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BY KAREN M. KROLL

Given the vast amount of moneypoured into building and marketing e-commerce websites, .it's understand-able that retailers would want as

much information as possible about the site'scustomers, sales and performance. When thatretailer conducts most of its business online, siteanalytics become even more critical, particularlywhere conversion rates are concerned.

35 percent annual growthin unique visitorsRecord online holidaysales

Highly-targeted remarket-ing campaigns driving asmuch as $3 per deployed"e-mailDeep insight intocustomers and theirbehaviors

Real-time reporting thatiQ'lproves decision-makingImproved e-mail

paign execution andsis

Miami-based Alienware, a manufacturer and retail-er of high-performance desktop, notebook, mediacenter, server and professional computer systems,transacts approximately 85 percent of its business on-line. As the nine-year-old company grew from twochildhood friends tinkering with ways to superchargeordinary PCs for optimal gaming use into a $173 mil-lion global business,so did

the need for a sophisticated web analytics solution."As we grew and scaled, it became more impor-

tant to really understand what our customers werelooking for and what kind of behavior they weredemonstrating when they came to the brand," saysdirector of e-commerce and demand generationBillBrown. "We look at every visitor as an oppor-tunity to establish a lifetime relationship, first ac-quiring them as a prospect, converting them intoa paying customer for one of our products, thenup-selling and cross-sellingthem, making sure all Ialong that we're satisfying their needs, wants anddesires."

To accomplishthat objective,Alienware turned toone of the pioneers of on-demand web analyticstechnology, Orem, Utah-based Omniture.

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Conversion challengeImproving conversion is an ongoing

challenge for online retailers, who oftenhave a difficult time interpreting thewealth of data available to them in an

actionable way."The average conversion rates are

anywhere from 2 to 3 percent; in otherwords, 97 out of 100 visitors aren't con-verting," says Matt Belkin, Omniture's

vice president of best prac-tices. "How do retailers fix

that? How do they im-prove it? Web analytics

guides customers in that de-cision process, enabling them to un-

derstand how different areas like inter-

nal search or category browsing con-tribute to the business. It also shows, il

there was an improvement in a specificarea, what that improvement wouldlikely yield in the future."

Alienware uses web analytics to exam-ine the types of marketing vehiclesthatattract customers to the site, as well ashow they move through the site and ul-timately make purchase decisions. Hav-ing this information strongly influencesAlienware's overall strategic direction,as well as its marketing decisions. Forexample, understanding the behavior ofa customer who responds to a print adversus that of a returning visitor re-sponding to an e-mail marketing mes-sage allows Alienware to frame its mes-sage appropriately for each customer.

To collect Alienware's site analytics,Omniture's SiteCatalyst places a small

piece of code on each page of its site;thatweb tag collects only the informa-tion Alienware specifies. As con-sumers navigate through the site,each successive page view is cap-tured by Site Catalyst - as iswhere they go upon leaving thesite, which can often indicate toAlienware whether a consumer is

comparison shopping.Web analytics allows Alienware

to test ideas against various seg-ments of visitor traffic in real time

- ideas that can be as big as whereto invest advertising funds or assmall as changing the placement or

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wording of a button on the site."As we cater to very discriminating

customers in a highly competitive mar-ketplace, any change in conversion ratecan be material," says Brown. "Drivingeach additional transaction has a direct

impact on our top and bottom lines, sowe look at visitor traffic in a very de-tailed way to make sure our advertisinginvestments are being optimized, thatthey're driving the right kinds of trafficand they're improving over time."

Additionally, web analytics can indi-cate the effectiveness of various sitefunctions to the retailer; for example, itcan show whether the internal search

function is helping customers find whatthey want and which search terms areconverting best, so the retailer can re-configure its home page to feature thoseitems more prominently.

Conversely,if a search term isn't con-verting at all, site analytics gives the re-tailer an opportunity to learn the cause,such as a lack of product selection or abroken link, and fix it.

Using the datawarehouse

In addition to Site-Catalyst, Alienwareuses Omniture DataWarehouse to mine theanalytics data and pullout figures based on specif-ic parameters. Whereas Site-Catalyst is a platform of sum-marized data, Data Warehouseprovides more specific informa-tion.

EFFECTIVEWEB ANALYTICScan show whether

internal searchis helping

customers find

what they /'. want """,,,/"" ,,'"

"Retailers often organize a multitudeof different categories hierarchically,"Belkinsays. "If you just start looking atwhat categories you're showing on thehome page versus what categories areactually converting and drivingthe mostrevenue, you'd be shocked at how manyretailers have poor category organiza-tion on their home page."

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Understanding aban-donment is a key busi-ness function for Alien-ware, as many of theseprospects may be verycloseto a purchase deci-sion. Through Omni-ture's relationship withthe online advertisingand marketing firmDoubleClick,Alienwarecan launch an e-mail"remarketing" cam-paign to that group tore-engage with them

and bring them backinto the sales funnel."We're able to see where

the abandonment pages are, and usingData Warehouse and DoubleClickDARTmail, we're able to pinpoint whocame through on a unique user basis sowe can remarket to them," Brown says.One such remarketing campaign, con-ducted during the 2005holiday season,resulted in more than $3 in revenue forevery e-mail sent and contributed to a

record holiday season for Alien-ware, including several days that experi-enced year-over-year sales gains greaterthan 100 percent.

Analyzing resultsUsing Site Catalyst and Omniture

Data Warehouse has helped Alienwarenot only to improve its conversion rate,but to define it.

"A lot of web marketers say their siteconversion rate has gone up and that'sprobably true, but the devil is in the de-tails," says Brown. "When you look ata premium Alienware system, perhapscosting thousands of dollars, it's not assimple as the overall conversion rate be-cause you need to be able to drill downby product and sku level to see whereyour success and opportunities for im-provement lie.

"Omniture allows us to drill down be-

yond this potentially misleading top-linestatistic and into conversion by product,and to find the key entry points into thesales cycle and where exit rates occur,"says Brown.

Overall, Alienware has experienced

35 percent annual growth in unique vis-itors since it began working with Ornni-

'. ture three years ago. "What it addsfor, us is the ability to take a real-time snap-

shot of our business and to understand

how our customers are experiencing thebrand, how they're transacting with itand to make informed decisions that

have resulted, and continue every daytoresult, in improved transaction figures,"Brown says. StORES

Karen M. Kroll is a business writer

based in Minnetonka, Minn.

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