iGoDigital

Five Steps to a More Targeted Email Strategy

Thursday, January 26, 2012 by Meghann York Meenan

What's the number one reason people unsubscribe from email marketing? The content consistently does not relate to them. If you’re sending email blasts to your entire customer database every time, then the likelihood of this happening is great. Customers want their retailers to have 1:1 conversations with them, not shout from a bullhorn to anyone who might be listening. Below are some tips for developing a more targeted email strategy.

1. Corral and use all of your data points

In ecommerce today, data is being captured and stored in many different places, including:

•    Analytics Packages
•    Social Analytics
•    Email Analytics
•    Behavioral Data
•    Purchase History

It's crucial when developing targeted messages to understand what you have, what you don't have and how you can use all of this data to mold your messaging around your consumers.

2. Determine an actionable goal from the data you have
Wanting to “send targeted messages" is an inactive and irrelevant goal. Every company wants that. Make your goals actionable and stepping stones toward the 1:1 strategy. Pick a data source and turn it into something useful. A sample, specific goal: "Make use of behavioral data by triggering emails around specific actions on the site."

3. Segment before you shoot
Creating email messages and campaigns requires time and resources. Use a segmentation tool (either internal or third party) that quickly incorporates your data sources and allows for visual representation of segment size. Make sure the group you're after is large enough to be worthy.

4. Consider both explicit data (which is good) and implicit data (which is better)
Research shows that individuals fill out surveys based on who they want to be, not necessarily who they are. In other words, explicit data doesn’t always give you the full picture. Implicit data, on the other hand, is secured by observing what an individual does on your site and sometimes more accurately reflects what a person is interested in or looking for. Make sure you are listening to the customer , both what they say they want and what their behavior tells you. A rule of thumb: Use explicit data, but build your plans around implicit data

5. Automate and time appropriately
Most busy marketers don't have the time to pore over data, segment and build campaigns in hopes of reaching customers with more relevant messaging. Automation and email triggers can do much of this work for you. For example, injecting product recommendations dynamically into marketing emails provides a layer of personalization on a 1:1 level, without any effort from your team. Unique product combinations can be automatically inserted into the emails based on individuals’ explicit and implicit data from your site. Triggering emails based upon site behavior - abandoned carts, category views, back in stock items - ensures timeliness and relevancy. Inject recommendations dynamically into these
triggered emails, and you’re talking real power.

Real Actual Password Security

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Nathan Acuff

You've been trained to think about passwords in a very specific way. I'm here to tell you why all that training is probably nonsense.

Specifically, I want to talk about these three potential passwords:

M34tp1ez&
8Ks2*@nq
unicorn notebook suggest alright

Based on common understanding, the first two are probably pretty good, and the last one is just dumb, right? Wrong. If you want a password that is strong, forget random numbers and letters. Your bank telling you that you must have at least one symbol and one number, but limiting you to only 10 characters, is just flat out dumb. Pick a few random words, pepper them with just a bit of randomness that is easy for you to remember, and then sleep soundly knowing that your password is safe.

What if I told you that a powerful botnet could brute force the first example in about 2 hours and the second one in less than 2 minutes? What if I then told you that the third would take considerably longer? How does a hundred dectillion years sound? That's a hundred billion billion billion years - seems pretty secure.

This comic by Randall Monroe is helpful when it comes to understanding why, but let's dig a little deeper.

These numbers assume that our theoretical cracker has no idea how your password was generated. If we suppose that the attacker (and his enormous Botnet) knows that your password is exactly 4 words, all lower case, seperated by spaces, and that the words are fairly common and 8 letters or less in length, then the strength of your password falls - for a 2000 word vocabulary (small!), all the way down to about a second. That sounds bad, right?

Let's take another look at that first password, because it isn't really random. Like Randall hints at in his comic, it's really fairly easy to guess. You've got a common word, out of our 2000 word vocabulary. Some very common substitutions make it harder to remember and type, but don't significantly increase the strength - one could expect our theoretical botnet to guess 'M34tp1ez&' in a tiny fraction of a second - thousands of times faster than the dictionary attack on 'unicorn notebook suggest alright'.

So, what are you to do, just use incomprehensible passwords like option 2? No! We can construct a password scheme that is easy to remember and less vulnerable to dictionary attacks. After all, a password of 32 random characters and symbols is worth significantly less if you have to write it on the back of your business card and stick it in your wallet. The objective here is a memorable password that is generated in a non-obvious way. If the attacker cannot figure out a dictionary attack that works, he will instead resort to brute force, and I believe we've already discussed the trillions and trillions of years involved there.

At this point it is worth mentioning that reasonably constructed password systems cannot be broken one character at a time. Despite what you've seen on Numb3rs, passwords must be guessed all at once - you have no idea if you were close or not, because what comes out the other end of a 'guess' is a very long number. If an attacker guesses 'unicorn notebook' but your password was 'Unicorn notebook', it will be no more obvious that he is 'close' than if he had guessed 'M34tp1ez&'. We can take advantage of this.

First and most obvious, you can replace your spaces with something. Any character will do, and it is perfectly ok to make it the same thing all the time, or some pattern you know. For example, unicorn!notebook@suggest#alright is still pretty easy to remember - you just use the first 3 'capital numbers' on the keyboard instead of spaces. Letters are ok too. The time to crack your password - in the worst case - just rose to 11 hours.

How else can we make life difficult? Any small change increases the chances of throwing our attacker back into the trillions and trillions scenario, while making even the easy attack harder. What if your 'rule' is that you capitalize the first letter of just one word? Easy to remember and up to 7 days. What if pick one letter out of the whole phrase - even if you use the same letter all the time - and capitalize that? 'uNicorn!notebook@suggest#alright ' clocks in at around 20,000 years.

At this point, I suggest that we have passed the point of absurdity, but if you must, try moving one vowel to the next vowel in the alphabet. Time to crack 'aNicorn!notebook@sUggest#alright', even if you know how I came up with it? 5 trillion years.

At this point it bears pointing out that these time estimates are for an attacker who has compromised the site in question and who is able to employ a network of powerful computers to attempt to break your - and only your - password at a rate of 100 trillion guesses per second. If someone is trying to simply log into your website, as is pointed out in the comic, the top rate is about 1000/second. Note that most secure websites detect and control this behavior, but let's assume that yours doesn't. In that case (which is far more common), our basic 3 example passwords weigh in like this:

M34tp1ez& -- (worst) 3 days (best) 200,000 years
8Ks2*@nq -- (best and worst) 200,000 years
unicorn notebook suggest alright -- (worst) 500 years (best) trillions and trillions

Some of the transformations I suggested start us down the path toward totally random and long passwords, and that's bad. I'll leave you with this simple trick to increase the size of your vocabulary - try adding in a proper noun (other than your firstborn's name!). Adding in some names or places can increase your effective vocabulary significantly - and increase the chances that your words are not in the attacker's dictionary, forcing them to resort to a worst case brute force attack. Something like 'unicorn Gosling suggest alright' is still just as easy to remember, but makes dictionary attacks that much harder - in my estimate, 20,000 years instead of the 500 I listed above.

If you're looking for a recommendation, on a password that is probably good enough for your bank and/or nuclear missile codes, I suggest that it need be no stronger than 'mAnning roBot piCkle winDow'. Hopefully you are imagining a robotic Peyton Manning serving up fried pickles at the fast food window while whistling his ABCs - an easy image to remember. If it's just your blog, you can probably drop the symbols and caps altogether. If you are really, really paranoid, add some symbols instead of spaces. As we discussed, 'manning robot pickle window' is still in the thousands of years range for normal attacks.

In conclusion, there really is a way to get a password that is easy enough to remember without writing down, but hard enough to crack that your data will remain safe. Pick some words, sprinkle in a little extra randomness, and call it a day. Be wary of passwords that are both hard to remember and easy to crack.

A footnote: If the administrator of your system can see and retrieve your password for you, it is NOT a strong system - strong systems do not store your actual password. Complain or switch to a different system if possible. If your sysadmin can see your password, so can a hacker! There have been numerous high-profile breakins in the past several years of major companies like Zappos, Sony, and many others, which moves our attackers off of '1000/second' and into 'billions or trillions per second' to break your password. The only 'good news' there is that they have millions of passwords to break, assuming that the passwords are properly stored. Improperly stored passwords do not have to be broken at all no matter how cleverly you construct them.

Increase AOV on the Cart Page with Product Recommendations

Monday, January 23, 2012 by John Deines

As part of our continued series on developing personalization best practices, we have discussed how Behavioral Targeting Gives Your Loyal, Repeat Customers a Personalized Experience, and given some Product Detail Page Personalization Next Practices.

In this iGoDigital blog we'll discuss the cart page. On one hand, you want your customers to move quickly and easily through this page. One the other hand, retailers know exactly what a shopper is interested in at that given point and have an opportunity to increase the Average Order Value. There must be a balance, but what is that balance?

From one standpoint, you want to get out of the consumer's way and let them make a purchase. The other standpoint is screaming, "Up-sell them on related and beneficial products." If you’re just getting out of the way and letting a shopper complete the order without trying to introduce relevant up-sell merchandise, YOU ARE LOSING REVENUE, plain and simple.

So again, we will remain focused on balance. We'll show you how you can provide an experience that is not only beneficial to the end-user based on behavioral targeting, but also the top line. Luckily, if you are providing an experience that introduces the appropriate cross-sell and up-sell products, it will drive bottom line revenue increases.

Let's look at a consumer behavior buying technique that keeps the process simple and relevant and is PROVEN to drive extra dollars.

Personalized Up-sell Recommendations:

When making these personalized product recommendations, there are two critical pieces of data to consider. The first is the merchandise in the cart and the second is that individual’s preferences. Here are three key questions you should consider:

Q: What merchandise would complement the item being purchased?

Display products that will add value or help the customer enjoy that product more. As an example, if that customer is purchasing a blue ray player, recommend items such as HDMI cables or blue ray movies.

Q: How close are they to your free shipping threshold?

Dynamically inject products that will get that customer to that free shipping level, increasing the overall experience of the site. Now we know they are purchasing a blue ray player and they are $70 away from free shipping, let’s recommend newly released blue rays (higher priced items than older discount movies) and high end HDMI cables – which will get that customer to that free shipping tier.

Q: What does that customer prefer and how can we add value to the experience?

Observe shopping behavior and use the data collected to show the most relevant products based on expressed actions. Now we can understand preferences such as comedy and action films, allowing us to recommend newly released comedy and action films, complimented with an HDMI cable.

While this is an anecdotal example, by answering those three questions in real time, personalized cart recommendations can instantly create more revenue. The key is not to distract the customer with similar products, but to display products that are supplemental and beneficial for the item and individual.

Now that we are putting the right products in front of the new customer, how do we make the process simple for research and adding products to the cart? Here are a few ideas to help accomplish that balance:

Add ratings and reviews – Quick research tool and credibility
Add a scroller – Easy browse functionality introduces a wide array of merchandise
Add an "add to cart" button – One step button to add items to cart (Not Shown)
Add a quick view button - Allows for product research without leaving the page, plus simple add to cart functionality including size, amount and color

Cart Recommendations need to be carefully balanced with the goal of creating more value from each individual shopper. Each of these e-commerce personalization solutions should be tested and optimized based on how customers interact with your website and brand.

Follow me on Twitter (@jmdeines) and leave some feedback below.

Heard on the streets at the iGoDigital eRetail Roundtable - Boston

Monday, January 23, 2012 by Conner Burt

On January 19th, we got together with Boston-area eRetailers for the first in a series of nationwide roundtable discussions about the issues facing retailers in 2012. Allowing the retailers to drive the discussion, we learned some pretty interesting things about the opportunities and challenges facing the industry. As one attendee put it, "It's good to know that I'm not on an island. You have challenges and problems, and often aren't able to consult with peers on the important issues."

Here are some of the opportunities we heard during the conversation:

For most mature retailers, incremental lifts in conversions and other KPI's will be the focus. As one person put it, "there's no silver bullet for retailers. It's all about incremental benefits." Programs and initiatives that can drive a 5-10% lift drive real revenue and results.

What are a few of these to consider in 2012? We heard plenty about the effectiveness of A/B testing anything and everything. When talking retargeting, many found it hard to understand the threshold of shopper acceptance. There's always a branding element to retargeting and "over-retargeting" can cannibalize other efforts.

With more and more tags, tag management (a relatively new area of focus) will continue evolving in 2012.

Other prominent areas of focus were surveys and reviews. "Nobody trusts a retailer," and "There's no residual bad benefit from reviews" were the common sentiment.

Personalization was brought up by a number of retailers present. Those that were serving product recommendations manually were quick to point out that predicting what people might buy can be difficult. For all retailers, they expressed the idea that each business is unique, and there's no "one-size-fits-all" box that can provide a personalized experience.

However, using a combination of the right platform and customized merchant and business knowledge, the future is bright. Soon, social graphs will feed the algorithms, and we'll be able to connect that users who like horror movies will buy a red women's shirt--as one retailer put it.

Here are some of the challenges:

Ecommerce has become so influential in other channels and departments that organization challenges can arise. Some aligned ecommerce with technical teams or underneath marketing. Others operated ecommerce entirely on its own. The bottom line is, learning how to facilitate an omni-channel vision in part rests on the organization of a retailer's ecommerce department.

Multi-attribution. It continues to plague lots of folks in the ecommerce space and will probably still have them scratching their heads in 2012.

Social. Many have been driven into the social world by demand of consumers. Admittedly, most shared the idea that "Facebook Likes" -- the overwhelming elementary measure of success--was certainly fluffy and uncorrelated. Playing devil's advocate though, there are great examples of retailers that use the channel for engaging consumers.

Video. What's it worth, and how can it be effectively used? The jury is still out on that one.

Hiring eCommerce Talent. As one retailer put it, "We're at war to capture talent."

Check our roundtable schedule to see if we'll be coming to a city near you!

http://roundtable.igodigital.com/

The Stages Gem

Thursday, January 19, 2012 by Nathan Acuff

If you have a lot of data, eventually, you will probably want to do something with it. All data processing and analysis tasks start off with the best of intentions, but from the day a processing task is written, it begins to rot. These sorts of jobs tend to decay into unmaintainable slop at a rate even more quickly than normal code, and it's easy to see why:

They tend to not be mission critical
They tend to have little to no test coverage
They tend to be modified with a 'quick and dirty' mindset

In an effort to clean things up, iGoDigital has produced a gem to help us straighten out some of our own analysis tasks. Stages is designed to help you write simple, reusable stream processors and wire them together with intuitive syntax. It started as a straight implementation of Dave Thomas's code and has changed only a bit. We aim to turn this:

data_chunks.each |chunk|
  chunk_array = get_you_some_more_data
  chunk_array.map!{|x| format_for_client(x)}
  chunk_array.map!{|x| maybe_more_formatting(x)} if client.extra_work?
  chunk_array.each do |item|
    maybe_write_or_whatever(item)
  end
end

Into this:

get_chunks | fill_more_data | (client.extra_work? ? extra_format : format) | write

Stages lets you build a pipeline of Stage objects, which functions as a chain of iterators. The left hand side of a pipeline should output your source data. If you already have your source data as an enumerator, you can use the Each stage to feed it out. Otherwise, you will want to write a custom source Stage, which will override the process method, like this:

class Evens < Stage
  def process
    value = 0
    loop do
      output value
      value += 2
    end
  end
end

This will emit even numbers. Infinite loops like this one are perfectly fine, as long as you call output every once in a while.

Other stages will override the handle_value method, which handles a single input value and then calls output for the next stage. For convience, we have defined two general purpose processing stages, Map and Select. Both take blocks and do basically what you'd expect:

Evens.new | Map.new{|x| x * 2} # outputs 0 4 8 12 ...
Evens.new | Select.new{|x| x % 2 == 0} # outputs 0 4 8 12 ...

For most tasks, we recommend implementing your own stages, so that you can get more code reuse, but we have also provided a few more stages for common stream processing tasks:

Count will run its ancestor to exhaustion and produce a hash of {value => number of occurances}. Be careful using this when previous stages are not limited (like our Evens example).

Emit will simply emit the value it is initialized with once and only once, useful for testing and for wrapping sub-pipelines.

Each has several modes of operation. If it is initialized with a value, it will run the value through its block (if any), and then call .each on the result, outputting each value. If not, it will run its block (if any) on each input, and then call .each on the result. For example:

Each.new('foo'){|x| x.chars} # 'f' 'o' 'o'
Each.new(['foo', 'bar']) | Each.new{|x| x.chars} # 'f' 'o' 'o' 'b' 'a' 'r'

Wrap creates a sub-pipeline. Let's say you have some data which maps to a larger but related set, or you just want to keep a part of your pipeline isolated. Wrap will pass its inputs to the child pipeline and output, by default, a hash of {input_value => [pipeline results]}. If you prefer, you can just get the results as an array, or return each result (though in this case, the value of the wrap is limited). If you call wrap with :aggregated, it will assume that the sub pipeline aggregates on its own (for example, with the Count stage), and just use the first element in the results array.

Similar to, but even more confusing than Wrap are Restrict and Resume. These stages are roughly the equivalent to wrapping all the stages between them, but without the subpipeline semantics. Restrict holds a value and runs everything until it finds a resume, which aggregates the results, joins them to the held value, and then re-initializes all the stages between them.

A few examples using Wrap and Restrict/Resume are in the examples directory on our github repository.

That's Stages in a nutshell. Grab the gem (gem install stages), check it out on github, and let us know what you're doing with it!

Surprising Stats on Mobile Shopping

Monday, January 9, 2012 by Meghann York Meenan

Move over 18-24 year olds and your claims to technology fame! A report released last week from Stores says that the increase in mobile shopping this holiday season was not due to Gen Y’ers, as some would have thought. But instead the surge of mobile has come from customers 25-44.

Being right smack dab in the middle of this group, I know a thing or two about the people in it. We’re busy. Really busy. We’re managing careers, houses, family commitments and for the majority of us, kids. We’re likely not leisure shopping, but hitting your site or store with a purpose - a purpose that needs to fit into the 15 minutes we have between work and daycare pick up or the 30 minutes we have for “lunch.” Leisure shopping usually involves a phone, tablet or computer, our pajamas, a glass of wine and a comfy chair around 9 o’clock at night.

So, how can retailers better cater to this group of over-scheduled people and capitalize on their eagerness to mobile shop?

Know what they want and make it easy to buy from you.

Check out how product recommendations and guided selling tools can help you do that.

Product Detail Page Personalization Next Practice

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 by John Deines

The Product Detail Page is arguably the most important page during the shopping experience. It’s the point where a shopper gathers information on a product, begins deliberating a purchase and ultimately moves from a shopper to a customer. However, if that shopper does not feel comfortable with that particular product, how do you keep that customer from leaving and purchasing from a competitor?

Just like a seasoned sales associate in a boutique would, we must introduce relevant products with behavioral targeting that will match the true needs of the customer. By understanding why that customer is shopping your site, your website can create a one-to-one message that makes the experience more enjoyable and simple (while also increasing conversion rates).

So, how do you create a custom ecommerce solution? Let’s lay out four strategies, including one that can be done by an internal merchandising team (if you have the time and manpower). We’ll also lay out three strong, best and next practices for ecommerce personalization on your product detail page.

Manually Merchandised Product Recommendations:

The technique can be completed internally with a committed resource. By using basic internal purchasing patterns, internet merchandisers can plug in top sellers. This is a great start for online retailers wanting to begin introducing similar products. While the products will be stagnant and hard coded into the site, it will provide basic product recommendations that will create a small lift in conversion rates - and every little bit helps.

Strong Practice: Single, Personalized Cross Sell Application

This is where we make the leap from stagnant, hard coded recommendations to real-time personalization injected in the site experience based on that individual's preferences. As a shopper begins making clicks on your site, the recommendation engine develops a profile based on a number of different data collection points.

For the example below, Lids.com is recognizing two different shoppers, one being a customer that shops by style and the other being a customer that shops by team affinity. While a shopper may be looking at the exact same SKU, the product recommendations dynamically adjust based on his/her profile.

The user on the left is a style-based shopper with preferences in a flat billed, black and white colored hat with a slight team affinity towards the Indianapolis Colts. As you can see, these recommendations are adjusting based on weighting those different product attributes higher because of explicit behavior. The shopper on the right (same SKU) has a much greater interest in his team affinity than on style or color. For this end user, we are going to show similar hats with a much higher weighting towards the Indianapolis Colts. All this is done in real time, based on that shopper's interest during this particular shopping trip.

Best Practice: Multiple Scenarios

Part of developing a strong personalization strategy that is going to dramatically move the needle comes from understanding the true needs of an online shopper. For fashion, it starts with understanding that shopper’s size. Ever found a shirt or shoes that you couldn't live without but they didn’t have it in your size? The lesson here is to understand that shopper’s size and only recommend products that are going to fit his or her needs.

Shoes, like any online fashion, can be difficult to shop for online because customers can’t touch, feel and try on the products. It is important to begin collecting and understanding all these different fashion attributes such as size, color and fit. Then, take that information and make products available to the shopper that are going to engage, interest, and entice that customer to move further down that conversion funnel.

One tip is to provide that shopper with multiple options in two different scenarios. This will allow you to show very similar products, but also relevant products that are more long-tail and unique. It just may be that long-tail product that catches that consumer’s eye.

In the example below, the horizontal recommendation scenario is displaying those long-tail items, more unique options for that individual consumer. They are different brands than the featured item, with a slightly different look and feel – but still a boot that will provide the basic fundamental needs of that consumer. The vertical scenario (PEOPLE WHO VIEWED DR MARTENS DIEGO 7 TIE LACE TO TOE BOOT ALSO VIEWED) is displaying other Dr. Martens boots, as they have expressed a keen interest in this brand and style.

OnlineShoes Product Detail Page E-Commerce Personalization

Both are being displayed based on how that individual has shopped the site, but also combine the product attributes of the featured product to create an experience that engages that user to make a purchase during that particular session.

Next Practice: Interactive Product Recommendations

Shoppers want their voice to be heard – just think about how many reviews are written with no incentive. We believe that providing shoppers the option to provide feedback on our product recommendations makes the experience more engaging, but also more accurate. Reverting back to an in-store experience, if a shopper can tell an associate that she doesn't like this product (or that she already owns it), that associate is not going to recommend that product again. The same concept applies for your online shoppers.

Below is an example of how a customer can provide instant feedback on a product. By simply expressing whether they love it, own or hate it (or whatever you would prefer this language to be), a customer provides our personalization engine with immediate feedback, making the personalized product recommendations much more accurate and effective. - not to mention more profitable.

It is important to give your customer a voice, no matter which channel they are shopping through. Whether it be your online store or your brick-and-mortar locations, customers want their opinions to be heard so that the experience is catered to them, not the masses.

To sum up the article, why personalize your Product Detail Page:

One-to-One vs. One-to-Many
Make the experience enjoyable
Help the consumer find the product they desire
Guide the customer to additional up-sell products
Increase conversion rates

Follow me on Twitter @jmdeines and check out the hash tag #ecominnovation.

Quipol

iGoDigital White Board Session - "Why Personalize"

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 by John Deines

Conner Burt (@conburt) and John Deines (@jmdeines) discuss why personalization is vital for online retailers. In this first edition of the iGoDigital White Board Discussions, we identify the problem and propose a solution.

E-Commerce Personalization is the key topic of conversation in this week's discussion. In later episodes, we will be discussing:

Behavioral Targeting in Marketing Emails
Personalized Triggered Emails (ie Abandon Shopping Cart Triggers)
Creating a personalized website & mobile experience
Guided Selling Tools
And Much More

Thanks for tuning in!

Blending the multi-channel experience

Friday, December 16, 2011 by Conner Burt

We live in a world of multi-tasking.

Some (errantly) decide they can't focus on driving without reading texts or emails. Others try to have a conversation while checking their Facebook News Feed. At the end of the day, siloing our efforts towards one task is tough for our wired brains.

But I'm not going to debate our lack of focus (I'm in no position--I actually just tweeted).

Rather, I'm going to explore the junction of multi-tasking and multi-channel. My contention? Multi-channel is often thought as non-simultaneous. People use different channels to interact with brands--true. But what is oft forgotten is that they might even be interacting through multiple channels at the same time!

USA today published an article, "Customers may shop online while in-store," that got me thinking. As the article explains, the most innovative retailers are blending their multi-channel strategies.

As the article states "Most people don't solely shop online or only shop in a store. They pick and choose what fits their lifestyle....And all that matters is that consumers are engaging with the brand."

So if engagement is at the crux of a multichannel strategy, what does it take?

Go out on a limb and provide a unique browsing experience. The days of boring filters are over. Guide consumers toward the right products through interactive tools like Pitney Bowe's Solution Finder or Dell's TV Finder.

Get shoppers lost in browsing. If you're able to offer such compelling product assortments on the right pages, at the right time, shoppers will inevitably spend more time on your site. Every time they visit your site, a platform for a tailored experience should be in place. Consider the iGoDigital Customer Intelligence Engine.

Provide a good message at all digital touchpoints. Email must entice users to visit the site. Social Page browsing must gain insight into your shopper. Consider triggered emails or integrated guided selling tools to your social pages.

Obviously, a comprehensive multi-channel strategy involves much more than the aforementioned tips. But ask yourself, are product recommendations so compelling that shoppers are discovering new things? Do you have a unique way to browse that's, well ... fun? And is your messaging engaging enough at all digital touchpoints to re-engage shoppers after they've left or purchased?

I'd love to know what you think.

A Chat with Some Fellows...

Thursday, December 15, 2011 by Conner Burt

With innovative style and iGoDigital class, President and Founder Eric Tobias took some time Monday night to chat with the Indianapolis-rooted Orr Fellowship.

So what is the Orr Fellowship?

It's Match.com for top recent graduates and high-growth companies in Indianapolis. The mission is to keep the best and brightest graduates of Indiana colleges from darting to Chicago, NY, or the West Coast. iGoDigital has taken part in the program for 2 years now, and has two Orr Fellow-Alumni.

As a supporter of the program, Eric took some time to show us around the SpeakEasy, Indy's newest hot-spot for entrepreneurs who are looking for an exclusive, hip, and a bit quirky spot to be used as a common workplace or frequent work hideout.

Everyone left fired up--about entrepreneurship, about Indianapolis, and about innovation. Here's my stab at what he had to say (I'm paraphrasing and drawing from memory here)...

On The SpeakEasy: People growing a business quickly realize that a common workplace is hard to come by. There's a tipping point where everyone can't simply work at home, roam from coffee shop to coffee shop, and the like. The SpeakEasy gives those folks an option. It also will hopefully attract a diverse crowd of experienced veterans and young go-getters who can work in a cool environment and maybe learn a thing or two from each other.

On Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: At the end of the day, what I took away from Eric's chat is that starting a business has highs, and it has lows. Stepping back and finding the middle ground is what's hard, but absolutely imperative. The middle ground is where an entrepreneur must live.

On Company Culture: You've seen it all over the iGoDigital blog. We build our desks, we play music over the stereo, have chili cook-offs and baking contests, company meetings where we acknowledge the little things....the list goes on. It's a large piece of what fuels employees to wake up in the morning ready to do great work, and has been a huge part of the iGoDigital success in 2011.

Product Improvement/Innovation: A few folks asked, "How do you know a good idea when you see one?" Eric's focus, as well as that of iGoDigital, is around the customer. Before any idea can be validated, take it to the customer and ask questions. Learn from them. And most importantly, listen to their challenges and opportunities.

To stay innovative, it can take a lot of effort to detach yourself from a product or service. Always looking for new opportunities and listening to customer feedback will take you from follower to leader.

Check out more about the Speak Easy on twitter @thespeakeasy. Coming in January.

Retailer Priorities in 2012 - Survey Results

Thursday, December 15, 2011 by Rachel Modiano

I received the Shop.org SmartBrief Newsletter today with some great info on what areas are most important to retailers in 2012. Here is what you (the retail community) are most interested in implementing for 2012

What should online retailers' top priorities be for 2012?

53% Determining a mobile strategy

27% Improving the basics of their e-commerce sites

15% Expansion

8% Figuring out where they need to be with social commerce

What's the most exciting recent development in digital commerce?

73% Mobile opportunities

17% Daily deals

9% Digital wallets

3% Flash-sale sites

Where in the world should online retailers be expanding?

39% Asia

22% Europe

21% South America

12% Africa

9% Elsewhere

What is the biggest challenge right now in e-commerce?

34% Cross-channel integration

33% All of the above

12% Figuring out how to leverage social media

11% Reducing cart abandonment

7% None of the above

7% Learning how customers are using tablets and smartphones

iGoDigital has lots of resources to assist you with categories like mobile, cross-channel integration and reducing shopping cart abandonment. Visit our webiste at www.iGoDigital.com for more information.

Source: Shop.org SmartBrief Newletter: Issue December 15, 2011

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Increases by 30 Percent Over 2010, Reports iGoDigital

Thursday, December 1, 2011 by Meghann York Meenan

The U.S. online retail industry experienced strong growth on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2011 compared to the same period last year, according to data analytics from iGoDigital, the market and technology leader in personalized product recommendationsand guided selling tools. Representing sales activity for many of the top online retailers and many of the world’s most successful retail brands, iGoDigital customers experienced a 30 percent surge in revenueand traffic as 226 million Americans flocked to ecommerce sites and stores over the Thanksgiving weekend, capped off by Cyber Monday shopping.

“We are thrilled to see the growth of revenue and traffic across our client base, as it’s truly telling of both the strength of holiday shopping and our clients’ need in the marketplace,” said Eric Tobias, president, iGoDigital. “We see the early shopping surge as a key indicator of a bigger shopping season over 2010.”

“Additionally, the use of mobile devices and tablets has become the new differentiator in this year’s holiday shopping. With these devices, consumers are able to take advantage of deals, no matter where they are, what they’re doing or what day it is. - The key differentiator between the two shopping days is no longer “online” or “in-store” because shoppers are expecting and want to take advantage of a seamless shopping experience between both. The retailers who are recognizing this trend will definitely benefit this holiday season.”

As of Tuesday, November 29, iGoDigital’s analytics revealed the following trends:

Cyber Monday 2011 Compared to Cyber Monday 2010 (year/year)

Consumer Spending Increases: Online revenues were up an average of 17 percent
Cyber Monday Traffic, Revenue Increases:Web traffic increased by 12 percent and revenue for the day was up 17 percent
Apparel Sales Down From 2010:Sales of apparel goods were down from- Cyber Monday 2010 Sales, but apparel was up on Black Friday.

Black Friday 2011 Compared to Black Friday 2010 (year/year)

Consumer Spending Increases: Online revenues were up an average of 30 percent
Apparel Purchases Strong on Black Friday: Sales for apparel were up by 20 percent on Black Friday, whereas Cyber Monday apparel sales were down.
Season of Giving: Consumer sales of toys and gifts were up an average of nearly 30 percent.
Premium Is “In”: Consumer sales of premium items were up 50 percent
Mobile – The New Medium: 9.73% of consumers used a mobile device to make a purchase or visit retailers sites during the first hours of Black Friday shopping (4am-noon).

These data points were pulled from iGoDigital's Customer Intelligence Engine which serves as the platform for all iGoDigital tools. The platform analyzes individual shopper behavior, the wisdom of the crowds and individual product attributes to show the most relevant product recommendations, in real-time, to each shopper.

Shopper writes a letter, and sends it to Retail...

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 by Conner Burt

The Ballad of Shopping and Personalization (inspired by the Avett Brothers, "Ballad of Love and Hate"). A raft prepared for all the crazy retailers and shoppers this holiday season.

Shopper writes a letter, and sends it to retail..
Time's winding down, and I'm trying to shop...
My inbox is flooded with irrelevant squash.
I can't wait for YOU to learn more.

Retail reads the letter, and says I'll save the day.
"I'm dying to see relevancy," you say?
well why don't I store your profile while you're away,
Oh please will you visit again?

And so Shopper sings a song as she browses and buys.
On iGo Personalized sites, the emotions run high.
She's a happy shopper, all troubles aside,
How long, can this relationship last?

Retail keeps his head up as he tries to make due.
The tools he's got make shoppers feel blue
But a personalized experience isn't easy, thats true.
What a conundrum he's got on his hands?

Shopper's been waiting all patient and kind.
Just wanting an email, some hope or some sign,
That the one she relies on, who's out of his mind,
Will make the shopping experience great.

Retail stumbles forward and leans in the door.
Weary head hung, and eyes to the floor.
He says, "I'm Sorry," and she says "What for?"
Your time was wasted, I'm sorry.

Retail continues with a grin and a wink,
Your woes are no more..its a new way to think.

I should not have made you endure so long.
I'm now using iGo, that's it, forever.

--The Avett Brothers Inspired "Ballad of Shopper-Retailer."

How Retailers are Changing my Black Friday Shopping Plans

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by Kristy (Guthrie) Karpinski

While I believe I'm one of the most frugal, deal-minded shoppers I know, I'm no hard-core-Black-Friday-get-up-pre-dawn-for-$2-toasters type of shopper.

Typically, on Black Friday, I stroll out to a few places around 9-10 am to grab a couple of great deals that are still on the shelves, maybe get inspired by a few things at the craft store and do some people watching.

This year, though, stores have changed the game on me. Now, again, I won't get up at 4, 5 or even 6 am to get my piece of the 80% off bargains, but I do scope out what's available and I hope that something on my list will still be available when I arrive.

This year stores opened at midnight, some even at 10 pm, maybe even earlier!

From here out (assuming retailers continue these Thursday/midnight shenanigans), I'll be sitting down with my laptop at midnight after Thanksgiving (assuming I'm not in a food coma) to do some online shopping to get some of those fantastic deals. I believe that this customer experience will be far superior to that of getting out of bed far too early to stand in line in the cold.

iGo in my PJ's to the bus stop. . . to iGoDigital

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by Wendy Marks

“I go to the bus stop in my pajamas” to iGoDigital!

I got the call on a Thursday, “Can you start on Monday?” I went from being a stay-at-home mom, with a home-based business for 13 years to a full-time employee for iGoDigital. I was looking to “get back out there.” However, when it happened so quickly, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. No more pajamas at the bus stop and no more late morning walks with the dog.

As I walked into iGoDigital on Monday morning, I was nervous and excited. Within minutes I was putting together my own chair and had begun building my desk. I had been warned of this “initiation process,” but when I saw the boxes, I thought to myself, I hope I can do this! After completing my desk and chair as well as meeting so many great people, I knew I had chosen the right path.

After completing my first few weeks at iGoDigital, I can see why this is such a fast growing and successful company. I am definitely not a “techie,” but the product recommendations and guided selling is genius! These tools have made my life easier as a mom and small business owner. So nice to be a part of a company where I can stand 100% behind their service.

Lastly, the culture and employees of iGoDigital is exactly what they claim to be. Everyone truly values and respects one another. When asked by my fellow stay-at-home moms, how do I like my new job, my answer always is, “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to work with and a better company to stand behind, absolutely a dream to be a part of iGoDigital" (as corny as that may sound, it's true!).

5 Ways to Win Online Customers - 2011 Holiday Shopping Trends

Monday, November 28, 2011 by Rachel Modiano

iGoDigital was featured in this great article by Gwen Moran from Entrepreneur Magazine: 5 Ways to Win Online Customers.

1. Retarget browsers and abandoners with personalized e-mails and targeted display ads to prompt return visits.

2. Engage with customers via social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. This includes developing special offers and content for social media followers.

3. Add personalized product recommendations to your website, which can contribute 10 percent or more of total sales. Plug-ins like iGoDigital and 4-Tell can help you add these features to your site.

4. Support mobile shopping and browsing by making your website compatible with mobile browsers or by developing customized apps for customers.

5. Review and invest in web analytics to ensure that customers are able to navigate your site quickly and easily, and to see where they are spending time. Use this info to test changes and improvements.

Source: Entrepreneur Magazine: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220726

The Hits (to our servers) Keep On Coming this Cyber Monday

Monday, November 28, 2011 by Meghann York Meenan

At iGoDigital, Cyber Monday is a day to watch months of hard work result in success for our customers. Cyber Monday 2011 is proving to achieve that with iGoDigital customers, on average, boasting revenue increases of more than 30 percent over last year (higher than the industry average, I would add).

Early counts from Shop.org say that almost 50 percent of U.S. consumers will shop online today, and the iGoDigital servers continue to serve up record numbers of product recommendations.

What further trends will we see for this year's Cyber Monday shopping when it's all said and done? Stay tuned...

Houston, We Have a Pogo Stick: A Black Friday post-game analysis

Sunday, November 27, 2011 by Meghann York Meenan

I have always been one of the crazies - one of the people standing outside in the sometimes frigid Indiana November weather, waiting for the stores to open at 6 a.m. on Black Friday.

Last year, I got a little less crazy. 4 a.m.? Couldn’t do it. My little posse arrived at our normal time of 6 a.m., but it didn’t matter. The rush was still there. Long lines, fabulous deals. Feeling like you were part of something utterly ridiculous, but so much fun at the same time.

This year? That feeling was gone. The true Black Friday enthusiasts (which I formerly thought I was) got to the stores at midnight. By the time I arrived at 6, the energy of Black Friday was gone and all that was left were crabby sales people who had been there far too long already. No more women in lighted reindeer antler headbands. No more families with t-shirts proclaiming “Smith Family Black Friday Extravaganza 2011.” All of my former cohorts in crazy were probably back snug in their beds when I arrived at the mall, even though the sky still looked like night.

Although some of the fun might have been gone, the deals were not. Kudos to retailers for stocking the shelves to cater to all of us, no matter when we chose to shop. And although I was mildly sad to miss out on some of the tradition, I was thrilled with what I was able to bring home.

The aforementioned Pogo Stick that is the only thing my daughter has asked Santa to bring her? Check.

$270 worth of clothes for $150? Check. (Children’s Place, I love you)

Two portable DVD players for half the regular price (because every family needs a DVD player for each child). Check.

Those were just a few of the items that left me smiling, despite my exhaustion, after what was still a 13 hour shopping day (I may not be out at midnight, but I’m no slacker). And it looks like I’m not the only one revering her purchases today. CNN reports Black Friday sales hit a record 6.6% increase over last year – happy retailers and happy shoppers, and we haven’t even hit Cyber Monday!

So, it looks like the gamble some retailers took paid off. Midnight next year for me? Crazier things have happened…

Personalization the Key to Combatting Information Overload

Monday, November 21, 2011 by Meghann York Meenan

Consumers pay attention to only four out of the 3,000 messages they receive every day!

A study released today by Xerox says that personalization is the key to conquering the clutter and making yours one of those four.

Xerox surveyed more than 1,000 people in the study. 41 percent said they find information and offers related to their specific interests valuable in promotions they receive during the holiday season. And 45 percent of women said they are more likely to read communication that is related to their interests.

Xerox is playing up the importance of these findings for printed materials, but the implication for online personalization and the overall shopping experience is obvious.

Present shoppers with products and information related directly to their interests, wants and needs and they’re more likely to pay attention and purchase.

On the web, this personalization can come in the form of product recommendations based on the person’s purchase history, browsing history and the product attributes that are similar between the two.

These recommendations can also be injected into e-mail. So the next time a general marketing message is sent, information about that individual’s interests can be included as well. The overall marketing message still gets there, and the person is pulled into the content with personalization.

In both cases, iGoDigital's Customer Intelligence Engine houses all of the information retailers need to create these personal and meaningful shopping experiences that translate into greater revenue.

Behavioral Targeting Gives Your Loyal, Repeat Customers a Personalized Experience

Friday, November 18, 2011 by John Deines

It’s a fact: Increasing the lifetime value of each consumer increases profits. Lee Scott, CEO of Walmart, says, “It’s cheaper and more effective to make current customers more loyal than to spend money attracting new customers.”

Do you have the ecommerce tools to keep those loyal online customers happy and engaged?

If not, you're missing an opportunity to grow online sales. It’s that simple. Since Amazon continues to set the standard of ecommerce personalization, consumers demand that they receive that “special” treatment. This stems back to being treated like superiorly at your favorite store or restaurant - people like to feel important.

In this blog, I will showcase online behavioral targeting sound practices, best practices and next practices for personalizing a home page for that valuable repeat shopper.

The Sound Practice – Recently Viewed

A simple way to engage consumers that return to your site on a more regular basis is to remind them what they were shopping for in their previous sessions. For this example, I was shopping for my upcoming Thanksgiving / Fall party (don’t worry Dan, you’ll be invited) and had to run to a meeting. When I returned later, I was pleasantly surprised with all my items of interest waiting for me on the home page (Boxed in Green).

This online personalization technique gives consumers an opportunity to quickly find their items of interest, creating a better experience and improving the likelihood of conversions. By adding this simple functionality, retailers see a 5 to 7% click rate, and an engaged shopper is more likely to purchase than a more generic one.

The Best Practice – Recommendations Just For You

From my previous blog, Why Personalize Your Home Page to First Time Shoppers, we showed the Scholastic home page for first time consumers. It displayed two predictive messages, but for a repeat consumer we can up the ante and make highly relevant recommendations based on what we know about that individual (boxed in green).

Scholastic Home Page Product Recommendations

With a combination of "Recently Viewed" and "Recommendations Just For You," we can now introduce products based on online buying habits, utilizing behavioral targeting best practices. This advanced functionality will engage consumers at a more intimate level, enticing click rates between 6-9%. Again, this is a more engaged customer, which increases conversion rates and overall customer experience.

The Next Practice –Personalized Online Shopping

Providing exceptional customer service and a great shopping experience compels consumers to continue returning to their favorite traditional brick-and-mortar stores. So why not provide that same experience to your loyal online consumers? It’s a practice that online retail leader Amazon exercises, and we all have seen how that has helped increase online profits. By taking what we know about an individual, retailers have the ability to engage her with a completely personalized online shopping experience.

Direct Brands has created this experience for its most valuable customers (MVC). By understanding their view behaviors, book genres (product attributes) and purchase patterns, they provide their customers a “Recommendations Just For You Page.” As an overall statistic, these types of pages have proven to entice consumers to click at rates between 8-20%. These clicks ultimately lead to double digit increases in conversion rates, increasing the lifetime value of that individual consumer and total online sales.

Each of these practices has proven to increase web sales. At iGoDigital we understand that all of these solutions may not fit your online vision, but a personalized user experience is preferred by more than 62% of all shoppers. It is important to understand how consumers interact with your website, because they are giving clues to their true intent. Don’t be afraid to use this data, your consumers prefer it!