Traffic Building

Analysing traffic

building techniques

within the online

fashion retail

industry.

The Online Fashion Industry

Traffic building is

“The use of online

promotion and

offline promotion

techniques to

increase the

audience of a site”

(Chaffey. D and

Smith. PR, 2008).

“More than half of 15-24 year olds prefer buying clothes in store rather than online”

Do all retailers need an online website to keep up with competitors?

“ASOS and Debenham’s most visible fashion retailers, online”

Searches for the women's wear related products were the most popular, with more than 1.3 million searches having been made.

1 Introduction

2 Online Fashion Market

4 Primary Research – Questionnaire

6 Primary Research – Interviews

7 Search Engine Optimisation

8 Search Engine Marketing

9 Crawling The Web

10 Blogs

14 Online Public Relations

15 Social Media Marketing

16 Successful Social Media Marketing on Facebook

17 Email Marketing

18 Offline Marketing

19 Behavioural Targeting

20 Mobile Marketing

21 The Future

23 Conclusion

24 Recommendations

25 References

„Traffic building strategy for

web sites and other online

presences … involves

selecting the right mix of

digital marketing tools or

channels‟ (Chaffey, 2013). The

aim of traffic building is to

increase the amount of visitors

passing through a site by the

use of both online and offline

techniques.

In order to create successful

traffic building, businesses are

constantly developing new

marketing strategies in

attempt to continually drive

traffic to their website.

The aim of our magazine is to

discover both successful and

non-successful traffic building

techniques that are used

within the online fashion retail

industry. In our magazine we

will discuss the different

methods used by online

marketers to build traffic, as

well as giving real examples of

companies that have used

these methods.

We have chosen to

analyse the online fashion

retail industry. This

industry is continuously

growing due to the

expansion of online

shopping. Thus indicating

that successful traffic

building is more important

than ever in order to

succeed.

Page 1

Introduction

Creative Team

Page 2

Market Sector – Online Retail

The growth of the internet all around

the world has lead to the popularity of

shopping online. In 2011 British

online shoppers spent over £65

billion; according to WARC (2012)

online retails accounts for only 13%

of overall sales. “Online outlets are

set to capture a third of the UK retail

market by 2022, a new forecast from

the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)

has shown” (WARC, 2012).

The rise of online shopping has been

majorly influenced due to the rapid

rise in smart phone and tablet

devices, this allows users to browse

the web and use apps to shop or link

consumers through to the main

business website. The availability of

online shopping lets consumers to

shop when and where they want

making online shopping even easier

for consumers. Over the next few

years “the mobile retail channel will

rise by 504%” (WARC, 2012). This is

why fashion retailers are creating

apps and building better mobile

websites for their businesses.

The fast growth of the online shopping

market has forced retailers to invest in

traffic building techniques in order to

keep consumers returning to their

website.

Showrooming a new trend which

involves consumers going into high

street stores to look at the goods first

before comparing prices or buying

online. The “showrooming” trend is

forecast to continue to grow over the

next couple of years causing shops to

be “showrooms” and “act as a

channel for consumers to see, touch

and try out goods – even if they make

purchases using other means”

(WARC, 2012)

According to

statistics £1 in every

£10 is spent online

(Office for National

Statistics 2011).

Indicating the

popularity of online

shopping amongst

consumers.

„The online

clothing market

has doubled

over the last five

years‟ (Harry

Wallop, 2011)

Primary Research

Page 4

The main majority of our target audience is

female, therefore more females were asked to

complete the questionnaire.

The target audience of most online fashion

retailers we looked at aim for a target

audience of 18-35 therefore more of this age

group was asked.

A large number of candidates asked only

purchased from online stores a couple of

times a month, some even less. This

suggests that sites may not have trouble

getting people to visit them but can‟t persuade

people to actually shop from them frequently.

Research shows that show-rooming is

becoming increasing popular amongst

consumers nowadays (Inc.com, 2013).

Although our results don‟t reflect this in terms

of online fashion retail shopping.

Primary Research

Page 5

The overall preferred way to shop was in

the high street. A lot of respondents said this

was because they could see the product up

close, try it on and see if it fits.

From the research it indicates that the

promotion fashion retailers user influences

people to go to the website creating traffic

and potentially buy from them.

It is still most common for customers to visit

websites through a laptop or computer

rather than an app on a tablet or through

their mobile.

Most of the traffic building through the

website is coming from search engines

(58.73%). This indicates that the website

address isn‟t easy to remember to be able

to just go straight to the website.

Page 6

Interviews

General feedback from the focus

group was that individuals did not

know what „traffic building‟ was and

how it functioned effectively. Once

an explanation was provided, they

then believed that is was important

for businesses to focus on building

traffic to their sites. As a result it

would increase sales revenue and

brand awareness.

Participants claimed that the

easiest way to find the sites was

through search engines, indicating

to us that search engine

optimization is key for businesses.

Spending money on analytics such

as Google and Adwords is an

important factor for companies to

use in order to gain a full amount of

traffic. By paying for an

advertisement will in terms „pay off‟

as it will be seen by a wide target

audience and promote the site over

competitors.

Our results also showed that

individuals prefer to shop online

rather than in store due to „easier‟

and „quicker‟ processes. Showing

growth in the online shopping

market. They do however like to

be able to try on and „get a feel‟

for the items, which is something

that online retailers have yet to

explore further. (Marketing

Magazine).

Participants explained that

the most common online

marketing techniques they

have seen is in the form of

advertisements. Mostly

adverts that link directly to the

site. They believe these are

affective ways to traffic build

as they remind them that the

site exists and that they can

purchase items 24/7.

The adverts are normally in

the form of banners, or side

advertisements when looking

at the web. This could be

when individuals check their

emails, or search for

information that is not

relevant to fashion at all.

However it can catch the

users eye, and persuade

them to visit the online

retailer.

Advertisements are

increasingly targeting an

individual rather than an

audience as a whole. They

track a persons search habits

and link relevant adverts to

their computer. Examples

include searching „Hunter

wellies‟ either through the

official website, EBay, or

additional retailers such as

John Lewis. Even if a

purchase has been made, all

advertisements that then pop

up on the individuals

computer will be about

„Hunter wellies‟ and what

offers or deals you can

receive.

Pages that appear because of their

relevance to search terms, rather than by

merit of being a paid listing.

ASOS has both an organic search and a

PPC (pay per click) advertisement to build

traffic through to their site.

Keywords are majorly important when it

comes to SEO, this is because the more

you have and use, the higher up the search

page your company will be.

Search Engine Optimisation Le

vel o

f re

leva

nce

to

ASO

S

Lower down on the relevance scale of

ASOS is the brands social networking

sites which direct consumers straight to

the pages. This still creates traffic to the

site in the long run as, the links for the

social elements will eventually link back

to the main website and vice versa.

Recent news stories about the

company also feature high up on

the search, to inform customers

with up to date information about

the brand they are choosing to

deal with.

A keyword such as „fashion‟

produces a ranking of 4th for

ASOS, behind vogue and

newspaper articles. It is however

the first fashion retailer placed

upon the organic search and is

reinforced with a PPC

advertisement placed to the right

of the main search.

90% of

clicks

Page 7

On-page optimization

Keyword density Title Tag optimization

Keywords in the content Quality of original

content Keywords in hyperlinks

Keywords in headings and bold tags

Keywords in URL Meta Tags (some

engines) Sitemap

Link structure "Indexability" of the web

page

Off-page optimization

Amount of incoming links Quality of sites that link

to yours Relevancy of sites that

link to yours Keywords in the anchor

text

Search Engine Marketing

These are paid for listings and

„sponsored links‟ that appear when

a keyword or phrase is entered

into a search engine.

Advertisers only pay when

searchers click on the sponsored

link. This ensures search

relevance and they tend to earn

more clicks, move higher in ad

rank and bring more success.

Ways to do this include using

Google Adwords, simply setting it up

online or calling experts to help you

set up your first campaign. This in

turn results in customers viewing

your sites adverts.

You then get to choose a

daily budget which suits your

sites and once customers

begin clicking is when you

begin paying.

As well as Google Adwords

a website can use an

independent company to

manage their PPC. This

saves the company time

however it can be very

costly, especially for smaller

retailers.

PPC

Price – Cost = Revenue

CPC

Conversions / clicks =

conversion rate

10% of

clicks

Page 8

Crawling the web

How often does Google crawl the web?

Crawls are based on many factors such as:

•Page rank

•Links to a page

•Crawling constraints

“Our crawl process is algorithmic; computer

programs determine which sites to crawl,

how often, and how many pages to fetch

from each site. We don't accept payment to

crawl a site more frequently” (Google Home

2013).

http://youtu.be/vS1Mw1Adrk0

Before a search engine can tell you where

a file or document is, it must be found.

Crawling the web refers to an internet bot

that browses the world wide web for a

relevant search amongst millions of pages

and URL‟s.

When the Google spider looks at

an HTML page, it takes note of two things:

•The words within the page

•Where the words were found

The Google spider was built to index every

significant word on a page, leaving out the

articles "a," "an" and "the.“(Google Home

2013).

Algorithm – A complex mathematical

formula used by a search engine to

rank the web pages that it finds

by crawling the web. The online fashion retailer ASOS appeared

in the top ten for 66 out of 72 generic

fashion search terms in Google.

ASOS led the retail sites with 8.2m

clickthroughs.

“Online fashion retailers featured more

prominently in paid search terms for

womenswear compared to multichannel

retailers” (econsultancy.com)

Page 9

Blogs

Blogs can be very important when

building traffic for fashion retailers. If

stylists recommend a certain product on

a particular site, many of it‟s followers

will visit those sites in order to purchase.

The use of links on those blogs, can

take the audience straight to for

example, ASOS, River Island etc..

Direct links to wear

the outfit was

bought. This results

in traffic to the

retailers sites.

“Start a blog and build

page volume by posting

regularly – every day or at

least 3-4 times a week.

Work on your page

optimization to maximize

chances of having more

of your pages including in

Google‟s index”

(Anna Hoffman2013).

Blogging helps to

promote your business

and lead traffic through

you site more

frequently.

1. Blogging works to

generate traffic and

leads.

2. The more you

blog, the more blog

traffic you will

generate.

Page 10

Example Blog

Blogs

66% of

companies

use a blog and

update it

regularly.

Blogging = Traffic

“If you add a blog to your site, and feed it regularly with new postings, you’ll instantly make your site more interesting, and give your first-time visitors a reason to come back for more”

If retailers can gain working relationships with bloggers or produce their own blog, this extra promotion will bring traffic to their sites

The

more

people

are

talking

about

products

the more

likely

they are

to visit

your site

Page 13

Online PR „involves building

links to website or delivering

information about a company

or its brands‟ (Chaffey, 2013).

Online public relations allows

companies to structure a

positive brand / company

perception amongst audiences.

If done right, it allows

businesses to differentiate from

competitions and fuels a brand.

Online PR holds many benefits

for businesses due to the

relatively small costs. For

example, social media sights

such as Facebook and Twitter

have no sign up costs and

therefore costs businesses

nothing to post information to

their audiences. However, due

to the size of the online web,

businesses are unable to

control every piece of

information that is published

about their business or brand.

Negative PR could affect a

company and brand

dramatically, therefore PR

needs to be managed

effectively and link with traffic

building or no measure of

effectiveness can be made. An

advert can build traffic to a

website if there is enough

„hype‟ and speculation around

a range or new clothing line.

Page 14

Online Public Relations

A recent example of

successful online PR was

the recent advert from

H&M which went viral. On

the 6th February 2013 the

advert was released online

staring the football legend

David Beckham. The

advert features the star

losing his dressing gown,

and his procedure to chase

the car through the

Hollywood Hills. Within

days the advert had gone

viral and was being

watched all over the world.

The star even self

promoted the advert on his

Facebook page to create

more buzz. H&M used

David Beckham, the global

brand to reinforce their

company values and

reputation as well as

building awareness of their

new products being

launched.

Page 15

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing refers to the

process of gaining and building awareness

of your site through a range of different

online platforms.

Success of social networking sites

Facebook and Twitter has encouraged

companies to use social media as a form

of marketing. It enables them to reach a

wide variety of audiences who may not use

the traditional platforms of advertising.

Now 75% of businesses use social media

marketing. It is accessible to consumers

and can maintain brand awareness and

loyalty.

It has been found that 66% of consumers

who follow a brand on Twitter will purchase

products and 66% of consumers

increased their searches due to

information found on social sites.

Social sites can link directly to the fashion

website, which increases traffic overall, it

also enables companies to update

information regularly and offer customers

exclusive deals and promotions,

something which they might not receive

in store. The social market is expanding

to not only to include, Twitter and

Facebook, but to branch out to Instagram

and Pintrest. These are picture only sites,

which could link in well with fashion

blogs, to promote a clothing range or

particular item. These pictures then

promote the websites which sell these

garments and drive customers online to

purchase them immediately above other

customers, especially when items are

exclusive or limited edition.

Successful Social Media Marketing On Facebook

Page 16

Within the fashion industry the most

popular way companies target their

audiences is through the social media

site Facebook. Facebook allows

companies/brands to publish any

content they want (text, pictures,

events, etc) allowing them to directly

interact with their audiences.

The high street shop River Island,

have successfully used social media

sites to target their audiences. The

River Island Facebook page have

over 1 million likes, with over 29,000

active users talking about the page.

The company use their Facebook

page to provide their target audience

with interesting fashion focused

content they wish to see. River Island

update their page daily with new

posts so that users who have liked

the page will see the updates posted

every time they log onto their

Facebook account. All of this helps to

build traffic for River Island as it

encourages audiences to visit the

Facebook page or the companies

website.

With different content added daily the

River Island brand is constantly

being reinforced to the target market

(users who have liked the page) and

continues to let them know the brand

exists. With the overall aim to

encourage audiences to visit the

company website, and potentially

purchase.

Email Marketing

Page 17

Email marketing allows businesses to directly

reach their consumers through electronic mail.

Email marketing helps companies to reach

audiences who are interested in their business.

Email marketing is a good way to guide existing

customers back to business, as emails remind

consumers the company still values it‟s

customers. Email marketing enables companies

to track the effectiveness of their email marketing,

by tracking how many hits their website gains

from a direct email.

Having an incentive for customers to sign up will incline them more to give their email

and interact with the brand. Email addresses are usually gained by an „opt-in‟ email

choice or from previous activity on the site. “Opt-in e-mail advertising or permission

marketing is a method of advertising by electronic mail wherein the recipient of the

advertisement has consented to receive it” (Web1Marketing, 2013).

Personalisation of an email

A direct email can let

businesses target a

consumer based on

what they have looked at

on their website and

provide them with what

they‟re interested in.

Seasonal promotions

Brand emphasis

Many companies use email marketing to keep their target

audience up to date on their latest offers giving them

reason to return to their website therefore building traffic

through it.

Offline Marketing

Offline Marketing can generate traffic through a website by promoting special sales that

are only available with a physical voucher, this holds a code which can be used at

checkout on a website.

Page 18

This offer promotional codes for

online fashion retailers which

persuades them to shop online. It

is often personalised to shopping

trends the user has previously

bought. H&M send a catalogue to

houses where customers have

previously bought online. This

causing customers to continue to

interact with the brand and

potentially re-use the website. You

can also order a copy of the

catalogue from the website which

give customers an update of the

latest fashion, thus inclining the

consumer to go online to buy

these latest trends.

Offline PR can generate free

promotion for a business as it

create word of mouth, for example,

fans hearing about Rihanna doing a

line for River Island, they don‟t

usually shop on River Island but are

interested because of the celebrity

endorsement. Newspaper articles

or magazine mentions can also

spark interest within a consumer as

they talk about the latest fashion

and the possibility of where

consumers can find them cheaper

at places such as TopShop or

very.co.uk. Now Magazine have a

fashion section where they show

catwalk fashion pieces and similar

piece they can find online.

Offline PR Direct mail

Behavioural Targeting

A definition of behavioural targeting is “personalised, relevant messages are delivered

for example by email or web which relate to a customers current interests” (Chaffey,

2008). Behavioural retargeting is when “ads are displayed elsewhere on a site or other

sites in an ad network after a customer has interacted with an initial ad or related

content” (Chaffey, 2008).

Networks such as Google or BING create profilers of web users interests which are

constantly updated every time they use the site or a connected site. Users usually are

identified by cookies which sent information to the advertising networks about the sites

they view, their current interests, their location and their gender allowing the networks to

place ads which are appropriate to the user (The Telegraph, 2010).

Conlumino “predicts 11% of

sales will be derived from the

online channel by the end of

2013 compared to 8% at

present” (New Media

Knowledge, 2013)

Page 19

The table shows the results fort

natural searches meaning the

most relevant pages compared

to the keywords searched.

The ads will create interest, from the side bar or pop –up, getting the users attention

and creating traffic to their site and potentially through to the buying process. The

fashion retailer will know that the user is interested as they will only target users

based upon previous relevant keywords searched by that user. Thus targeting

consumers interested in the brand or business advertised.

Mobile Marketing

“Mobile is dramatically

changing the way people are

shopping and exchanging

info” (Heather Hopkins,

Freeland, CMO, Gilt City)

The breakthrough of mobile

marketing happened in 2008 when

Apps where first introduced. Apps

allow business to market to their

consumers directly, they are easy for

audiences to use and relatively

cheap for businesses to produce.

According to Warc “‟the rise of

smartphones and tablets has

depended the relationship between

consumers and their devices‟ (Warc,

Mobile Marketing 2012). This means

for companies want to create traffic

for their company, they can use apps

to grad the attention of their

audiences.

In order for mobile marketing to work

it is essential that marketers

understand how their audiences use

mobile devices. Different audiences

require different approaches. Apps

allow companies to target their

audiences in one approach as the

ones who visit a certain app will be

the audiences who are interested in

that particular companies products.

28% of the UK use Apps to

purchase products (Warc,

Mobile Marketing 2012)

„Mobile is now an opportunity

to engage consumers in a

targeted and contextual

manner‟ (Stephanie

Baghdassarian, Research

Director, Gartner)

Page 20

Many fashion retailers now have their own Apps

that allow their customers to search for

products, view products, purchase products,

read reviews and also look for special offers.

from the comfort of their mobile phone or tablet

devices. This makes it even easier for

customers to shop for products.

The Future

So what is next for digital and the online

fashion sector?

“The widely accepted point of view

was that luxury is inherently

exclusive, while digital is largely

about inclusivity and furthering

accessibility – opposite ends of a

diametric scale.

Therefore, it's definitely encouraging

to see luxury brands sampling the

latest technologies and trying to

create something innovative through

their fashion week activities” (Laura

Tan, The Guardian 2012).

This quote suggests that digital can

be used for not only high street

retailers but the more expensive

luxury brands too. Including some of

which attended London Fashion

Week. They have realised they need

to embrace digital in order to expand

their audiences and continue

pleasing existing customers.

Branching off from the digital

umbrella retailers are beginning to

use media across all technologic

devices. This includes apps on

tablets and smart phones which

many retailers have begun

financing. These apps are a medium

in which traffic can be increased to

the main website, it also increases

brand awareness for the retailers.

The development of apps needs to

be increased and the technicality

behind them also. Designs and

viewing options need improvement

to engage fully with the user.

How are you using new

technologies to improve

customer experience and drive

sales in-store and online?

“We're using social media

platforms like Twitter, Instagram

and Facebook to build a direct

relationship with our consumers

and bring to life the House of

Holland experience. We monitor

where our customers are

coming from, how they shop,

what they are buying and when

they make purchases – from

this we can see that a large

proportion come from these

channels. One key move for us

was to integrate our online store

within our Facebook profile,

allowing customers to shop

directly through Facebook as

well as the main website”.

(Interview with designer Henry

Holland).

http://youtu.be/P1S5Z14OoF4

Page 21

The Future – continued…

“Studies have shown that

users are more engaged

on mobile apps than on

websites”

Boaz Tal

“Morgan Stanley survey

predicts that more people will

be accessing the internet from

mobiles than from desktops by

2014. If a sizeable percentage

of your online traffic originates

from mobile platforms you

need to deliver a superior user

experience on these

platforms”.

Targeting the audience at

different times of the day is

important, they will use

different devices throughout.

Online retailers need to

develop media which is

accessible and relevant to the

individual at a particular time of

the day.

In terms of traffic building,

each online platform used

needs a link to the actual

site website or a means of

measurement itself. If

purchases are being made

through apps it would be

interesting to see the step

by step process in which

the audience are using the

different site options.

Whether the app leads

them online later on to

purchase, or perhaps the

website then builds traffic

to the smart phone app.

Page 22

Page 23

Facebook

Blogs

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective way

for fashion retailers to stay in

contact with customers who have

previously bought items or have

opted-in for their newsletters. This

way they know that they are

targeting interested customers who

are more likely to go on the website

after being emailed. It is efficient in

building traffic through the website

as the consumer can opt-in for

specific items they want to be

emailed about therefore the email is

personalised for them making it

more interesting for them and

encouraging them onto the main

website.

Conclusion

Facebook is an effective

marketing tool for retailers as it

allows them to directly market to

their target audiences. Audiences

of pages can choose what they

like or follow therefore retailers

are specially marketing to those

consumers who want to see their

posts and page. Retailers use

Facebook to post content and

links that will direct audiences to

their site and encourage

purchases.

Overall, there are many successfully traffic building techniques that online

fashion retailers use is order to drive audiences to their sites. We believe the

three most successful traffic building techniques for online retailers are

Facebook marketing, Email marketing and Fashion Blogs.

Blogs allow creators to use

certain online retailers to

discuss and showcase the

latest fashion trends. Blogs

create free PR for online

retailers as creators do it for

their own personal reasons.

Blogs build traffic by featuring

the retailers name and

sometimes a direct link to that

site, this creates an overall

buzz around a particular

product or trend.

Recommendations

Page 24

Online retailers use social networking sites as

another form of advertising. Examples show most

recent trends with a direct link to the retailers site.

Recommendations would include continuing the use

of this medium in order to build traffic and further

purchases.

Bloggers hyperlink where they have bought

products from, creating traffic directly to that

site. Retailers could support successful blogs

either in the form of advertising or sponsorship

in order to gain more publicity.

If blogs do not have direct links there is relevant fashion

advertisements featured throughout the bloggers page,

which audiences can click on to be redirected to the site. For

the future bloggers should look into acquiring

advertisements not only for profit but build traffic to their own

blog and the retailers website.

With the rise of the use of mobile apps for businesses

fashion retailers could become more competitive by

having an easy, useable fashion app. This way

customers are able to shop on the go and access the

app anywhere, at anytime. The use of the app will

enable consumers to shop when its convenient for

them.

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http://www.web1marketing.com/glossary.php?term=Opt-In+Email+Marketing

http://gossip.greenlightdigital.com/sector-reports-fashion-retail/fashion-retail-sector-report-issue-16-january-2013/

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