This week, I’ll be taking a look at web analytics in action on a platform much bigger than my own humble blog. While I’ve been able to share personal experiences setting up and analyzing some free GA reports, I’d like to examine how a large scale e-commerce company uses web analytics to assess its site visitors and, ultimately, drive online sales. The company I’ll be profiling is Alienware, a manufacturer of uniquely-designed PC computers aimed at online gaming enthusiasts. Over the past decade, Alienware has built a solid and profitable customer base through responding to trends identified through web analytics efforts. Alienware’s success ultimately led to its acquisition by Dell in 2006 (Hachman, 2006). Unlike my previous analytics posts to date that have focused on Google Analytics’ free tools, we’ll be looking at tools Alienware used to track its customers through the paid services offered by the analytics tool Omniture. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll focus on a few key areas where Alienware’s web analytics translated into real business results. I’ll also dedicate a short section to my additional thoughts on ways Alienware could further employ web analytics efforts to increase its online sales.
Example
1: Star Wars Promotion
Alienware uses Omniture’s SiteCatalyst
tool to view real-time customer interactions on its website, including clicks
and purchases about each specific product it sells. This tool was useful during
a 2005 promotion in conjunction with Lucas Films in which Alienware created and
sold Star Wars-branded desktop PC models, giving customers the option to choose
between a black “Dark Side” model or a white “Rebel Alliance” model (“Star
Wars,” 2005). Through real-time web analytics monitoring – likely set up
through some kind of specialized report to watch this specific promotion –
Alienware noticed that its dark side models were outselling the light side
models 15 to one. Because of the early detection of this trend, Alienware was
able to seamlessly prepare its manufacturing, supply chain, and marketing teams
to react to the lopsided orders for these products. (Omniture, n.d.)
Example
2: Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Also because of its web analytics
efforts in November of the same year, Alienware had a hugely successful Black
Friday through Cyber Monday weekend. The company set up alerts to watch for
products that were selling above or below expectations throughout the week. By
keeping an eye on sales in real time, Alienware was able to make tweaks to its
site including which products were being featured (hot-selling products were
featured more prominently) and which price points to use (those which received
better response from customers were used more widely). Alienware saw a weekend
sales increase of 105 percent as a result of its careful attention to customer
interactions on its site. November 2005 also went down in history as
Alienware’s best month to date, setting record-breaking site traffic,
conversion rates, and revenue. (Omniture, n.d.)
Example
3: E-mail Marketing
Alienware used Omniture’s partnership
with DARTmail to track the effectiveness of its e-mail campaigns. If you’re
looking for a comparison, in the Google Analytics world, this is something that
could be monitored somewhat through campaign tagging and tracking. The biggest
added feature provided by DARTmail is the ability to identify each specific
e-mail address associated with a click. Alienware certainly used this feature
to help close sales through follow up campaigns. After an initial e-mail
campaign promoting two high-end notebook computers, Alienware identified 36,000
customers who clicked on a link in the e-mail but never ultimately made a
purchase of either computer, based on data collected through web analytics. A
follow-up campaign was sent to these customers with a special offer as an
incentive to close the sale on the computers offered in the initial campaign.
This follow-up campaign resulted in $160,000 in revenue – a $4.40 revenue value
for every e-mail sent. (Omniture, n.d.)
Additional
Suggestions
Clearly, Alienware’s use of web
analytics tools in Omniture’s suite provided the company with measurable
success, ultimately leading to the company’s acquisition by computer giant
Dell. Whether Alienware still retains some independence in its operations now
is unclear. But assuming the company is still in control of its own website and
analytics therein, I see a few areas where improvements could be made to further
increase online sales.
First, I couldn’t find evidence of Alienware’s
use of analytics to optimize its site design on an ongoing basis. Obviously,
real-time response to customer behavior is important during high-volume,
fast-turnaround periods like Cyber Monday and high profile product releases.
But during all the other times of year, Alienware could stand to benefit
greatly from using its web analytics capabilities to take a look at customers’
behaviors in a long-term capacity. Are there any pages where customers are
dropping off at a high rate? Is there an ideal path through the site that
Alienware would like its customers to take, and are they taking it? Are there
ways to suggest add-on products to increase incremental revenue? It could be
that some simple tweaks to overall site navigation could help Alienware
increase its day-to-day sales, above and beyond the steps it is taking to react
to big promotions in real-time.
Also, I found no reports of Alienware
using filters to segment its audience and perform highly-specialized analysis
of groups that might be of special interest. For example, Alienware could take
a look at site visitors who find the page through a keyword search involving
gaming computers. This keyword would indicate a visitor was within a
highly-targeted segment to which Alienware should be paying special attention. Other
segments could include visitors who are referred from sites that focus on the
gaming audience and, if the web analytics software program provides it,
demographic segments that meet typical gamer profiles according to age, gender,
etc. Site analysis based on these
filters could help Alienware see whether its intended audience is responding to
promotions, site changes, and targeted campaigns as expected. It may also show
opportunities to take advantage of potentially lucrative gaps in current
behavior.
Overall, I think Alienware did a great
job of maximizing its profits as a result of web analysis of its current
customers. Even though most of the data is a few years old and is centered
around a paid analytical tool, it still provides great insight into the capabilities
of this type of analysis when it’s done well.
References
Hachman, M. (2006, March 22). It’s official: Dell beams up
Alienware. PC Mag. Retrieved from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1941376,00.asp
Omniture. (n.d.). Retail and commerce sites. Industry
guide. Retrieved from http://www.omniture.com/downloads/06_IndustryGuide_Retail.pdf
Star Wars: Revelations – Fan film sweeps net, Alienware
‘Star Wars Edition’ PCs. (2005, April 21). Enforcers
HQ. Retrieved from http://www.omniture.com/downloads/06_IndustryGuide_Retail.pdf
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