Yet Another Reason Why CircularCentral Is Well Accepted By Consumers

Posted on 28 January 2010 by Patrick Flanagan 3 Comments

(3.00 out of 5)

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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.

How The ShopLocal Business As A Whole Is Continuing To Scale Up & Grow Out

Posted on 21 October 2009 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

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I’m not a big one to get all excited about stats.  I guess I know too much about how they can be manipulated by smart people.  However a recent pair of honest stats came through my inbox a few weeks ago and it sort of hit me.

For the a 12 month rolling period across all of sites that ShopLocal directly hosts, we recorded:

• 5,906,904,763 Page Views (yes, that’s in the billions & 18% YOY growth)
• 421,717,811 Visits (14% YOY growth)

And if we look at the forecast for total 2009 calendar year:

• 6,549,605,795 Page Views (again, in billions)

It’s pretty cool to tell your mom that you work at a place that has directly touched over 421 million people in one year.  We also helped these same 421 million people save a lot of money by equipping these shoppers with the best deals and offers at the most recognized and trusted retailers across the nation.

The real fun however is about to happen as the fourth quarter spike is just starting.  From total number of ads processed to the number API requests handled to the number of site visitors served, everything from this point on is on a steep rising graph.  The hockey stick type graph is a very real curve to our business, and one that we have grown to expect and enjoy each calendar year.  We’re ready but it is always still a fun ride riding this tidal wave of retail promotion and shoppers increased appetite for local deals.

Getting bigger is a fun and constant challenge. ShopLocal diligently monitors a host of factors such as capacity, utilization and throughput on many internal and external systems to ensure that the constant growth that we experience is meet with the exact amount of available resources.

One Reason Why CircularCentral Is A High Performing Application

Posted on 5 March 2009 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

(5.00 out of 5)

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Loch Rose, head of ShopLocal analytics, pulled the below report a while back when trying to access the effectiveness of CircularCentral, from a user engagement perspective.  There are a few core assumptions that are need to be laid out for this analysis to make sense.  They are:

• Site engagement is best measured by looking at the number of page views that a user generates within a given site visit.  So the more content they consume, they more engaged they are
• The below chart is only for multi-page visitors, who are those visitors that do NOT leave the CircularCentral site after only one (1) single page view.  So these are users that looked at least two pages
• Most new circular content from retailers is released on Sunday. So this is when the content is freshest and the consumer demand for this time sensitive information is highest

With all of that preamble, the results are in.  The below chart is real data from one representative live CircularCentral site.  Typically, when a site generates 20 pages views per visits, that is an amazing feat.  Below, 20 page views per visit is the low point each week, with a Sunday spike of over 70 page views per (multi-page) visit occurring.  I have never seen any other digital medium generate this sort of engagement (and corresponding display ad inventory).  Truly remarkable performance.

With over 70 page views per multi-page visitor within CircularCentral on Sundays, this level of site engagement is amazing