Using smart analytics to improve revenue and profit margin from your sale flyers or catalogs
Analytics start with collecting data
To be able to improve solutions, you first need to know how those solutions perform in practice. In a digital sale flyers or catalog made by TurnPages, it is possible to register customer's micro-interactions. The resulting data contain all detailed micro-events such as customers turning the page or clicking on a hotspot.
By collecting micro-events, it is possible to know exactly:
- Which pages were viewed
- How long and how often individual pages were viewed
- On which products the customers clicked
- For which products the customers clicked to go to the webshop
- Which Cross-Sell and Deep-Sell articles were viewed
- For which Cross-Sell and Deep-Sell articles customers clicked to go to the webshop
The extent to which micro-interactions are collected is adjustable. This is important because these settings have to be in accordance with the privacy statement and GDPR regulations. It is also possible to use the webshop's privacy cookie settings to automatically select the right settings for data collection in the digital sale flyers or catalog.
Collecting and analyzing data can be done for different reasons. In the next paragraphs, the most common objectives for collecting data from digital sale flyers and catalogs will be explained.
Objective: Improving the experience
Usability and experience design target the optimization of both usability and the emotional experience of a software solution such as a sale flyers or catalog. For example, if it isn't easy to browse through a sale flyer (usability) or the sale flyer itself doesn't appeal to the customer (experience), the customer will exit the sale flyer sooner.
The two main methods we use to increase usability and experience with micro interactions are (1) using base line measurements and (2) using A-B testing.
For base line measurements, the average customer behavior is determined based on existing data. Two examples are: (1) How much of the sale flyers do customers view per device before they leave and (2) what is the percentage of hotspots that customers click on (on average)?
The analysis identifies any outliers outside of the existing baseline measurement (a.o. with SPC analysis techniques). This data can be used to diagnose the outliers and finding solutions for problems causing the outliers.
A-B testing can be used to do reproducible experiments with two versions of a digital sale flyer. The goal is to find significant improvements. Using A-B testing, you could for example compare two different layouts for the same flyer. Half of your customers would see one version, and the other half of your customers would see another version. Through analysis of the micro-interactions, it can be determined which version fulfills your goals better. A valid outcome could also be that there are no significant differences, meaning that the different versions performed more or less similar.
Objective: Increasing revenue
The most important factor that determines the sales from a digital sale flyer or catalog, is the content. Do the products and prizes match customers' needs and expectations? In order to find out their needs and expectations, it is essential to measure which products from the flyer/catalog are viewed, ordered and payed for.
TurnPages technology supports the forwarding of customer behavior data to your own analytics environment. Additionally, it enables tracking codes, which can be sent from the sale flyer/catalog to the webshop. This makes it possible to analyse the realized sales from the digital sale flyers or catalog, the same way you would analyse your sales from your webshop.
Because the data also contains information on how often and how long a product was viewed, and where the product was placed in the sale flyer, it is possible to to a deeper analysis. You could measure if the prizes were correct, and if an article was placed in the right spot. For example, if an article was viewed very often, but bought relatively little, that could be an indication that the customer can find the article cheaper somewhere else.
Or the other way around, if an article, which is placed in the middle of the sale flyer is barely viewed, but bought relatively often by its viewers, it could be profitable to place that article more to the front of the sale flyer next time.
Objective: Increasing the profit margin
Traditionally, a sale flyers is used to get people to visit a physical store. The sale flyer mostly contains discounts, which means the profit margin on the advertised articles is relatively low. Of course, the idea is that customers will also buy other products from the store, which increases the total profit margin.
As such, a digital sale flyers should also lead to more sales of webshop products that aren't featured.
Whereas a printed paper sale flyer can only show the discounted products, the digital sale flyers can do more. If a customer clicks on a product, a Product Overlay can be shown. This product overlay does not only show more information about the featured product, but also shows Cross-Sell or Deep-Sell products related to the featured product.
Next, if a customer clicks on a Cross-Sell or Deep-Sell product, that product will be shown as the main product in the Product Overlay. The customer can then be tempted to put these products in their cart as well. Because these Cross-Sell or Deep-Sell products are usually not discounted, this will increase the profit margin of the digital sale flyer.
TurnPages technology also supports measuring micro-interactions in the Product Overlay:
- Which Cross-Sells and Deep-Sells were viewed?
- When were these viewed?
- How long have they been viewed?
- Which products were put in the cart?
- Which products have been checked out and payed for?
By measuring and systematically analyzing this data, the sale flyer's profit margin can be further optimized.
A-B Testing
As described above, A-B testing can be used to increase the usability and the experience of a digital sale flyer.
Of course, A-B testing can also be used to vary the content of a sale flyer, and measure the effects on the revenue and profit margins. In that case, two versions of a digital sale flyer are placed online at the same time.
The two versions can vary in different ways:
- Offer different products
- Place products differently
- Target different audiences
One half of the visitors would then be shown the A-version, and the other half would be shown the B-version. Afterwards, the data is analysed to see if statistical significant differences between the two versions are present. This works best for larger groups of visitors, and when there is a clear correlation between the variation and the effect.
A-B tests can also have the outcome that there is no measurable differences between the two versions, meaning that the different versions performed more or less similar.
Campaign tracking
Larger webshops generally have a workflow for periodic analytics reports. For example, produce a weekly report on which advertisements have been shown on which channels (costs), and to which sales (proceeds) these adds have lead.
Within TurnPages technology, (adjustable) tracking has been built in. When a customer opens a sale flyer or catalog from, for example, an e-mail, a banner, or from an affiliate website, tracking tags can be passed on.
Subsequently, these tracking tags are passed on to the webshop when a visitor clicks on a product in the sale flyer or catalog and then ends up in the webshop. By doing so, when the customer pays for a product, the proceeds can be linked to a specific advertisement source.
Additionally, these tracking codes can also be sent to the analytics environment, together with the micro-interaction data. By receiving this data in your own analytics environment, it can be incorporated in your periodic webshop reports.
TurnPages offers smart analytics options for your digital sale flyer or catalog
This page gives an overview of the most common ways to use the smart analytics options in TurnPages solutions. Each individual situation, however, can differ. Beside standard solutions, TurnPages has extensive expertise and experience to create solutions that are optimally adjusted to your situation.
If you want to know more about our standard solutions, or if you want to discuss your specific situations, please get in touch with us.
Next page: Expanding your online magazine, sale flyer or catalog
It is possible to expand your digital magazine, sale flyer or catalog with extra components and extensions. Examples are social media buttons, media players and forms.