Data Drives Rebranding Effort for Ecommerce Site

Marketing is not an exact science. Despite our experience and great instincts, some things just don’t work. We need to be prepared to make adjustments and try something new. Fortunately, for one ecommerce client, we have data to help us make informed business decisions.

We optimized his website a year ago. We did keyword research, then updated every product description, caption and alt tag field using these keywords. 

Google Analytics reports and competitor research helped us decide to rebrand

The data from Google Analytics (GA), the web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic, has helped us make an important business decision to rebrand. We’re moving away from our current sustainable, organic ethos and stepping up  to a more dramatic, sophisticated approach to the way we present our entire product line. 

Project plan includes updating website and entire photo inventory

Our project plan includes photo editing our entire inventory and updating our website with a new color palette. We’ll need to revise our social sites and our MailChimp template to showcase our new focus. 

We plan to be more aggressively using our social channels, tracking our efforts and learning from them. We will be creating personas--our ideal clients—what they look like and how they spend money. Our project plan includes Facebook advertising (PPC), which we’ll manage closely. We may ultimately reach a completely new audience, including commercial rather than just our current residential clients. 

Google Analytics rolled out in 2005, and it keeps getting better 

The information that GA delivers in real time is critical for companies that want to measure the effects of their marketing campaigns. Our report tells us our visitors are coming mostly from Google, how long they’re staying on each page and what paths they’re taking through the site.

The good news and the bad

•       Our bounce rate is fairly good—under 50%, which means that our users are staying on the site for up to two minutes before “bouncing” off.
•       Users are drilling down through several layers of pages on the site.
•       Despite the growing use of mobile, the majority of our visitors are coming from desktop computers.
•       Even with increased traffic, most of our users are new—not return visitors. Not good--we all want to be building a community around our products and services. 

Courting returning online shoppers to create community 

Shoppers know that we rarely buy on the first pass. We visit, then look around to see what the competitors are offering. We may/not return to purchase that original item. But if we like that site, we bookmark it and return. We want to court that shopper. 

Google Analytics: A free tool to help track your digital marketing effectiveness

Think of your website as command central. Social posts, email blasts and other activity should drive users back to your site. Your website, then, measures the effectiveness of all of your digital campaigns that promote your products/services.

Do you need help using Google Analytics to evaluate your marketing efforts? Let’s talk! Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.

German Regulators Outlaw Facebook’s Ad Business

Things keep getting worse for Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s lucrative advertising model ($1B/quarter) relies on tracking its 1 billion users across the online space. Facebook collects data about where we shop and what we buy. But now Germany has outlawed Facebook ads.

Privacy advocates argue that Facebook isn’t transparent enough about what it does with the data.

Germany’s antitrust regulator has ruled that Facebook is exploiting consumers

In an important move that has implications for Facebook ad users worldwide, Germany agrees. Its antitrust regulator, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), has ruled that Facebook is exploiting consumers by requiring them to agree to the current data collection practice as part of having a Facebook account. It has now prohibited the practice going forward.

“Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts,” FCO president Andreas Mundt said in a statement.

Consumer “consent” is a misrepresentation

Lina Khan, Columbia Law School antitrust expert, believes that authorities haven’t done a good job of articulating why privacy is an antitrust issue. But the German regulator clarifies it. They believe that Facebook’s dominance is what allows it to impose contractual terms on users that require them to allow Facebook to track them.

The harm to users is the loss of control

“When there is a lack of competition, accepting terms of service isn’t truly “consenting”. Users are not presented with choices. They either accept the data collection or stop using Facebook.According to German regulators, the harm to Facebook’s users is the “loss of control.”

With an 80% market share, Facebook dominates the social space in Germany

Facebook had 32M monthly active users in Germany at the end of 2018, a market share of more than 80%. “As a dominant company, Facebook is subject to special obligations under competition law. Facebook users cannot switch to other social networks,” said Mundt.

Privacy and competition are intertwined

The ruling makes clear that privacy and competition are inextricably intertwined. If Facebook loses, Germany will become a test case in whether the surveillance economy is fundamental to the operation of social media.

Facebook insists that tracking makes services safer and better

The FCO believes Facebook hasn’t proven that data collection and bundling are in the best interest of every consumer and that its sites couldn’t function without it.

Facebook’s response: “We disagree with their conclusions and intend to appeal so that people in Germany continue to benefit fully from all our services.” What’s at stake? Facebook would potentially have to change how it processes data for German users. If Facebook loses the appeal, Germany will have successfully challenged the relationship between the collection of user data and the social media accounts from which that information comes.

Other Europeans and Americans well may demand they be given the same option, and there would be implications for all of us. Only the very naïve believe that it’s only Facebook that is guilty of sharing user data. Facebook’s the one that got caught.

Do you need help with your marketing strategy? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.