The challenge...explain e-commerce to someone with no knowledge of it...forgetting 15 years in the busines...

1. E-Commerce
How the pieces fit together

2. Topics
• The Marketing Acquisition Process
• What is E-Commerce?
• Acquiring Prospects
– Search engines
– Affiliates
– Comparison Shopping Engines
• How a Web Site Works
– Layers of the web site
– How a web page works
– Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
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3. The Marketing Acquisition Process
Awareness Consideration Conversion Loyalty
Members of the targeted Individuals engage with the Individuals “convert” from Customers repurchase and/or
audience (for example, brand and begins to consider browsers to buyers by become brand advocates
dress shoppers) become transacting transacting with the brand in • Purchase additional
aware of the company or • Store or web site visits the store or web site products
brand • Product purchases • Referrals
• Advertising • Signups for service or
• Word-of-Mouth information
• Public Relations
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4. Traditional “Offline” Acquisition—Target
Awareness Consideration Conversion
TV Advertising
Purchase
Store Visit
Print Advertising
Word-of-Mouth
Shopping/browsing
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5. What is E-Commerce?
• E-Commerceis selling via the Internet through a web store,
commonly known as a web site or e-commerce site
• Thestore’s “www” (or URL) is simply the unique address at which the
store can be found on the Internet
• Shoppers use their Internet/Web browsers to reach the URL
– Most common are Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Safari, and Chrome
– The browser pulls together images, text, and code, telling the browser how to
assemble and display each
– What you see is known as the “front end” of the web site (the “back end” will be
explained later)
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6. Online Acquisition—Ashford
Awareness Consideration Conversion
Search Engines
Thank You for Purchasing
from Ashford.com!
Affiliate Programs
Comparison Shopping Engines
Store Visit + Shopping/browsing Purchase
Social Media &
Word-of-Mouth
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7. Search Engines
• Search engines collect and organize content and data from across the
Internet
– The most popular are Google, Yahoo!, and Bing
• Search results are based on keywords or search phrases and drive
traffic to the web site. There are two results categories
1. Paid Search. Also known as “Pay-per-Click” or “PPC,” the rank of these results is
based on what companies have bid for placement
1. Different terms command different prices
2. The actual text or “ad” displayed is based on the term being searched upon
3. Companies look at which words (also known as keywords or search terms) are most likely to
generate sales, set a budget, and bid accordingly. The number of keywords can range from a few to
several hundred thousand
2. Natural Search. Results are based on what the search engines determine through
their algorithms (a method for calculating the weight of variables in producing
results) those results that will provide the greatest value to the person searching.
1. The search engines “crawl” most of the Internet’s web sites, finds content, and applies the
algorithm to determine what to display
2. Companies employ SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to make its site more search-engine friendly;
this includes incorporating content and descriptions in the site that make Ashford.com appear
highly relevant to people searching for watches
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8. Google Search Results
Keyword / search phrase
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9. Affiliate Programs
• Affiliate programs are a means for rewarding other sites for referring
traffic and sales to a company’s web site
– In CJ, a retailer is an “Advertiser” that pays a commission other sites (“Publishers”)
for including links and banners that drive shoppers to Ashford.com and lead to a
sale
– Commission Junction is a leading “Affiliate Network,” serving the role of
connecting advertisers to publishers and handling payments for referrals (in
exchange for a small fee)
• For a company’s best affiliates it can establish a direct connection to their site and
managers
CJ sends commission payment to affiliate
Offer
Company sends promotional Banner or text offer displayed Shopper visits site Company sends purchase
offer to CJ, which makes it on affiliate/publisher site and purchases item info to CJ
available to affiliates
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10. Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs)
• CSEs are sites that list products in a wide variety of categories,
allowing shoppers to compare products of interest and their prices
from a multitude of retailers
– Top CSEs include Google Product Search, NexTag, PriceGrabber, and Shopzilla
• Tohave its products displayed, a retailer sends a product feed
containing robust product data to the CSEs
– For most CSEs, products are listed for free but pay a Cost-per-Click* amount to the
CSE; this typically involves bidding for placement
Product Listing
*Cost-per-Click is a fee the retailer pays every time one of its product listings is clicked on. The amount paid per click
ranges from a few cents to a few dollars depending on the popularity and other bids for related products. 10

11. Social Media & Word-of-Mouth
• Social media
refers primarily to a set of sites and tools where groups of
people can connect around shared interests. Most social media content is
generated by its users rather than by companies
– Examples of social media sites: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, various blogs
– The intent varies:
• Facebook focuses primarily on connecting individuals with a network of friends and sharing
activity updates (though it is becoming more of a commerce hub)
• LinkedIn focuses on business networking
• Blogs (much like an Internet-based journal) are generally focused on individuals sharing their
thoughts on a topic of interest
• Flickr is a photo-sharing site, YouTube is a video-sharing site
• Businesses use social media as a means for connecting with customers and
facilitating their discussions around the brand. Social media is a way of
enabling “Word-of-Mouth” marketing in which the company’s customers
champion the brand
– For example, many clothing brands have a Facebook page on which they post sales or
information on new products; in turn, customers “Like” the brand and become part of
the network; many company page members share thoughts with other fans of the
brand
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12. Email
• Email is a means of alerting both customers (those
who have purchased) and prospects (those who
signed up for emails but haven’t purchased) of
promotional offers
– Many companies send a mix of general sales and
discounts on specific watches
– Effective emailers send different versions of emails to
different groups (segments) with offers that will be of
the most interest to them based on their purchase, web
site, and other behavior
• Companies use an email service provider (ESP) to
send emails, for example, Bronto
– Bronto is the “control deck” for sending emails, helping
deploy, track, and report on various email campaigns
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13. Layers of the Web Site
• Each layer plays a different role, “snapping on” to other layers in a modular fashion
• Ashford.com makes use of ATG’s templates as a starting point, but has customized them to suit our needs
Description: Page appearance, including graphics and text
• Typically developed in a graphics package
Visual Presentation • Reflects page layout, navigational elements, images, shading, and separators
• Designers can create a variety of visual displays but they need to be connected
to the site through the appropriate code and functionality
Description: The code that determines how the page components will be
displayed
Page Code & Behavior • HTML and CSS (cascading style sheets) display imagery and text in a templated,
replicable manner (Note: This is where Omniture tags live)
Description: Programs and mechanisms that deliver content and graphics to our
pages
Commerce Platform • ATG, for example, serves as the e-commerce engine that works with the “front
end” of the site” (visual, page code)
Description: The physical servers and mechanisms that store and serve data and
content
Systems • When the site needs pure horsepower the tech team can add servers as
necessary

14. How a Web Page Works
1. Shopper opens computer and 2. Types URL into browser or clicks on 3. Web browser contacts retailer’s 4. Web server contacts
clicks on browser link of interest (from search engine or web servers the databases to pull in
affiliate banner/link) product data and
product/site images
5. Web server pushes data and 6. Web browser uses design template 7. Shopper sees completed page loaded in browser; because
page code (HTML, CSS) to web code to assemble and display web page browsers differ in their software they can display the same
browser page in different ways, leading to issues 14

15. Key Performance Indicators
• Visits: The number of times the site was visited
• Unique visitors: The number of individuals viewing the site; a unique
visitor may have a single or multiple visits
• Conversion: Converting a visit or visitor into a purchase (order)
– Visit conversion = orders/visits
– Visitor conversion = orders/unique visitors
– Generally, only a small percentage of visits results in a purchase
• Order: A purchase consisting of one or more items/products
• Average Order Value (AOV): The average amount spent on all of the
orders over a given time period
• Bounce rate: A visit that is limited to visiting a single page before
exiting the web site
– Retailers want shoppers to click on multiple pages—a requirement for buying a
product—so we work toward lowering our bounce rate
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16. What Can You Do?
• For thoseworking with or parallel to e-commerce functions, there’s
plenty of opportunity to support the online business…
Awareness Consideration Conversion Loyalty
Understand which ads and Ensure that your company has Help create product content Provide customers a fantastic
vehicles produce the most all eligible products ready on and display rules that will be end-to-end experience,
sales—and do so most the web site, with accurate the most compelling to site encouraging them to return
cost effectively information and prices visitors and will outperform for future purchases and to
• Help those working with • Use data to drive your competitors’ efforts refer others to your retailer
affiliates, CSEs, and decisions, and others’, as to
email understand the which products are most
products and ensure likely to engage site visitors
they’re informed about
new products and
developments
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17. Terms You Should (Now) Know
• Acquisition
• Awareness
• Consideration
• URL
• Web browser
• E-Commerce
• Search engines
– Paid Search, PPC
– Natural Search, SEO
• Affiliate programs
– Affiliate network, Advertisers, Publishers, Commission Junction
• Comparison Shopping Engine (CSE)
– CPC
• Social Media
• Keywords / Search Phrase
• Email
• Direct Traffic
• Visits
• Visitors
• AOV
• Bounce Rate
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