ShopLocal is proud to welcome GNC as our newest SmartCircular client. So take a moment and check out their new local ad site. We are thrilled to have them on board and the core operation pieces up and running.
Built upon the core SmartCircular 2.0 platform, this site features some nice browse by category and brand expandable accordion menus in the left hand nav.
So two big improvements rolled out last week for a number of our SmartCircular Grocery clients that integrate 3rd party display ads in and around their weekly ad sites.
1. For the SuperValu SmartCircular sites that ShopLocal operates, display ads have now been integrated within the HTML / low bandwidth version so as to maximize display ad revenue generation. In the words of our forefathers, “let no page view go un-monetized”.
So a single leaderboard ad unit has been added within the header area of all of the HTML versions of the SuperValu SmartCircular sites.
2. For the Ahold SmartCircular sites that ShopLocal operates, an enhancement was made that finally maximizes the amount of revenue that can be generated via display ads on the site. The prior issue that this adjustment solves is that all of the page views that occurred within the browse by page modes only got one (1) single ad impression served regardless of the number of page views generated. This was roughly a 10:1 ratio. Ten page views generated, one ad served overall. Now however, this ratio is exactly equal, in that every page view now is getting an ad impression served. 10:10 is where we are.
By tightening up the integration between the flash page turning component and the publisher ad server, many more ad impressions can be delivered per user session.
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.
Constant improvement is a mantra here at ShopLocal. To that end, the team knew there was room for improvement in our popularity ranking algorithm that we call “Wisdom of the Crowds” (WoC).
The current system for determining product popularity only counted those products that a shopper specifically clicked on. There are a number of product level clicks that are counted in terms of a shopper expressing interest such as a product detail page, a buy online click or an add to a shopping list click (which are cumulatively called Expressions of Interest). Not any more. The ShopLocal team has begun collecting and counting another key piece of consumer interest data – product rollovers.
By factoring in both product rollover data AND expression of interest data, the overall Wisdom of the Crowds ranking data is all the richer and accurate. This process of collecting and using rollover data for SmartCircular sites is underway and will complete over the next month or so for all clients, SC sites and versions of SmartCircular.
At a macro level, what we have learned so far about rollover data is:
- Rollovers are on average about 5x as common as Expressions Of Interest. This means by adding them to the Wisdom of the Crowds calculation, the overall popularity ranking data should become much more accurate and more truly reflect actual consumer interest.
- Rollover usage varies significantly by retailer. No surprise given all the variation in UI/UX out there within weekly ad sites. Also some sites don’t even use rollovers. Or on other sites, the rollovers are down played. In any case, we are now tracking them all so as to extract the most useful and complete set of consumer interest data as possible.
Illustrated here is a specific product level rollover that has been triggered by a user rolling over a predefined hotspot region that is overlaid on top of the circular page view images. When talking about rollover tracking, what is actual being tracked is the number of times, for a specific product, a rollover is triggered and left open for at least 2 seconds. If it meets that criteria, it would be counted as one (1) rollover for the product.
Here is a quick snapshot of some early returns from a 6 day sample set of data across 20 retailers:
- # of total product level exposures: 1,006,078,269
- # of total product rollovers: 25,620,887
- # of total product specific indicators of interests expressed: 4,532,430
- Overall ratio of interest divided by rollovers: 18%
- Rollover trigger rate (of overall total product exposure) : 2.55%
- Interest trigger rate (of overall total product exposure): 0.45%
- Total CTR (rollovers + interest): 3.00%
UPDATE 1/21: The ShopLocal analyst team just today cranked out a nice little additional stat on this topic that is worth sharing. The correlation of interest/exposure ranks compared to the rollover/exposure ranks, on average overall is 0.6636 Meaning that rollovers are for most sites a good measure of interest. Maybe think of it this way. This correlation helps prove that the items a user rolls over are likely the very ones that they end up taking other subsequent action at a later point in their site visit.
Meeting shoppers right where they are. This principle is at the core of ShopLocal’s latest product innovation – the Weekly Ad Facebook App.
Instead of always trying to push and pull user to a specific destination site (e.g., retailer.com), smart retailer today are building out rich and inviting socially enabled experiences within the areas of the web that users spend most of their time within – namely portals and social sites.
Since Facebook is clearly the largest social site in the world with over 350 active users (see the rest of their insane stats below), making sure any given retailer’s brand is well represented within this massive ecosystem is now becoming a requirement.
- 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- More than 35 million users update their status each day
- More than 55 million status updates posted each day
- More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
- More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
- More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
- Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
- The US represents about 30% of total users
So why add weekly ad content (or any other store promotional or deal content for that matter) to a Facebook fan page? The answer is simple. To attract and retain “fans”, retailers must meet the needs of these shoppers. One of these key needs is to get something in return for their action of becoming a retailer’s “fan”. Namely deals, discounts and coupons. There is a certain social contract at play and it needs to be upheld. The weekly ad is a great source of localized promotions and deals that exactly meets the expectation that fans have.
“When a 1,000 “connected consumers” where surveyed in late 2009 about their digital habits and attitudes towards social media marketing, they found that promotions and discounts were primary drivers of “friending” a brand for over a third of social networking users” – recent Razorfish study
So what makes up ShopLocal’s Weekly Ad Facebook App anyways? Here are a few of the key features:
- Integration of common social Facebook features such as:
- Ability to browse localized weekly ad content by both categories and brands and sort the results of these by:
- Popularity
- Item Title
- Sale End Date
- Price
- Rich metrics of all of the user actions
- Multi-channel capabilities that enable retailers to drive traffic either back to their regular weekly ad site and/or retailer.com site
- Geo-target user location identification process that seamlessly determines the user’s nearest store location. It also offers the user a method for changing their system-derived location to a new one at any time
- View an item detail layer complete with the option to view a larger item image
Important Note: This finished, private Facebook app was not paid, approved or directed by Kohl’s. Rather Kohl’s circular content was merely selected to build and test around by the ShopLocal product development team due to its representative nature. This weekly ad Facebook app demo is just so be an example of what is possible for any given retailer. If you would like access to this private beta, all you need to do is simply become “my friend” on Facebook and I will set you up so that you can view this amazing demo app.
This is the "splash" page where the entire weekly ad experience begins. Facebook currently has a really dumb policy in place that prohibits a Flash movie from auto-running. Instead they force a rule that requires that the user to click to activate the flash experience. So this is the ONLY reason why this splash page exists.
Once the user clears the initial hurdle of activating the flash movie, the weekly ad experience comes to life. Right now, the beta app starts with all users viewing the most popular products overall, across all brands and categories.
If a user wants to more details on specific offer, a simple item detail screen is shown which allows the user to potentially buy the item online (at retailer.com), share the item as a link post with their Facebook friends or post a comment. In this case, the user is attempting to leave a comment on a specific item.
Since this user has never interacted with the weekly ad app before, there is a required and Facebook controlled popup that the user must grant the weekly ad app access to some of the personal information. This is a very standard popup that happens in nearly all Facebook apps. But all the same, it is hurdle #2 that Facebook forces us all to jump over.
Once the user has granted the weekly ad app access to their profile information, the comment can be posted. Notice for example the thumbnail image of the user now appears vs. the anonymous user image.
As a nice little feature, within the item detail area for an item, a larger image view is easily accessible.
As an alternate to browsing by category (which is the default method), the user can also choose to browse by brands at any time.
If a user decides that they want to share a specific item of interest as a "link" with their Facebook friends, they can very easily do so from within the weekly ad app. They can even write a comment to help provide some context of why they are sharing this "link".
And finally, here is how a "link" that is shared appears on the user's own wall. This is the #1 action that can cause viral spread of a weekly ad offer, since now all of the user's friends are now going to see this story within their news feed and be able to like, comment and re-share it.
(4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
(4.50 out of 5)
Comments: None