Sale of Goods Act is that items can be returned by informing the seller within seven days but does not specify that the seller should pay for these returns (unless faulty). 

Many companies offer up to 28 days full refund along with free returns that really hurt and is not required.

Duchamp, a men’s luxury fashion site, offers a full refund if the items are returned within seven days of receiving the goods. After this period customers are given a credit to buy again in the future. 

According to Lewis Hamilton from Duchamp:

Duchamp offers free delivery for purchases only over £150 but offers free returns only if an item sent was faulty. Further during the sales period we try and limit returns by following a strict seven days policy and offer customers credit notes if the returns are after the seven day period.

We also try different ideas on delivery such as the new free returns policy on hardest to fit clothes like suits that actually help our customers shop online without diluting the premiums that our products command.

This is one way to reduce losses from returns, but brands must also consider the potential harm in terms of customer retention of offering harsher returns policies than competitors. 

Product details

There is always an element of the unknown when buying online. This unknown can be reduced by offering additional information on product pages.

This should include the type of material, high resolution images, zooming options on products and 360 degree views.

Most companies have taken the effort to provide consumers with these additional details but then there are still companies with great clothes that keep the information quite basic.

Here is an example of men’s clothing brand Lambretta where the only useful feature is zooming.

There is a fine line between driving away potential customers and increasing margins when it comes to charges and policies relating to fulfilment.

However, it needs to be constantly monitored by retailers to safeguard their bottomline, and ensure that costs aren’t harmful to the business.