Making Sense of Online Shopping Malls

Cory Nielsen - Internet Marketing, Woodwind & BrasswindJacob Hawkins - SVP Online Marketing, Overstock.com

“Whoever said money can’t buy you happiness simply didn’t know where to go

shopping.”

- Bo Derek

Know the Players• Amazon.com• AOL inStore• Become.com• BizRate.com• Brilliant Shopper• Buy Safe Shopping• Cairo• CNET Shopper.com• Commission Junction• DealTime• eBay.com• Epinions• FindGift.com• Froogle

• LinkShare• MSN Shopping• mySimon.com• NexTag• PriceGrabber.com• Price Runner• SHOP.COM• ShopLocal• Shopping.com• ShopWiki• Shopzilla• Smarter.com• ViewScore• Yahoo! Shopping

Types of Players

• Comparison Shopping Engines

• Online Retailers

• Affiliate Partnerships

• Shopping Blogs & Wiki’s

• Local Shopping

“Each partnership will require a different relationship and integration strategy.”

Understand the Differences

What will it cost you?• Cost Per Click vs. Commission• Rate Card vs. Bid on CPC• Bid by Category vs. Bid by SKU

What factors play into your cost?• Syndication Partners• Internal Merchandising Rules• Marketing Strategy for Your Category• Local, International, Mobile

Understand the Differences (cont)

Other important considerations…• Will you have an Account Manager?• Do they have conversion tracking tools?• What additional marketing opportunities do they offer?• Do they have a “Featured Merchant” program?• Do they offer Customer Reviews / Rating systems?

“Taking these factors into consideration will help the overall success of your product syndication campaigns.”

The Key to Success

“Automate the process for your product feed to be syndicated to your partners.”

• Build vs. Buy

• Tracking & Reporting

• Tons of tools available...– Mercent Retail– Channel Intelligence

Optimization Process

Important considerations:1. Understand your audience

2. Clearly define your goal

3. Understand your options and limitations

“We pair marketing analysts with graphic designers for all of our marketing partnerships.”

Understand Your Audience

• Where are they coming from?• What are they looking for?• Why did they click the link they did?

o Special priceo Special promotiono Specific product or categoryo Trust your brand

“If visitors behave differently, then consider creating segmenting and optimizing for each group.”

Understand Your Goal

1. What are you trying to optimize?

• Conversion• Revenue • Profit• New customers• Lead generation• Downloads

2. Where should you start?

• Most potential for improvement

• Greatest volume

“Establish clear goals, set a plan to achieve those goals, and then meet as often as needed to follow up.

Understand Your Goal (cont.)

Other things to consider:• What steps must a visitor complete to achieve your goal? • What barriers exist for visitors to achieve your goal? • What happens to visitors who don’t achieve your goal?• How else can you “hook” visitors?

“You achieve your goals by meeting customer’s needs.

Make it as easy as possible for customers to succeed.”

Understand Your Options

• Some common things to optimize:– Advertising areas -- Landing pages– Advertising bids -- Categories promoted– Themes -- Your check-out process

• Understand business and technical limitations.

“Start with the areas that require the least amount of work and have the greatest potential for improvement.”

Q&A