Many companies have multiple brands under their umbrella, but how do they monitor conversion rates across all of them?
In the newest episode of The E-commerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives, host Kailin Noivo sits down with Nicholas Greatrex, Chief Marketing Officer at TFG Brands London. Together, they explore how to monitor conversion across multiple brand and geographic channels, the happy medium of personalized experiences, and whether loyalty programs are worthwhile.
Monitoring Conversion Across Multiple Channels
Tracking conversion rates across multiple brands and countries, and then interpreting them, can be incredibly complex.
Often session data and user data show different pictures, so TFG London focuses on the latter, as this gives them a clearer picture of their return on investment (ROI). They have found that their most loyal customers will often visit five times or more before purchasing, which leads to a much lower conversion rate if they relied on session data, thus skewing the picture.
To understand user conversion, you need to use customer data and CRM systems to track their behaviors. Nicholas notes in particular how useful it is to segment users into groups based on their behaviors, i.e. new, returning, or high-value, to understand what factors impact conversion.
“Fundamentally, if you’re tracking that customer database and you’re looking at how often those customers are buying within that database and how many new customers you’re acquiring, coupling that with the visits to the website, I think you start to build a pretty decent picture.“
Raw conversions do not give you the full picture, so do not rely on them. Instead, focus on customer engagement and long-term metrics to understand the full picture.
The Centralization Debate
Companies that own multiple brands face a critical decision: whether or not to centralize their databases.
TFG London owns three similar fashion brands, all of which target a very similar demographic. They could have opted to combine their databases, but they are currently leaning away from it to avoid internal competition and complexity. This allows them to focus on the unique objectives of each brand, but they may test combined data in the future.
Defining Personalization
Nicholas defines personalization as making content that is relevant to customers. At TFG London, they avoid over-assuming customer preferences and pigeonholing consumers, instead focusing on ensuring relevant items are listed at the top of results pages.
For example, they actively avoid showing previously purchased items at the top of listings, instead using technology to suggest similar products in size, style, or color. Another part of personalization is user experience, and ensuring customers have a frictionless journey.
Ways to do this include auto filling a customer’s size selection, based on previous purchases, or automatically filtering search results to only show products that are in stock in the customer’s size.
Do You Need a Loyalty Program?
Loyalty programs are expensive and time consuming, so it is important to consider whether or not you actually need one before investing in it.
At their core, they are about increasing customer spending and frequency, and you can employ loyalty mechanics that support this without building a formal program. For example, give customers early access to new products, previews of promotions, and value-added shipping, integrating these mechanics through your CRM and digital marketing strategy.
“When we think about loyalty, we just go back to really simple core principles, which is more customers spending more. And that’s what we’re trying to achieve. And therefore, with loyalty, you can employ a lot of those mechanics that come with a loyalty program without necessarily having that loyalty program itself.“
By just doing this, you will build a lot of loyal customers, but you may still feel like it is not enough. If that is the case, you can consider formalizing the scheme, but you need to ensure you will get an ROI from it. Assess your current consumer base, do you have a large group of customers who make purchases over six times a year? If the answer is no, now is probably not the right time.
Listen to the Full Episode Below!
Listen to this episode of The E-commerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives with Nicholas Greatrex and Kailin Noivo to learn more about managing e-commerce strategies across multiple brands.
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