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.
So here is a very interesting data point, from one recent Pointroll campaign that had part of the ad impressions benefiting from Yahoo! BT data and the other part of the impressions did not include any BT data.
BT enabled Pointroll ads had a 41% overall higher interaction rate than non-BT enabled Pointroll ads.
Same creative. Same publisher. Same timeframe. Basically as many other variables were held constant between the two groups except the inclusion of BT data within the test group. Sure, its not airtight statistically sound case due to the single campaign data point, but its very indicative of other similar campaign results the team has seen when comparing BT enabled ad results with those that did not receive any additional insights from BT data.
The important point to take away is BT works. By using user level “hints” to better select what creative, copy and content elements should be inserted into the ad units, BT enabled ads are just more relevant and personalized to the user. Therefore its no surprise that these more personalized ads receive more interest as expressed in either interactions or clicks.
If we look at click-thru rates as another meaningful measure, BT enabled Pointroll ads had a 73.5% overall higher click-thru rate than non-BT enabled Pointroll ads.
A classic question that retailers often ask ShopLocal employees recently re-surfaced. “What’s the value to upgrading to ShopLocal’s latest and greatest circular platform (called SmartCircular 4.1)?”
The answer is simple. Across the board lifts on nearly every success metric such as on average page views went up 15% and 45% increase in the direct interaction of shoppers with the content.
For four (4) recent real retailers (their names have been removed to protect their identity, but are super big name retailers that everyone would recognize) that have choose to make this upgrade, here are the actual percentage % lifts that this site upgrade delivered:
Click the image to view the full size version of the table.
NOTE: User interest equates to detail views + adds to shopping lists + buy online clicks
For each retailer, here are the most noteworthy results that shown in the above table:
- Retailer A: Helping get their shoppers to go deeper with specific products and view an item detail page (+459%) and overall getting those same shoppers to be more engaged with the advertising content overall (+39%)
- Retailer B: Making the in-store printable shopping list a more useful and easy-to-use pre-shopping tool (+206%) and overall getting those same shoppers to be more engaged with the advertising content overall (+68%)
- Retailer C: Providing a better way for their shoppers to browse the weekly ad in circular page modes (+17%) and bringing to the center and increasing the usage of the most powerful ROBO shopper indicator of intent – the shopping list (+33%)
- Retailer D: Getting their users to stay and engage with more of the overall weekly ad site (+80%) and bringing to the center and increasing the usage of the most powerful ROBO shopper indicator of intent – the shopping list (+38%)
Shopper, the top selling iPhone shopping assistant from ReachEverywhere, has launched a successful integration of all of the localized on-sale content (e.g., retailer circular data) that ShopLocal has to offer. At its core, the Shopper iPhone app is a shopping list management tool – and ReachEverywhere has incorporated ShopLocal’s local circular content across the retailer’s consumer know and trust to aid the app users in their decision making process in a seamless user interface.
Here is a snippet of the release notes that detail the ShopLocal content integration:
“Shopper is now integrated with the weekly flyers from Target, K Mart, Meijer, Babies R Us, Walgreens, Home Depot, and literally over 100 of your favorite stores (see What’s new for a complete list of stores available). You keep your shopping lists as you always have, and Shopper shows you the relevant specials from stores around you. No more flipping thru stacks of flyers on Sunday morning – saving you time and money!”
And here is what the trade publication the Progressive Grocer had to say about the app with the addition of weekly ad specials:
“Our research indicates busy consumers want to quickly pull relevant money-saving specials on what they intend to purchase rather than sift through catalogs of unrelated products from the newspaper and mail every week,” said Sean Flynn, CEO of ReachEverywhere. “This is just another step in our mission to help save shoppers time and money, and we have more coming soon.”
This is the company that is behind the 'Shopper' app
In addition to the ShopLocal circular content, the app has Guiding Stars Nutritional information on select products, allows real-time list syncing between users (send your significant other to the store with an always updated list!), coordinates multiple store lists, and keeps a running total of the amount you intend to spend.
To ensure the circular content’s relevance, the Shopper app uses the existing shopping list items as search terms to query the Shoplocal Cross-Retailer API (SCRAPI) – only returning retailer specials that are targeted to the purchase intent of today’s store visit. It’s another great example of what a creative partner can come up with using ShopLocal content.
If you have $0.99 cents to spare, its a great ap that is worthwhile to check out. Hey, you may even end up using it to help buy your groceries.
ReachEverywhere’s insight that people already have their shopping lists built before searching for weekly specials is unique. In fact, one could envision the Shopper app becoming a sort of search engine for in-store deals on the iPhone, which would create a lead generation machine for brands and retailers. For instance, if the Diaper category is a destination and basket size driver for a store- they could ensure Shopper users who intend to purchase Diapers see their circular sourced, in-store specials by sponsoring that category in the app.
The app is firmly centered around the concept of a shopping list
ShopLocal weeekly ad data shows up in all sorts of places within this app, usually under the title of "My Flyers+"
With the inclusion of the weekly ad deals across retailers, ReachEverywhere was able to increase their rankings within the iTunes app store Lifestyles category to the #7 most popular paid app, an increase of over 10 spots at the time of the release of the version of the app that contained the ShopLocal content (since then, they have fallen to #35 currently).
The ShopLocal Retail Index was up 23 percent for the month of November compared to the same period last year. The Index registered at 764 (benchmarked at 100 for January 2006), setting an all-time record.
Retailers generated this strong growth by launching their holiday promotions earlier in November, offering 16% more deals than last year in their online circulars during the first 23 days of November, and accurately predicting consumers’ desire to plan their holiday shopping early. Even though 50% of holiday shoppers plan to spend less this year than last, retailers were able to generate a 0.9% increase in sales on Black Friday and Saturday. As shoppers look more and more to the web for information to guide them in planning their in-store shopping – Google reports a 20% increase in searches for Black Friday and a 50% increase in searches for Black Friday ads – retailers are using the online circulars to reach more shoppers and reach them earlier.
November 2009 ShopLocal Index highlights include:
- The ShopLocal Index is up 23 percent in November year-over-year, with 1,029 million page views (adjusted), versus 863 million last year. This marks the first time that ShopLocal has served more than 1 billion page views in a single month.
- The Other (Specialty) segment led the way with 85 percent growth, followed closely by the Home & Garden segment with 78 percent growth, and by the Consumer Electronics & Office Supplies segment with 60 percent growth.
- The Department Stores and Mass Merchandiser segment showed the least growth, unchanged from a year ago.
- Consumer page views per visit on a per retailer basis averaged 14.4 for the month of November, up 7% from a year ago.
The ShopLocal Index is the advertising industry’s first market indicator designed to track the influence of the Internet on in-store shopping. Updated monthly, the Index is based on the online activity of more than 25 million monthly consumer visits to in-store local promotions that are presented on the sites of more than 50 major U.S. retailers, including JCPenney, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens and Home Depot. These retailers cover all major retail segments including computers, consumer electronics, office supplies, home improvement, department stores, mass merchants, grocery, drug and various specialty stores. The retailers’ online circular sites are powered by ShopLocal’s SmartCircular technology.
(4.00 out of 5)
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