Wave: "tracking how people and brands use social media"

Building best-in-class eCommerce listings

Ed Bristow — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:56:21 +0000

Brands that create best-in-class eCommerce listings increase their online sales by ensuring that consumers are presented with rich, informative media at the point of purchase. Having consistently high quality product listings across sites guarantees that prospective customers are always presented with a brand's products in the best possible way.

In our most recent series of articles we have mapped out the steps brands must take to create a best-in-class eCommerce strategy on third party resellers’ sites. In this final article in the series we identify several examples of brands that have successfully maximised the potential of their listings by creating innovative, consistent and engaging product pages.

Example: By syndicating marketing material across sites Apple successfully creates consistently high quality content for consumers

When you look across iPhone 6 listings on major UK providers Vodafone, Three, EE and The Carphone Warehouse they all include the same Apple-produced marketing content in the descriptions that highlights the key benefits of the phone. This marketing content is exactly the same as found on the iPhone 6 page on Apple’s own site, meaning these listings on third party retailers are as close to Apple’s own standards as possible:

Example: LeapFrog successfully provide parents with additional marketing and product information on SKUs by ensuring they include informative video content

When looking at a range of LeapFrog product listings on major UK reseller sites such as Argos, John Lewis and Amazon LeapFrog ensure they provide browsing parents are provided with both marketing and demonstrative video content to help parents visualise the products and explain how they are used. This helps differentiate the brand, and gives unsure parents additional information when choosing products for their children:

EXAMPLE: Unlike rivals dog food brand Bakers helps drive repeat purchase on their listings

For dog food brands, loyalty and repeat purchase is a hugely important revenue stream. However, on Amazon several brands miss out on the opportunity to encourage repeat purchase by not providing a continuous subscription purchase option on the SKU. While brands like Bakers take advantage of the opportunity to encourage repeat purchases on Amazon by including a “Subscribe & Save option”, rival brands Wagg and Royal Canin only provide consumers with the option of one-off purchases, providing an unnecessary purchase barrier for potential regular customers:

Conclusion: By proactively pursuing the presentation opportunities available on reseller sites, brands like Apple, Leapfrog and Bakers ensure they are maximising their potential sales and making sure their products look better than rivals at the point of purchase.

If you would like to learn more about how WaveMetrix can help your brand begin to improve its third party eCommerce strategy and performance, please contact Ed.Bristow@WaveMetrix.com

Brands fail to integrate marketing campaigns with eCommerce strategy

Ed Bristow — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 16:45:49 +0000

Brands spend huge sums of money on complex, multi-media marketing campaigns, but then fail to integrate this material in their eCommerce strategy. Often brands do not ensure that wider marketing material is present across third party retail sites, meaning these expensive campaigns are not in front of consumers at the most important stage - the point of purchase.

Last we week we showed how some brands have yet to even confront the challenges involved in third party eCommerce, and this week we continue the series by examining brands who fail to go any further than just ensuring their products are listed.

While getting products listed and with the correct basic information is clearly an important first step, failing to ensure these listings resonate with wider marketing undermines these brands at the point of purchase.

EXAMPLE: Microsoft recently embarked on a major campaign across both off and on-line media highlighting the strengths of Cortana, its alternative to Apple’s Siri technology.

However, Microsoft's listing for the Lumia 635 on operator Vodafone.co.uk does not mention Cortana anywhere on the page at all – clearly undermining the company’s wider marketing efforts:

EXAMPLE: Burberry recently launched a major new campaign featuring Supermodels Jourdan Dunn and Naomi Campbell for their Spring/Summer 2015 ranges. This campaign was widely covered in the press and the campaign features extensively on Burberry’s own website:

However, when looking at Burberry brand stores on third party sites like Saks Fifth Avenue, Selfridges and Nordstrom – all of which are official resellers of Burberry items – none of these website storefronts feature this new campaign. As a result the marketing and PR effort that went into the campaign is seemingly wasted at the key point of purchase for consumers:

Conclusion: Although some brands are clearly proactive in improving how their products and brand appear on third party sites, they still fail to fully align content and presentation with wider marketing campaigns. This undermines the purpose of the original campaign, as money spent on developing and running these campaigns is simply not mirrored at the most important stage of a consumer purchase journey – the point of purchase.

If you would like to learn more about how WaveMetrix can help your brand begin to improve its third party eCommerce strategy and performance, please contact Ed.Bristow@WaveMetrix.com

Why consumers can’t find your brand home page on e-retailers

Owen Scarr — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 10:25:37 +0000

Brand concessions on third party retail sites are created to promote conversion by capturing consumers and streamlining their journey towards purchase. However, these pages are often difficult for consumers to find, meaning that they struggle to provide a good return on investment.

Last week we showed you how brand concessions can benefit your business. In this article, we show you four key areas that can maximise the potential of your brand pages:

Navigation: Check whether the site's navigation links take consumers to your brand page
Search: Ensure consumers end up at your brand home page when they search for your brand on the site
Listings: Make your product listings link to your brand home page
Other routes: Try to access your brand pages on e-retailers directly from search engines

Navigation: Check whether the site's navigation links take consumers to your brand page

E-retailer navigation links frequently take consumers to product listings rather than to brand home pages. Encouraging e-retailers to link to your brand home page using the site's navigation is the most important step towards flowing traffic to your brand home page.

In this example on Argos.co.uk, following the Oral B navigation link takes consumers to the Oral B homepage, while following the Panasonic link does not, even though Panasonic has an Argos home page.

Search: Ensure consumers end up at your brand home page when they search for your brand on the site

E-retailers should automatically redirect consumers to your brand home page when they search for your brand. If e-retailers will not redirect for you, providing a link on the search results page (see above) gives you the opportunity to send consumers in the right direction.

In this example, searching for Samsung on Amazon.com, the first entry provides a link to Samsung's Amazon brand page.

Listings: Make your product listings link to your brand home page

Consumers can find your product in a variety of ways and their journey may not take them via your page. If the consumer is not ready to buy your product, the last thing you want is for them to view a competitor product.

Here, Aussie link directly to their brand page on listings, getting the initiative back by making it easy for consumers to get to their brand page and find the right product for them.

Other routes: Try to access your brand pages on e-retailers directly from search engines

Finally, promoting your brand home pages on search engines can be beneficial. You get to direct consumers to your most engaging pages and the e-retailer gets to appear more prominently to consumers. SEO on your own site is important, but if consumers will choose a third party, make sure it is one that supports you and presents your products at their best.

WaveMetrix are industry experts in online insight and helping brands build a best-in-class approach to third party eCommerce measurement, strategy and analysis. If you want to understand the steps you can take to improve your eCommerce strategy get in touch with owen.scarr@wavemetrix.com.

Why outdated attitudes towards online sales are holding many brands back

Ed Bristow — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:53:26 +0000

Traditionalist attitudes towards third party e-retailers are causing many brands fall behind their competitors. By failing to actively monitor and police e-retailers, companies are allowing third party sites to present their brands and products poorly and make vital mistakes when listing products.

Last we week we showed the steps brands need to take to drive improvements in their channel partner eCommerce strategy, with the first step being to ensure traditionalists understand how important ensuring high quality brand and product presentation is and how it can have a direct positive impact on sales.

While many brands have performed in-store mystery shopping for years, most are still yet to even begin confronting how their products and brand are shown to consumers on third party sites. This means consumers are often presented with a huge array of errors and mistakes, with incorrect product names, wrong product images, wrong product information and incorrect branding amongst some of the most common errors.

EXAMPLE ERROR: A $999 Vizio 55 inch TV on Walmart has an Energy Guide as its first image that is presented to consumers, rather than pictures of the product

EXAMPLE ERROR: Some Bose products on Amazon do not include the registered trademark symbol, creating inconsistent brand presentation to consumers

Conclusion: The first step to driving improvement on online retailers is understanding that issues exist and action needs to be taken to combat them. The first step these companies need to take is to perform an initial audit across their online retaile partners' sites to understand where their biggest issues are and how they can fix them. From this starting point they can then begin to build a strategy to outperform and differentiate from the competition.

Next week we will analyse how brands can go from an initial audit to understand where they are, to ongoing monitoring and improvements on an international scale.

If you would like to learn more about WaveMetrix can help your brand begin to improve its third party eCommerce strategy and performance, please contact Ed.Bristow@WaveMetrix.com

5 reasons why you need a brand home page on your online retailers

Owen Scarr — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 11:37:00 +0000

Brand pages on online retailers provide a dedicated space for a brand and its products. In this short series of articles, we look at why these pages are an effective tool for driving conversion and how you can make the most out of your opportunities.

Brand pages can help you:

Capture consumers, focusing the purchase journey
Give your products the best possible presentation
Strengthen your brand
Sell your products as a collection
Promote your campaign messages

Capture consumers, focusing the purchase journey

On other pages your products are thrown in with the rest. By taking control with a brand page you can focus the consumer journey, showing your full range and giving consumers less opportunity to click away.

Give your products the best possible presentation

You’d love to make every product listing perfect in every way, but retailers force content into the same templates to make things as easy as possible for them. You’ve been developing rich, high quality content which does not fit neatly into structures developed (often several years ago) for simplicity. Your brand page lets you strut your stuff, just the way you like.

Strengthen your brand

You work hard to develop your brand image only to have it stripped away to fit in with sites’ inflexible templates. You are more than just a set of products, but on most online retailers that is how you appear. Brand pages give you a chance to communicate your values and show consumers how you see the world, rather than how the retailer does.

Sell your products as a collection

You don't get many chances to show off your whole range of products, including those which are more expensive or esoteric, but brand pages do just that. By letting consumers see what you really have available, you can help them find the best product (or set of products) for their needs, rather than being limited to what retailer ranking algorithms let you show them. Even better, you can make consumers aware that you operate in a broader market than they previously thought, opening them up to future purchases in one of your other lines.

Promote your campaign messages

You want to get the most out of every campaign you run. By having a customisable space on your brand page you can put your latest message on third party retail sites, close to the point of purchase. Unlike banner ads, these messages are in the centre of a consumers eyeline and are much less likely to be filtered out.

You should now have an understanding of how brand pages can be of benefit to you. Join us next week when we talk about maximising the benefit you get from your brand page.

With Super Bowl 2015 approaching, we investigate which advertising strategies worked best for movie studios last year

Owen Scarr — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:35:11 +0000

With a U.S audience of up to 110 million, the Super Bowl is the key date in every movie marketing calendar. However a prime spot can cost up to $4 million, is paying big worth it? What strategies can studios employ to promote their films? We take a look at last year to find out.

Super Bowl week marketing

The weekly lead-up to game day is filled with teasers and official releases

Tie-in commercials

Muppets Most Wanted sucessfully debuted a tie-in commercial for the Toyota Highlander. This was the most engaging pre-game movie content, gaining nearly 7M views

Super Bowl Spot Teasers

Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 released short teasers for their spots, generating nearly 3M views and 1.5M views respectively (the second and third most watched pre-game movie content)
A "tune-in" message from Aaron Paul debuted for Need For Speed, receiving nearly 1M views

Placing the Spot online

Noah's spot ranked 4th-highest, receiving ~900k views before the game
Sony released Super Bowl spots for Monuments Men and Pompeii. The ads failed to air during the game and had less than 100k views on YouTube
Despite the NFL tie-in, Draft Day's spot gained less than 250k views
3 Days to Kill's spot was barely noted with less than 100k views before kickoff

Saved some money — aired the spot before kickoff:

Airing your content before the game can have mixed results

Captain America: The Winter Solider aired its spot 18 minutes before the game producing a small spike in engagement. The spot directed users to Fox Sports which "exclusively" debuted the film's second trailer. It generated 2.5M views on gameday but only a small peak in Twitter discussion. One Direction's Louis Tomlinson tweeted about Captain America (see image below), generating far more awareness than the Super Bowl ad itself
Muppets Most Wanted's spot aired an hour before kickoff. It was the third most watched spot and the fifth most discussed moment on Twitter
Draft Day aired their ad 90 minutes before kickoff, resulting in the second worst social response (beaten only by 3 Days to Kill)

Spent big — aired during the game:

While you may feel the pinch financially, nothing creates social engagement like an in-game ad

Need for Speed was the first film spot during the game, airing 30 minutes after kickoff. It generated the third largest social response. The ad directed users to YouTube for an "extended look" trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 spot took prime position an 1hr 15mins into the game. This produced the second largest social response
Transformers: Age of Extinction won the day. It was the most-mentioned trailer and had the 3rd largest reaction among all brands

Waited until the game was over

Social engagement diminishes after full-time with users changing the channel

3 Days to Kill aired its spot 10mins after the game and produced the smallest social response of the movies analyzed

Tweets per minute

How brands allow e-retailers to lose them sales

Ed Bristow — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:58:18 +0000

Selling on third party sites is now commonplace, however, actively improving how a brand is presented to consumers has only recently become an important focus for many.

By understanding the steps that brands must take to maximise sales on e-retailers, you can plan exactly what you need to do to boost sales and differentiate yourselves.

Brands vary in how they currently approach third party eCommerce. Some businesses are already pro-actively rolling out strategies to ensure their brands and products look their best on e-retailers. However, others do not even know where or how their products are being sold online, meaning they are allowing rivals to stride ahead, as well as missing out on potential sales.

By mapping out where your brand is in its eCommerce journey, you can understand the steps still left to take to build a best-in-class eCommerce strategy.

The Retail Partner eCommerce Journey

In order for a brand to effectively build and execute a third party eCommerce strategy brands need to create a sustainable set of processes for improving and executing e-retailer strategy across every market and on every site.

Each week in the following articles we will be analysing each step of the process and the actions a brand can take to move forward from one step to another.

What automotive content generates the most views on YouTube?

Dan Cotton — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 10:09:33 +0000

Automotive brands should ensure they upload their TV adverts on YouTube, as these attract the most of views of all automotive content. Adverts drive six times more views than the next most viewed video type – lifestyle videos. Adverts also tend to have a long lifespan, meaning they can give brands continued exposure. In contrast, event-based content amasses views more quickly, indicating that these videos should be uploaded immediately to capture consumer interest in the moment.

WaveMetrix has analysed over 600 videos from a variety of automotive channels to understand what content resonates best and how the longevity of video content varies by type.

Adverts attract six times more views than the next most successful content for automotive brands

Average number of views per video (first 100 days)

Adverts are the best form of content: they generate more views on average than all the other video types combined
Lifestyle and motor shows form a second tier behind adverts, indicating these videos are a good way to vary content: lifestyle videos are the second most successful content, with Toyota UK’s series of videos showing a family enjoying activities such as fossil hunting, sea kayaking and gliding attracting consistently above-average views. Brands can also increase exposure by uploading videos from motor shows, although these videos need to be uploaded quickly to capitalise on consumer interest
Racing and how-to videos have less appeal, mostly engaging a niche audience: videos uploaded from races are only likely to interest hardcore racing fans. Furthermore, instructional how-to videos are targeted at owners of specific models, thereby limiting the potential audience

Automotive brands should upload event-based content quickly, as these videos have a shorter lifespan

% views amassed over time by video type (first 100 days)

Event-based content amass views quicker than other video types: Videos uploaded about races and motor shows generate a high proportion of their views in the first 50 days (73% and 67% respectively). This demonstrates that event-based content can drive ‘quick’ views, but that videos needs to be uploaded promptly to capture consumer interest
In contrast, adverts, lifestyle videos and how-to videos have a longer lifespan: these videos often only have half of their total views after 50 days, as they have a more enduring appeal beyond an individual event

Event-based adverts peak quicker than average and should be uploaded quickly to capitalise on consumer interest, demonstrated by Toyota’s Super Bowl adverts

Adverts: % views amassed over time (first 100 days)

Toyota’s Super Bowl 2014 adverts attract almost all views in the first two weeks, but fade quickly after: Toyota’s promotional tie-in with Muppets for the Super Bowl was highly engaging initially, but consumer interest waned as the hype around the event declined

WaveMetrix’s eView solution can help you understand what content resonates successfully and how you are discussed by third-party uploaders. For further information, please contact info@wavemetrix.com

Mining online consumer purchase narratives can uncover and demystify the consumer purchase journey

Jason Hardman — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

There are millions of comprehensive accounts online written by consumers detailing their purchase journeys, from why they started looking for a new product/service, up to what led them to their final purchase decision. By mining these accounts, brands can gain a detailed picture of the different steps in the consumer purchase journey. This is vital information: by understanding the purchase journey, brands can align their marketing with the process to maximise their chances of selling.

The importance of understanding the consumer purchase journey is well understood. However, building up a picture of this journey is very difficult, with traditional research methods time consuming and expensive. With the wealth of first-hand detail available online about the purchase process, online consumer posts offer an amazing opportunity to easily understand and take action on this process.

As we saw in our previous article on granularity (part of the ‘social insight iceberg’ series) the best way for extracting all the insight from unstructured conversations online is through utilising human analysis. Human analysts are able to understand and deconstruct the discussions consumers have about their purchase journeys online. This enables a complete and detailed picture of purchase to be built, giving brands the ability to tailor their sales and marketing strategies.

Only human analysts can identify and tag different stages of the purchase journey from online conversation:

Human analysts have the capabilities to understand and identify stages in the purchase process from online posts: when reading purchase accounts, human analysts are able to identify and tag the different stages in the consumer purchase journey into a taxonomy. This builds a picture up of the purchase process

Example human tagging from a written account of a purchase journey for a washing machine:

When these details are collated across thousands of posts, brands can get a detailed understanding of the purchase process to tailor their marketing strategies and tactics:

Example of what the consumer purchase journey for a washing machine can look like based on human analysis:

Because each stage has been identified by human analysts and tagged into a taxonomy, a detailed and clear process can be built up based on online discussion
Human analysis provides a consistent view of the purchase journey across different segments, markets and languages. Human analysts are able to tag different posts into the same taxonomy
This process can be expressed in stages to aide brands tailor their marketing strategies, by providing a simple view for brands to pick key areas where they should tailor their marketing for maximum effectiveness

This is the third in a series of articles exploring the insights researchers are currently missing out on that can be gained from social media research. For more information, please contact Jason Hardman.

Going granular: human analysis gives detail automated tools can't

Jason Hardman — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 15:38:08 +0000

One of the biggest complaints we hear about automated tools is their lack of detail. They simply aren’t able to give the insight researchers need to answer burning business questions. However, consumer posts online are filled with opinions that provide the detail needed to help businesses. By using human analysts to extract granular detail at the individual opinion level, WaveMetrix's pioneering approach overcomes this problem and gives researchers insight that makes a difference.

We frequently hear of the shortfalls of automated tools in giving granular details. Because their algorithms look at consumer posts on an overall level, they are unable to truly tell you what consumers are talking about and what they think.

This lack of detail is frustrating and a key part of the social insight iceberg automated tools miss. You know that the conversations being made online are detailed. It’s this detail that provides actionable insight and meets your business' needs.

WaveMetrix’s pioneering approach enables us to extract unprecedented detail. By using humans to read and tag conversations into a comprehensive and detailed categorsiation scheme, vital insight can be gleaned into what consumers really think. Researchers are finally able to utilise the conversations consumers have online to understand what consumer attitudes of specific, individual topics and understand their perceptions in-depth - rather than the generalisations automated tools make.

Automated tools run algorithms across a whole post, missing the nuances of human conversations:

Because automated tools use algorithms to analyse online posts, they miss the vast majority of detail contained within them and only look at a generic, overall level - not the individual opinions
This means sentiment is often be classified as neutral, when this is simply not the case. If a post has both positive and negative phrases, a tool may class it as neutral
This also means automated tools are unable to classify posts into a detailed taxonomy, instead giving a generic view in to what consumers are talking about

Example coding of a smartphone review by an automated tool:

It's all about individual opinions - by having humans tag granular topics and sentiment based on individual opinions within a post, all the insight can be extracted:

Individual opinions: human analysts are able to interpret online posts at the individual opinion level, meaning that all the information contained within can be extracted
Understanding all the topics in a post: humans are able to understand that a post may reference several different aspects of a topic and tag accordingly in a detailed categorisation scheme. This means a detailed picture can be built

Example coding of a smartphone review by human analysts:

The human approach pioneered by WaveMetrix means a detailed taxonomy can be built, with data lending itself to easy interpretation and understanding:

Example data based on coding consumer opinions of a coffee machine:

WaveMetrix's coding of invidividual opinions into a comprehensive categorisation scheme means that a detailed picture can be built up of consumer opinion, allowing for every single facet of a topic to be deep-dived to extract all relevant business insights

This is the second in a series of articles exploring the insights researchers are currently missing out on from social media research. For more information, please contact Jason Hardman.