Within ShopLocal’s SmartCircular suite of solutions, there are two main options that retail advertisers pick from. A more simple SmartCircular 2.0 site or a more engaging and feature rich SmartCircular 4.1 site.
Coming soon to clients that are currently using the SmartCircular 2.0 solution for their weekly ads is a entirely rebuilt from the ground up animated page turning component. With this new Adobe Flex/Flash based animated circular page turning component (that internally here at ShopLocal is called the hybrid movie), the following are some of the key benefits that this new release delivers on (in no particular order):
- Deep integration into ShopLocal’s publisher ad server (DFP) so that those retailers that choose to deploy display ads around the content within their circular site, every possible page view generated by users can now have a banner ad served, thereby maximizing revenue generation
- Much improved web analytic integration and event queuing/firing mechanisms which will have higher accuracy in some fringe use cases
- New smart page slider bar with visual look ahead and progress bar meter. Also this page slider bar dynamically appears below really long circular pages to help with vertical page scroll usability issues
- Re-worked back end data integration so that the robust SDAPI is now powering the animated page turning experience
- Rollover impression tracking is enabled automatically and will aide wisdom of the crowds accuracy rates
- Reduced ongoing maintenance costs for both ShopLocal and the retailer
- Quicker time to market for any new features that either ShopLocal or the retailer wants to deploy
For a look at one of first clients to have this deployed to, check out Big 5 Sporting Goods SmartCircular 2.0 site
Here is the front cover of a circular being displayed within the updated animated page turning component. Notice the enhanced UI of the page turning component and the addition of a page slider bar.
Here is a spread or two page view with the page slider visual look ahead feature engaged. This will allow users to get a better idea of what is contained within an specific page without first having to actual turn there.
Over at Zip2Save, a recently launched local deal finding site, the early signs of a partnership between LocalPoint Media and Suburban Newspapers of America (Zip2Save’s two parent companies that jointly control it) and ShopLocal are now visible.
Currently the Target weekly ad that ShopLocal provides services for is being pulled into Zip2Save’s site via ShopLocal’s SmartDelivery API (SDAPI). Metroland (a Canadian firm that is wholly owned by Torstar) is the technology provider behind Zip2Save that did the Target weekly ad integration, which appears to have ported out their publishing platform that Metroland Media Group uses to power Flyerland.ca, a Canadian focused weekly ad, deals and coupon site.
The current Target circular presentation and user experience is very basic, with only page views. So no browse by brand, category or keywords. No hotspots, rollovers or item detail pages. Just circular page flipping / viewing at this time.
The ShopLocal team is hopeful that both Target will see success with this content integration and that Zip2Save will continue to iterate and improve the weekly ad browsing experience to make it more rich, robust and engaging.
As a side note, ShopLocal is also powering the Lowe’s circular that is shown within Zip2Save via an iFrame integration to a ShopLocal hosted Lowe’s SmartCircular site.
So a few weeks ago within ShopLocal.com, a key switch was made to the method that most users of the site browse the weekly ads. The traditional HTML powered weekly ad experience was replaced with a CircularCentral powered experience. Whenever a drastic change is made to a core feature of a web site, there is always some real risk associated with user adoption and usage.
Here is the new CircularCentral based weekly ad viewer that is front and center within ShopLocal.com
Well the votes are in. Users are making their voices heard loud in clear, in terms of page views per visit (which is really a measure of content consumption). On average over a 25 day period (1/1/2010 – 1/25/2010), the users of the new CircularCentral weekly ad experience showed a lift of 160% in the number of pages views per visit.
Wow. For a publisher site (such as ShopLocal.com) that means real money. Every time a publisher can increase the number of page views that users create, that in turns creates more display ad inventory. Even if the inventory becomes remnant and monetized via ad network backfill, this is extra money in the pocket of the publisher (be it at a lower CPM that direct sold inventory).
And from a user perspective, it’s a win as well. Essentially what this change in weekly ad viewers did was to tear down barriers so as to make viewing and interacting with the weekly ads easier, faster and an overall richer user experience. Those are qualities that users will always reward you for, typically in terms of using and engaging with your product more.
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
The results are so clear - uses interact and consume more content within the new CircularCentral view - at an increased rate of 160%
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
Meijer is pushing the envelope again (Wal-Mart watch out). Instead of being content to only show it’s online visitors the 300 or so circular advertised sale items, they are now exposing nearly every price markdown (both permanent and temporary) within their online weekly ad site. This equates to for the store I am looking at currently an additional 5,045 items. Wow. That’s a serious shot of sale content for shoppers.
This additional sale content is completely store centric (so single store level versioning) and gets refreshed on a daily basis. All of this content is currently only available by either keyword search or browse by categories. The presentation of this content is not ideal, but has continued to steadily improve over the last month on a regular basis. The biggest three issues that the teams at both companies continue to work through are missing images, no browse by brand inclusion and how to adjust the site navigation and browse tools to better help users sift through this large chunk of content.
However even with these short term improvement areas, this IS the future of internet distributed, store based promotions. Let me say it another way. Meijer is thinking long term when there may not be a weekly circular. They are looking to change the game of not being print circular reliant as the only advertising vehicle that can promote what is on sale at a local store. Or at very least, this approach breaks a few major issues of being tied to print only promotions such as:
- Being able to make price changes at any time
- Being able to add or remove promoted items based upon local store inventory changes
- Being able to promote a much deeper and wider set of products than the typical 24 page, 200 item weekly ad contains
- Being able to update any part of a specific deal at any point in time
All of the content that appears with the "price drop" image are the non-circular sourced items.
Thanks to Getting Finances Done for writing a nice blog article about one of the best price comparison websites (if we do say so ourselves), www.ShopLocal.com.
Getting Finances Done says that they use ShopLocal.com to browse through the actual circulars page by page or search by item. “I use ShopLocal very frequently for items that I don’t want to pay shipping on or that I want right away. I will also buy locally vs online when I want the option of returning the item to the store if I have problems or aren’t satisfied,” says the author.
They also created a basic video with audio commentary explaining how they use ShopLocal.com. Thanks again to Getting Finances Done for the post about ShopLocal.com.
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