I recently wrote a blog post about Pinterest and The Fancy, and the potential impact they could have within an eCommerce search context.  It’s highly likely that the ‘idea’ people at Google happened across my blog post and were inspired, because of a recent Google search I made for the phrase ‘awesome shoes’ (my previously awesome shoes have lost some of their awesome-ness over time…).

Google Integrates 'The Fancy' in Search Results

I was fairly surprised when I found (at the very top of my search results!) a widget of sorts, displaying images (relevant to my search terms) from ‘The Fancy’. A quick check verified that I was logged in to my ‘Fancy’ account, and I’m guessing they’ve formed a pretty tight partnership recently. I’ve done some preliminary searching but haven’t dug up any details on any partnership yet.

But why push ‘Fancied’ images to the very top (the most expensive for advertisers) of my search results?  It can’t be just for the images – I’ve had Google Images included in my search results for some time now.  I’m confident that Google has a much larger index of images than ‘The Fancy’ possibly could…

A little background on The Fancy – the site is being called everything from ‘the potential Amazon of Social eCommerce’ to ‘Groupon in reverse’.  I was amazed at the amount of eCommerce integration they have already built into the website.  The ‘reverse Groupon’ description is somewhat accurate, as The Fancy allows retailers to offer deals based on trends in ‘Fancied’ items.  This is indeed the reverse of the ‘Groupon trend’ we’ve all become familiar with.  A deal offered on Groupon will often result in an offering becoming sensationally popular or a short time (‘trending’, in the parlance of our times).

In the constant quest for search result relevancy- a task which machines have done a mediocre job at traditionally- Google seems to be relying on social and human indicators increasingly.  My search request for ‘awesome shoes’  was much more likely to be satisfied by people tagging products with the phrase than a machine, which relies on parsing/matching/heuristic patterns.

When I started working with Endeca (a search engine which powers largest eCommerce websites, which Thanx provides a SAAS version of) I had some trouble understanding what made the platform so important to an eCommerce website.  Why not just use SQL Server and index the heck out of your tables?  How could it possibly compete with Google’s (a name synonymous with search…) enterprise/eCommerce offering?  As I began to learn more about the merchandising and configuration options available, the answer occurred to me.

The Endeca platform offers the eTailer control over how to present their data.  There are two things you know more about than anyone else: your products and your customers.  You need to be able to offer alternatives (using merchandising rules) and set relevancy ranking (via search configuration) in order to present the customer with relevant and actionable search results.

Google revolutionized search engine technology.  Their algorithms do an incredible job of delivering relevant results based on data they know very little about to the most diverse end user base in existence.  As the owner of an eCommerce website you can use a platform like Endeca to customize, shape, mold, and tailor search results in order to maximize relevancy for your end user.  Your end user’s experience on your website is one of the largest factors of conversion, so tailoring the search experience to deliver options your end users want or need is critical to your business.  Please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have.  We love helping our partners build a customer experience that is exceptional (I’d probably say awesome…).

Question: A keyword search for the term “Back pack” returns 28 results. A keyword search for the term “Backpack” returns 56. Why are the results sets so different?

Explanation: The following is an explanation from the Oracle/Endeca documentation on Stemming:

The Endeca Stemming implementation does not include decompounding. Decompounding is the ability to decompose a compound word (such as kindergarten) into its single word components (“kinder” and “garten”) and then find occurrences based on the smaller words.

To make the two searches return equivalent results, a 2-way thesaurus entry should be created between the phrase ‘back pack’ and word ‘backpack’.

Recently I was browsing the BusinessWeek.com website and came across an interesting article about the website BuzzFeed. What I found so interesting about the article was how Matt Stopera, a senior editor, stumbled upon a huge hit by doing something that seems so simple. What he did was go out and gather images from around the web and attach clever and funny captions to them. His first hit was “48 Pictures That Perfectly Capture the ‘90’s”. What were the pictures of? Urkel playing basketball with Will Smith, Arsenio Hall grinning at Bill Clinton, a Spice Girl at a computer and other memorable individuals that filled the airwaves and pop culture from the 1990’s in appropriate attire and scope. He’s followed it up with other hits such as: “40 Things That Will Make you Feel Old”, and “the 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011” and the hits have kept coming. Seems, simple, but people ate it up and kept coming back to see what else Stopera and the rest of the BuzzFeed team would come up with, because it was a one-stop place for entertainment. This got me to thinking about my own experiences and how through the years my family, friends and I have been drawn to one-stop places or items that made our life more enjoying and entertaining; and on a business front, it made me think about our own product, blosm.

When I look at how people, myself included, used to collect and gather information it amazes me how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. I remember, even ten years ago, my parents used to order and have three newspapers delivered to their doorstep every morning. They used to have to call me to find out where I was and what I was doing. Most intrusive, they had to pry as hard as they could to find out about my relationships and who I was dating. Today, they get their newspapers and magazines delivered straight to their iPad, can follow my location on FourSquare, know what I’m doing via Twitter, and lastly search through pictures of my wife and me on Facebook. All of our lives have been simplified through data and information gathering. Instead of going out to 4, 5 or even 6 sources, we can now have those sources, plus more, delivered to us in one central location. Even better, our business lives are starting to catch up to our personal lives.

Before BuzzFeed ventured into pictorial satire, they were an aggregator of upward-trending news articles. In other words, they would go out, determine which stories were most likely to deliver an impact and present them to visitors of their site, increasing return visits, clicks and average time-on-site. While their algorithm is proprietary and unique, the concept is relatively common. What’s not common, however, is a business gathering tool that can be used to go out and gather product information and bring it back, which is exactly what our blosm solution does. Instead of going out and getting pictures or news articles manually or through an algorithm, blosm will go out and gather information on specified SKUs and content automatically, and deliver them back in an easy to interpret and work-with form. This allows companies to on-board more products faster, while also reducing overhead costs traditionally spent on large teams of employees or off-shore third parties.

There are many things that excite me about the time period we live in, but one of the more impressive is the ability to view, sort through and digest information from multiple sources all from one central location. I know that technology will keep advancing; I just hope it doesn’t go too far, because despite how many times I roll my eyes, I still enjoy some nagging from my parents no matter how old I get.

I’ve been using Pinterest for a while now, and been loving it.  If you don’t know about it yet, it’s a social application which allows you to ‘Pin’ any image from any website.  It’s also set the record as the fastest growing social media site thus far (in terms of user adoption).

This will have an enormous impact on eCommerce in terms of merchandising.  Once the api for Pinterest (and the many inevitable clones) is made available to developers, the possibilities for user relevant merchandising become huge.

You could show:

• Recently ‘Pinned’ products on your home page
• An item ‘Pinned’ by a celebrity
• A logged in user’s friend’s recent ‘Pins’
• Or – ‘Pinned’ items in the same category as a keyword search

Pinterest has the potential to become the largest centralized repository for product reviews, merchandising info, trending data, product recommendations, etc.  Data from this context is relevant and actionable.

TheFancy is one of the more popular Pinterest-esque apps thats popped up recently.  I gave it a try and really liked it (though I’m still not certain why I’d use it over Pinterest).  There will certainly be similar apps popping up as adoption increases.

An example of TheFancy’s widget, configured to look like a familiar eCommerce merchandising block (this pulls images tagged by myself for my TheFancy account).

Unrelated note, my birthday is less than a month away…

Today I would like to introduce you to our latest partner, MediaBank.

If you saw our latest newsletter, you may already be familiar with MediaBank and their digital trading desk platform, M|Buys, but for those of you who didn’t or have asked for more information, I’d like to take this time to expound upon it and discuss what MediaBank does, as well as how they fit into the fold.

From a high level, M|Buys utilizes powerful data and technology to simplify the digital media buying process and deliver better results. For those of you that buy online media today, this platform offers unprecedented scale, transparency, and insight that simply isn’t available through some of the more traditional buying channels like display ad networks and exchanges.  Simply put, the platform uses data to eliminate wasteful spending in real-time while you manage your campaigns through one, central performance dashboard.

Who is MediaBank?

With over 25 years of experience in the media buying industry, MediaBank is an industry leader committed to combining the latest technologies and media applications for enhanced functionality. MediaBank has been and remains at the forefront of the move to electronic media procurement and management, offering leading-edge industry tools that streamline purchasing and allow for advanced analytics. MediaBank is part of the LightBank family of companies, located here in Chicago.  Their other ventures include Innerworkings (INWK), Echo Global Logistics (ECHO), Groupon(GRPN), Sprout Social, and many more.

How Does it Work?

Through the use of powerful proprietary bidding engines, the platform allows media buyers to efficiently plan, buy, and optimize digital media without the need for multiple point systems and without managing dozens or even hundreds of publisher relationships and their sales representatives.  M|Buys’ solution simplifies and centralizes your digital media, reducing your relationship to just one vendor.

Optimized media means you spend less and get more with the same dollars, not the other way around. Benefits of this programmatic approach to media buying include more customers, more impressions, more conversions, more sales, and most importantly, more free time to focus on core business activities.

Simple and effective regardless of the digital media type, the M|Buy Platform will deliver the same powerful tools and expertise leveraged by the world’s largest advertising agencies and advertisers.

Tell Me More!

Efficiency – Real-time bidding across the major digital exchanges ensures the right price, for the right audience, at the right time.

Massive Reach – 12 billion + (and growing) available impressions across 94% of the available inventory across the internet (including premium display, mobile and video inventory).  Multiple campaigns, billions of impressions, across multiple exchanges, in one central location.

Targeting & Data – Use 1^st party audience data and 3^rd party contextual data to hyper-target your desired, highest value audience(s).

MediaBank Doesn’t Own Inventory – Because they don’t pre-buy or have quotas to fill, you’re guaranteed the best, unbiased buying experience.  Real-time bidding ensures you buy only the impressions that are most valuable to you.

Advanced Audience Profile – MediaBank’s proprietary technology helps you understand who is visiting your site, who is converting and what your highest value customers look like.  Using this gathered data allows you to more effectively reach targeted audience segments.

Reporting & Transparency – Comprehensive audience-based reporting to help you understand campaign performance (who is clicking, converting, etc.).  Site-level transparency allows MediaBank to block unwanted sites/channels and unlike ad networks, provide deep insight into site-specific performance.

Managed Services Team – With your relationship you will be granted access to a dedicated team of account management and digital yield/optimization specialists to help plan, buy, and optimize campaigns for accelerated results.  Regular client updates, business reviews, and weekly office hours add the powerful support and expertise needed to win, expand, and grow your business one campaign at a time.

I Need to See it In Action!

If you would like to see a demonstration or get even more information on this technology, call us at (630) 469-2929 or send an e-mail to sales@thanxmedia.com and one of our representatives will schedule some time with you.

I recently began reading Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity by the ‘smartest guy in the room when it comes to online marketing’, Avinash Kaushik (author, Occam’s Razor; Analytics Evangelist, Google; CEO, Market Motive).  The rock star of the web analytics circles, Kaushik goes from the basics (a great back-to-basics for the advanced web analysts) to applying advanced analytical techniques.  An outstanding read at any level.

The book is phenomenal- but what really stands out to me is how Kaushik encourages his readers to not be intimidated by the data and all of the features the various analytical tools provide, but to rediscover some of your most basic metrics and determine how they are related.  He encourages you to ask yourself the questions:

• How many visitors are coming to my site?
  • Look at the overall picture – throughout the year, do you see traffic increases or decreases.  Are there any patterns that jump out?

• Where are the visitors on my site coming from?
  • Are they coming from paid advertising? Direct referrals (links from other sites)? Organic searches on search engines?  Pay attention to the searches they are making

• What should those visitors do once they are here?
  • What is the reason for your website’s existence?  Do you want to help DIY auto enthusiasts find the car parts they are looking for?  Help someone bake the perfect cookie?  Help audiophiles find the speakers they need?

• What are people actually doing once they are here?
  • Now is when the analytics (real-time, recent-time, and historic) come into play.  Look at the landing pages most often accessed, the top exit pages, most often searched terms on your internal search…  You’ll begin to see trends and how best to capitalize on them.

For example – does an ‘after-market Toyota Camry parts’ landing page on your site see a significant amount of traffic?  Are those visitors then leveraging your internal site search to find ‘Duraflex Universal Bomber Wing Spoilers’? After finding no search results (because you only carry Carbon Creations…), are they exiting the site without buying anything?  Your instinct is right- offer a page with alternative (‘Better than Duraflex!’) products similar to the ones they were looking for.

In the end, all those metrics and charts, dashboards and KPIs, trends and goals are really there for is to enable you.  They give you an understanding of your visitors, their motivations, and their frustrations.  This insight allows you to provide a better experience and ultimately gain a happy customer.

The back-to-basics aside, I’m hoping you’ve all had a chance to play with the Google Analytics Real-Time view now available (below video is the Overview).  Be aware though- it’s addictive.

Let me start by saying, I am extremely excited for this new opportunity and really looking forward to working with all of you on a daily basis; as well as being a part of a growing industry and a rapidly expanding company.  I’m proud to report that over the last year, the Thanx Media team has grown by 8 people, not including myself, while continuing to add to the customer base.  Within the short time that I have been here, I have had the pleasure of getting to know the entire team and want to express how proud I am to be working with a group of extremely talented professionals.  In order to accomplish the goals I have set forth for myself in 2012, I will be looking to incorporate my 23 years of retail and operations experience into the Thanx Media culture and help guide the ship.

My main duties will be: manage the sales process, ensure we are meeting our project management objectives, SaaS operations and customer care.  Although they’re all important, it’s the last duty I want to touch on today.  My goal is and always has been to delight customers.  I want to emphasize the word “delight” and not use the word “satisfy”.  It’s easy to satisfy; I can shop on any website or walk into any brick and mortar store to buy something and be satisfied with my experience.  Does that mean I’ll go back?  Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.  But if I was delighted with my experience and it was memorable?  You bet I’ll be back!  Many companies set out to just satisfy their customers, for me that’s never been good enough.  From my own professional experiences where I was required to make important and tough decisions, I always found myself asking the same question, “Is this decision in the best interest of our customers?”  Here at Thanx Media, I plan on bringing this same unwavering customer focus to our already strong foundation.  My team and I expect to delight our customers!

2011 has been a strong year for Thanx Media and as we grow our technologies and our team, I look forward to bringing a different level of expertise to the table and help create an even better 2012!  From me and the entire Thanx Media family, Happy Holidays to all of you and may the rest of 2011 bring much success.

Reading the news about early holiday shopping has been incredibly exciting over the last few weeks.  The good news started when the first Thanksgiving Day sales numbers were first being reported.  According to Internet Retailer and several other sources, roughly $500 million worth of products were purchased online, a 39% increase over last year.  Keeping in mind that most of these stores weren’t even open, this half a billion dollars is all unearned revenue without an online presence.  Another piece of information about the Thanksgiving Day numbers that I personally found incredibly telling was that just over 11% of purchases occurred on mobile sites, compared to about 6.3% last year.  This shows that a mobile site is no longer a ‘nice addition’, but rather a necessity.  Those stores that had a customer friendly, easy to navigate site, plus were able to offer promotions and sales in the times before and after families ate, definitely had an incredible advantage over their competitors who either had an unfriendly site or weren’t able to offer their prospects any experience at all.

Real-time sales figures from Thanksgiving Day

Black Friday has typically been a day when relatives (as mine do) or friends (as mine do) leave for stores before dawn and shop till they drop.  However, more people decided to forgo the crowds and testosterone this year, adopting instead to stay in and make their purchases from home.  According to this Mashable article quoting a study completed by IBM, online sales were up 24% this year compared to last, while almost 10% were completed from mobile devices.  Again, these are huge numbers, likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars reaped by companies that were prepared for the influx in online consumers.

Once Sunday rolled around and the food had finally been digested and the dishes were cleaned, it was time to look at some of the hard numbers that were coming in.  Some of the important ones reported by the National Retail Federation: $400.00- average amount spent per consumer for the whole weekend (average amongst 3,800 consumers asked to take part in survey), $150.00- average amount of the $400.00 total that was spent online, 42.2M consumers shopped online and $1.3B was sold online between Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.  Knowing this, I couldn’t wait to get into the office Monday and see what sales were going to look like.

Last year Cyber Monday produced a hair over $1B in online sales, but it didn’t have nearly the four day run up that this year’s Thanksgiving weekend provided.  I was interested to see if stores had offered better promotions during the weekend and how this would affect Cyber Monday, known as the online Black Friday.  Were the numbers going to reflect the increases from the weekend or were people shopped out after the long weekend?  To little surprise and lots of excitement, the numbers impressed even the most optimistic.  Most believed this year would see about the same numbers as last year, but when the numbers came out that sales were closer to $1.3B or 130% of last year’s number, it was truly stunning:

Year-by-year review of Cyber Monday sales

All told, the weekend produced over $2.5B in total sales!  For those of you, like me, who purchased something online between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, congratulations, we’re in the record books.  Same time next year?

Every year you ask yourself the same question: what can I do this year, to be better than last year?  This question takes on a new level of seriousness around this time of year with the craziness of the holidays, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and site lock downs, plus the end of the fiscal year.  Thinking ahead and offering your visitors a more complete shopping experience during the holiday season means more revenue than last year, but also more satisfied customers who will return again and again, outside holiday shopping.

So, how CAN you be better?

While it may be your bread and butter, user experience and higher satisfaction doesn’t start with your homepage, but rather with the data and product intelligence that makes up the building blocks, or ingredients, for your bread and butter.  Having great data, data that offers insights that your competitors can’t even dream of offering is what will allow your site to be better this year.  Thanx Media’s blosm technology is a cutting edge approach that reduces the cost of compiling and integrating essential data that is currently entered by in-house teams or off-shore third parties. This helps boost organic and ‘off-the-street’ traffic by offering your team  extra time to focus on more knowledge tasks such as blogs, in-depth pictures (from different angles or environments not currently shown), reviews, web videos and everything else that has become necessary to score well in SEO.  Another advantage that customers report is the ability to add extra content, whether it be more products or data, without having to add additional employees.

Once you have complete and unique data throughout your website, it’s time to address visitor’s ability to find the product they’re looking for.  According to industry research, one of the strongest search and navigation solutions on the market is Endeca.  As a partner of Endeca, Thanx Media has the distinction of being able to offer Endeca On-Demand, which offers the same powerful technology, but as a SaaS model.  Using the thesaurus, search ahead and auto-correction technologies it’s easy to get to the right category pages.  Once in the neighborhood, it’s easy to drill down to the specific product with navigation bars such as department, price and brand drop downs.  Or, if you have certain items that will be particularly hot or want to push higher margin products, Endeca’s versatile technology will allow you to quickly create custom landing pages.

With most sites going into a freeze at the end of October, now is the time to act.

For more information on the blosm technology, Please watch our recent webinar HERE

For more information on the Endeca On-Demand solution, please click HERE