Adidas: The Importance of Consumer Data
Long gone are the days when marketers could analyze their
ecommerce site solely by purchase per SKU/style alone. Now, there are numerous
tools that can be used to not only see how what customers are purchasing, but
how they are purchasing them, what led them to the purchase, and much more. There
are no more guessing games. Retailers have a great chance of understanding
their customers if they are focusing on specific points of data that will help
drive their business goals.
Adidas is one brand that places a large emphasis on
data-driven growth. In fact, Adidas’ Global Head of Digital Brand Commerce
stated,
“Digital is one of our core
strategic priorities…We will
measure ourselves rigorously in how the various digital touchpoints come to
life across those three dimensions, and we believe they will be core to
reaching our overarching targets for sales, consumer experience net promoter
score, and ultimately engagement and lifetime value” (How Consumer Insights and
Digital Have Led to…, 2018).
When
consumer behaviors and even technologies change, Adidas is on board to change right
with them. Adidas is also concerned with creating meaningful stories in real
time so they can gauge customer reaction instantaneously. It’s all about the
consumer experience, and the Adidas app is a great example of carrying out that
goal.
At
the core of this consumer experience is Adidas’ shopping app. Before their
ecommerce app was created or launched, the Adidas team tested it with a
specific set of consumers and launched it before all features were developed.
That led the consumers to provide feedback, which fueled what Adidas did next
and which new app features should be prioritized (How Consumer Insights and
Digital Have Led to…, 2018). This feedback shaped the consumer app experience
in a way that was asked for directly by the users themselves.
Adidas even employed data scientists to create a Consumer
DNA (CDNA) model that creates a 360-degree view of consumer behavior.
“Although sales is
still an important KPI, [Adidas] also measures influence as a new currency in a
digital world to create brand awareness, interest and desire with
consumers. CDNA data points continuously expand to include a wide variety of
external sources of information. Data science algorithms called genes then
iterate through billions of records every single day continuously updating and
adjusting profiles based on the latest available consumer data” (Underwood,
2017).
The idea is for customers to build their profiles through
the Adidas site or app, so that Adidas has a better understanding of each
specific customer. The customer focus is proving to be successful for Adidas,
as they are able to test new ideas and campaigns through A/B testing, which
allows for better understanding what works and how to tweak a campaign where
applicable before it is fully completed.
So how does this work with consumer experience align with
SEO tactics? On-page SEO tactics are used primarily through heading keywords
related to Adidas collection names. Instead of including generic terms like
“running shoe,” for example, Adidas lists the exact collection name in their website
headings. Including these specific keywords is a bit risky, but to compensate
in regard to search, the description keywords include both the generic term as
well as the collection name, as you can see in the “track pant” search example
below:
Additionally, Adidas’ Site Map is a great tool for those
browsing the site. Below is a screenshot of Adidas’ Site Map, which was updated
about a month prior to the date the screenshot was taken:
(Where can I find a site map?, 2018).
According to Michael H. Fleischner, site maps serve two
purposes. “First, they make it easy for visitors to find content on your site,
and second, they enable search engines to spider your site much quicker…I
strongly believe they are helpful in the optimization game…” (Fleischner, 2016).
Users get a quick glimpse of the site’s products. This is especially useful
tool for a brand like Adidas, which offers products in numerous buying
categories.
Adidas Web Site: My Ideas for Web Analytics Efforts
With the customer experience as a central focus, Adidas must
be sure to emphasize analyzing demographics, social sharing and influencer
activity, device tracking and browsing patterns in their web analytics efforts.
Below, I will go into further detail for each metric:
·
Demographics and Location
Adidas is a global corporation. They must use SEO and web
analytics to help determine whether their sales targets per country are on
track and also what types of customers are purchasing specific products and
categories. These insights can help the Adidas marketing team understand
whether they are targeting their campaigns in the correct manner or if they are
missing the mark.
·
Social sharing and influencer activity
Adidas is well-known for using prominent celebrities and
public figures to promote their products. For example, actress Shay Mitchell
appears on their main page promoting Adidas’ Statement Collection. Adidas will
benefit from tracking whether this link helped drive traffic to the Statement
Collection product page, or if any other campaigns to promote the Statement
Collection worked better (or worse). Any social media campaigns featuring
celebrities and influencers must be analyzed to see where the ROI figures lie.
Additionally. Adidas could improve their SEO by display
social links on their site. These links do not even appear on the US site main
page! Prominently displaying these links would help give Adidas even more
precious data on how customers are using social platforms and how they are
reaching them, which can be tracked through referrals.
·
Device tracking
The ecommerce app was Adidas’ idea for a bolstered customer
experience. Therefore, to analyze the fruits of their labor, first all devices
must be adjusted for SEO purposes so user searches look attractive, regardless
of the device used. Second, device analysis must be done to determine where
users are browsing the most, which includes analyzing metrics such as time of
day and bounce rates. Purchase conversion rates must also be analyzed per
device, and could be an additional fail-safe in case one type of device isn’t
optimized effectively for purchasing.
·
Purchase patterns and purchase conversions
Analyzing user flow reports and funnel reports, such as
those offered through Google Analytics, can help marketers at Adidas understand
how users are browsing their site and also measure things like cart abandonment
rates.
“E-commerce platforms are even
designed to help you keep up on cart abandonment with built in autoresponders
to help win back abandoned carts. Pixels are even in place for many brands to
setup ad retargeting for customers that bail on the checkout process. But are
you looking at the rest of your funnel to see where customers are dropping out
during the shopping experience?” (Patel, 2018).
Using tools like Google Analytics, marketers can also
determine things like purchase conversions, and any other type of conversions
as deemed important enough to be a business goal. Adidas might want to consider
goals related to returning customers and purchasers, average purchase value and
purchases made through organic search alone.
What other ways can Adidas utilize SEO to effectively bring
home their goal of creating an individualized customer experience?
References
Fleischner, M. H. (2016). SEO
made simple: Insider secrets for driving more traffic to your website.
United States: Michael Fleischner.
How Consumer Insights and
Digital Have Led to Adidas' Growth - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM GOOGLE. (2018, May
07). Retrieved September 20, 2018, from
https://hbr.org/sponsored/2018/05/how-consumer-insights-and-digital-have-led-to-adidas-growth
Patel,
N. (2018, June 25). The Metrics Every E-Commerce Store Should be Tracking.
Retrieved November 18, 2018, from
https://neilpatel.com/blog/e-commerce-store-should-be-tracking/
Underwood,
J. (2017, June 14). How adidas Transformed Analytics Platforms for Digital
Scale. Retrieved November 17, 2018, from https://www.jenunderwood.com/2017/06/14/adidas-analytics-platforms-digital-scale/
Where
can I find a site map? (2018, October 15). Retrieved November 18, 2018, from
https://www.adidas.com/us/where-can-i-find-a-site-map.html
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