A Look at REI’s Use of Web Analytics

Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is a multichannel retail co-op that provides equipment, goods, and services for outdoor activities. In addition to its brick-and-mortar stores (132 stores in 33 states), the company operates two e-commerce retails sites: REI.com and REI.com/outlet. REI has a strong customer membership community with more than five million active members (REI, 2014a).

For such a large organization with the increased complexity of two e-commerce sites, it only makes sense to have some sort of web analytics software to track the performance of both sites. REI has been on the forefront of web analytics. The following takes look at the evolution of REI’s use of web analytics tools.

Embarking on Web Analytics

REI has been tracking its website performance going on at least 14 years. In 2000, the company had noticed its web traffic increasing and online sales starting to taking off. The company shifted its marketing to focus on the web and decided not to do a major print catalog in the spring of 2000. The shift did not have the impact the company was looking for; not only did phone and in-store retail sales drop, but web sales dropped as well (MarketingSherpa, 2003).

At the time, web analytics were fairly basic. More advanced web analytics can help a company build customer profiles and better understand the sales funnel. That said, even today it is challenging to track offline/print marketing and advertising to online sales.

Getting Smarter with Its Web Analytics

In 2005, REI switched to a more robust web analytics offering from Coremetrics. Coremetrics offers the ability to track and analyze online customer and visitor behavior; its web analytics provides companies with insightful customer knowledge and analysis companies can use to optimize online business performance (Coremetrics, 2005). At the time, Joan Broughton, vice president of multi-channel programs for REI noted:

"REI is dedicated to providing a unique and rewarding shopping experience both online and in our stores. We know our customers shop in all channels, so it is very important to understand how they interact with REI both online and offline. Using detailed Web site analysis from Coremetrics, we can create an optimal online shopping experience because we understand how our customers interact with our Web site." (2005)

By implementing Coremetrics REI really took steps to gather detailed information about its web performance.

Advancing Its Web Analytics Further

From 2009 to 2010, REI conducted a major overhaul of its website. The company conducted the overhaul in two phases: (1) improving the backend of the website and (2) revitalizing the customer-facing part of the website. To help gain a more in-depth view of its website performance, REI changed its web analytics from Coremetrics to a more advanced solution from Omniture.

Once REI got a more advanced website infrastructure and backend, it was able to focus on changing the customer-facing part. Two specific tools that enabled REI to glean web data for the change were Omniture’s Test & Target multivariate testing tool and Omniture’s Recommendations (Brohan, 2010).

The Omniture Test & Target multivariate tool creates analytical reports that helped REI know which products were “most viewed” and “top sellers.” Using the information in these reports, REI could develop product recommendations. Omniture’s Recommendations generates product suggestions based on Omniture website analytics data and the Test & Target multivariate tool. In this instance, the technology then used algorithms that Omniture customized for REI so REI’s website could display the most relevant recommendations to customers in the right places on the site to drive the highest conversion (Brohan, 2010).

The Omniture web analytics software in general and these two tools specifically helped REI create a customer-centric website. REI wanted a website the delivered a more personalized and individualized visitor experience, which is a complex task. Omniture helped the company accomplish that (Brohan, 2010).

For truly advanced, in-depth website and online analysis, companies need supplementary tools and services. In addition to implementing Omniture, REI began using customer comments and analysis software from OpinionLab Inc. to glean an understanding of customer opinions. Also, REI began community-building tools from Awareness Inc. to help the company track and monitor a social media (Brohan, 2010).

Together these tools enable REI to gather broader information about its website’s performance and what is happening in its social channels.

Getting Even More Intelligent about Web Analytics

REI seems very committed to web analytics and intelligence. It continues to use the most advanced tools. In 2013, REI added Cloudmeter (now part of Splunk) to its arsenal of web and online analytics. Cloudmeter mines data streams from web applications and delivers them to clients for real-time customer intelligence. REI was using this tool to make decisions based on the sequence of logical events taking place on the site. For example, REI would be able to tell whether positioning a discounted product next to a full-priced one increased or decreased the clicks on the discounted product (Schultz, 2013).

Finding Other Areas to Track & Tools to Use

In addition to the powerful web analytics tools REI uses to monitor and track its website and online performance, there are a couple others the company should consider. REI does a lot of direct emailing as part of its marketing mix. It would provide valuable insight for the company to utilize an email tracking tool. Software like MailerLite provides reports and data on a company’s email marketing campaign. MailerLite is just an example; there are more powerful email tracking tools on the market. It is tools like these that can supply REI with the email open rates and the click-through path customers take from emails (Nachum, 2011).

REI could also look at setting up specific tools and reports for the checkout process. One glaring omission from the REI website is payment icons. Note Figure 1, which shows the beginning of the checkout process: there are no payment icons. According to web design and developer expert Ann Davlin, one of the must-haves for any e-commerce or online retail site are payment icons (2012).

Figure 1. REI checkout page (REI, 2014b).

It would be good for REI to see what the exit rate is at the screen-shot in Figure 1 and throughout the checkout process. Do customers get frustrated and leave? It takes many clicks to finally get to the page that displays the payments icons. It would leave a customer very irked to get through multiple pages in the checkout process only to find REI does not take their preferred method of payment (e.g., REI does not accept PayPal). REI could answer other questions as well. For example, are customers leaving product pages because payment options are not clear? This is definitely an area in which REI’s website could improve.

Overall, REI.com is an easy-to-navigate, highly functional website. It is clear that the ease of use and strong performance of the website are important to the company.

References

Brohan, M. (2010, January 27). REI outfits its e-commerce site with more personalization features. Internet Retailer. Retrieved from http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/01/27/rei-outfits-its-e-commerce-site-with-more-personalization-featur

Coremetrics. (2005, February 15). REI Implements Hosted Web Analytics from Coremetrics. Retrieved from: http://www.internetretailer.com/mobile/2005/02/17/rei-implements-hosted-web-analytics-from-coremetrics

Davlin, A. (April 6, 2012). 10 peculiarities of successful internet retail website designs. One Extra Pixel. Retrieved from http://www.onextrapixel.com/2012/04/06/10-peculiarities-of-successful-internet-retail-website-designs/ 

Nachum, M. (2011, September 22). Easy-to-use and no-frills email marketing solution – Review of MailerLite. GetApp. Retrieved from http://www.getapp.com/blog/mailerlite-email-marketing-review/

MarketingSherpa. (2003, September 23). 4 tactics REI uses to drive web surfers to brick-and-mortar retail stores. Retrieved from http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/4-tactics-rei-uses-to

REI. (2014a, January 23). REI honors top vendor partner of the year. Retrieved from http://www.rei.com/about-rei/newsroom/2014/rei-honors-top-vendor-partners-of-the-year.html

REI. (2014b, February 21). REI checkout page. Retrieved from https://www.rei.com/CheckoutLoginView?storeId=8000

Schultz, B. (2013, April 24). Customer intelligence gets Skinit in the game. All Analytics. Retrieved from http://www.allanalytics.com/author.asp?section_id=1411&doc_id=262529

Google: Ethics, Privacy, and Security; Oh My!

A common perception is that Google is a search engine and ad-word company. In truth, Google is a data collection company. Google offers a wide variety of services, software products, and tools that enable the company to collect massive amounts of data from individuals and companies including, internet traffic, usage and search patterns, and trends. Some of Google’s top offerings are: its search engine, AdWords, YouTube, Google+, Gmail, Google Glass, Google Docs, Android (mobile operating system), and Google Analytics.

The massive amount of data and information Google collects and stores raises ethical, privacy and security concerns.

In the discussion that follows, this paper delves into some of the ethical, privacy, and security issues that have arisen around Google and highlights a few companies  that provide  an alternative to Google’s services.

Ethics

In 2012, an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found Google’s Street View Project had been collecting personal data from individuals without their permission. The investigation disclosed that the Google vehicles that were sent through towns and neighborhoods collected personal information such as e-mail addresses and passwords by tapping all the Wi-Fi networks the vehicles came across (Johnston, 2012). 

The FCC report noted that the Google engineer that designed the software program to collect the data “knowingly created software that would collect sensitive personal information about people without their knowledge” (Kang, 2012).

This project did not impact just one person, neighborhood, or town. Rather, the scale of this personal and unethical intrusion was massive. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) “As of 2012, investigations have gone forward in at least 12 countries, and at least 9 countries have found Google guilty of violating their laws for its unethical information gathering practice during the Street View Project” (n.d.).

While the 2012 FCC report did not find Google guilty of any crimes 38 states and Washington D.C. combined to file a lawsuit against Google for its unethical information gathering practice during the Street View Project, in what was dubbed the “Wi-Spy” scandal. In 2013, Google settled the lawsuit by paying a total of $7 million to the states and Washington D.C. As part of the settlement, Google was also required to destroy the personal data it collected during the Street View Project (Gustin, 2013).

Privacy 

Many of Google’s products and services also raise privacy concerns, most notably, its search engine, Gmail, and Google Glass. In 2012, Google changed its privacy policy, basically stating that information and data are collected and shared across all Google products and services. This announcement was tied directly to the launch of Google’s new “personalized search;” the company’s revision to its search engine, which was designed to provide more personalized search results. A person’s Goggle search query is now tied to the information they provided or how they use other Google products and services. This leads to the question of whether individuals want Google to have access to that much personal information (Ingram, 2012). People enter incredibly personal information into a search engine. For example, when someone feels sick or unhealthy they may conduct a search describing their symptoms; what if the search results disclose that the symptoms are indicative of a sexually transmitted disease or mental issues? How is that information used by Google, and with whom is Google sharing such sensitive and personal information?

Gmail is another source of privacy concerns. Google’s stated policy is: “Gmail users do not and never should have an expectation of privacy” (Wood, 2013). Therefore, under Google’s stated policy, any images, any video, or any information written and sent via Gmail can potentially be read and seen by others.

Finally, Google Glass raises another level of privacy concerns as the device has a video record function. This means that when someone is wearing Google Glass they can video record anything they are viewing. This raises the concern of people being recorded without their knowledge or willingness to be recorded. Members of Congress sent a letter to Google expressing alarm over this issue (Covert and Pepitone, 2013).  It remains to be seen how that issue will be resolved, if at all.  The other privacy concern is whether Google has access to the Google Glass video footage? What does the company do with the video footage that is recorded on Google Glass?

Security

Google has what can be considered a treasure-trove of valuable data which can cause people or organizations to attempt to access and steal the data for nefarious purposes.  Google products and services could also pose security risks to companies and organizations that use the services or allow employees to store sensitive company data on Google devices.

For example, people have historically been concerned with the privacy issues associated with mobile devices that run on the Android operating system, but companies are beginning to focus on the  security implications of employees bringing devices into the workplace and storing company sensitive information; potentially making the data vulnerable (Gonsavles, 2012). Also, Google products like its cloud-based Google Docs give companies pause as they can be susceptible to hacking attempts from malicious entities and individuals, that if successful, could result in valuable company information being stolen (Brodkin, 2010).  

Alternatives

There is a burgeoning anti-Google movement. People are increasingly seeking alternatives to Google’s services. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that is looking to capitalize and appeal to people concerned about the privacy and unethical use of their search queries. DuckDuckGo asserts that users’ search queries are kept private and no data is collected or stored (Lee, 2014).

To demonstrate this point, the company uses two interesting examples, found here http://donttrack.us/. The examples are if a user searches something like herpes or bankruptcy, both of which are highly personal and sensitive. This example highlights the fact the information could be sold to advertisers and 3^rd parties or given to unwanted entities; both having potentially detrimental results (DuckDuckgo, n.d.).   

For companies that are concerned about privacy and unwanted use of its web traffic data, Piwik offers an alternative to Google Analytics. Piwik claims that a company using the service keeps its own data and Piwik does not have access to it when using Piwik’s web analytics tool (Piwik, n.d.).  Piwik has had some success capitalizing on this movement as it is used by over 480,000 websites (Qayyum, 2013).  

Conclusion

Google continues to be a source of privacy, ethical and security concerns. Google’s recent acquisition of Nest, maker of internet connected thermostats, caused a stir among privacy advocates. As explained above, Google already collects an incredible amount of online data, and now it is reaching into collecting information on peoples’ energy usages (Crum, 2014).

In the digital era, companies like Google will collect more personal data about us than we may be comfortable with. The history of loose ethics and low privacy standards is cause for concern. The National Security Agency (NSA) is under immense scrutiny for its recent privacy intrusions and oversteps. Perhaps Google should be similarly scrutinized (Newman, 2013).  

References:

Brodkin, J. (Jul. 29, 2010). Google Apps intrigues IT pros, but security worries remain. Network World. Retrieved from: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/072910-google-apps.html

Covert, A. and Pepitone, J. (May 17, 2013). Google says you'll know when Glass is sketchy. CNN. Retrieved from: http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/17/technology/innovation/google-glass-privacy/index.html

Crum, R. (Jan. 13, 2014). Google raises some privacy issues with Nest buy. Market Watch. Retrieved from: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-raises-some-privacy-issues-with-nest-buy-2014-01-13

DuckDuckGo. (n.d.). Don’t Track Us. Retrieved from: http://donttrack.us/

Electronic Privacy Information Center. (n.d). Investigations of Google Street View. Retrieved from: http://epic.org/privacy/streetview/

Gonsalves, A. (Jun. 29, 2012). Google Now draws caution among security experts. CSO Online. Retrieved from: http://www.csoonline.com/article/709578/google-now-draws-caution-among-security-experts

Gustin, S. (Mar. 13, 2013). Did Google Get Off Easy With $7 Million ‘Wi-Spy’ Settlement?. Time. Retrieved from: http://business.time.com/2013/03/13/did-google-get-off-easy-with-7-million-wi-spy-settlement/

Ingram, M. (Jan. 25, 2012). Should Google’s New Privacy Policy Concern You?. Businessweek. Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/should-googles-new-privacy-policy-concern-you-01252012.html#p1

Johnston, C. (May 6, 2012). Leave only footprints: how Google’s ethical ignorance gets it in trouble. Ars Technica. Retrieved from: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/googles-street-view-engineer-knew-data-collection-was-questionable/

Kang, C. (Apr. 29, 2012). Google engineer told officials Street View cars were collecting personal data, FCC report says. Washington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/google-engineer-told-officials-street-view-cars-were-collecting-personal-data-fcc-report/2012/04/29/gIQAPLtkpT_blog.html

Lee, J (Jan. 13, 2014). DuckDuckGo Celebrates 1 Billion Searches in 2013. Search Engine Watch. Retrieved from: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2322643/DuckDuckGo-Celebrates-1-Billion-Searches-in-2013

Newman, N. (Jul. 1, 2013). Why Google's Spying on User Data Is Worse than the NSA's. Huffington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-newman/why-googles-spying-on-use_b_3530296.html

Piwik. (n.d.). Piwik – User Guide. Retrieved from: http://piwik.org/docs

Qayyum, A. (Sep. 2013). Google analytics vs Piwik: the ultimate comparison. Smashing Hub. Retrieved from: http://smashinghub.com/google-analytics-vs-piwik-the-ultimate-comparison.htm

Wood, M. (Aug. 13, 2013). Gmail: You weren't really expecting privacy, were you?. C|net. Retrieved from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-57598424-256/gmail-you-werent-really-expecting-privacy-were-you/

Comparison Between Piwik & Google Analytics

In addition to Google Analytics (GA), there are a variety of free web analytics tools available. Some companies that offer free analytics tools are GoingUp, Piwik, Reinvigorate, and Woopra. Most of the free versions of these services offer limited reports and metrics, and the companies charge for more robust versions (Demers, 2013). Of the alternative analytics tools mentioned, Piwik Web Analytics is comparable to GA.

Piwik is a free open-source analytics tool. It was developed in 2008 and is used by over 480,000 websites. Piwik offers robust features and tools that provide details on par with GA (Qayyum, 2013). Open-source software and projects are collaborative and open for the public to develop and change. The software’s original team of developers provide the software and licensing rights free to everyone (Opensource.com, n.d.).

Piwik provides a lot of the same standard reports GA does, such as traffic referrals, keywords, new/unique/return visitors, content, browser type, device type, visitor flow, etc. These reports give a company the solid fundamental data and information to make insightful marketing, sales, and business decisions. They also provide useful data points that enable a company to measure and track the website performance and marketing or ad campaign results.

To provide a company with more information and detailed data points, Piwik has more robust features included in its free web analytics tool. These features include real-time analytics, customizable dashboards and widgets, e-commerce analytics, site search analytics, and transactional analytics.

Piwik’s real-time analytics reports provide data for any date range including “today” or “current month.” with up-to-date analytics that include the most recent visits. These reports are updated every 10 seconds. By using these reports along with Piwik’s “Live! Widget” displays, a company can get a sense of the real-time flow of visitors on its site. It shows a real-time counter for page views, visits, and number of actions performed by the visitor, and it refreshes every five seconds (Qayyum, 2013). This constant refresh is very useful for a site with heavy traffic and time-sensitive promotions or activities.

Piwik allows each user to customize the dashboard and widgets to present readily the metrics the user considers most important as well as the details of data specific to the user’s needs. The layout of the dashboard is customizable as well. This customizability allows the information to be displayed and organized in a way that’s most digestible to the user (Taylor, 2014).

Piwik has a surprising strong e-commerce analytics feature. With this feature a company can track customer interactions, order and cart updates, product views, and category page views. The e-commerce analytics feature allows a company to generate reports with various sales information, such as total revenue, average order value, conversion rate, purchased products, and abandoned carts metrics. Additionally, a company can get a report of top products sold, product revenue, purchase quantities, etc. The e-commerce analytics feature also allows the company to sort information by product name, product SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), or product category (Qayyum, 2013).

To access and get information on the go, Piwik provides a mobile app. The mobile app is available for iOS and Android tablets and phones. The mobile app looks similar to the web version and has good functionality (Piwik, n.d.).

A nifty feature of Piwik is its site search analytics. Site search gives a company insight and details about how visitors are using the website’s internal search engine. The site search report will tell a company what keywords visitors use on its website’s internal search and what pages or content visitors go to after their search. Also, the report provides the company with the keywords that delivered no results (Piwik, n.d.). These pieces of information help a company understand what content, items, information, or products visitors are coming to the site to find but cannot find. 

A feature unique to Piwik is transition analytics. This feature allows a company to see and evaluate actions taken by a visitor right before or after viewing a specific page. It works similar to a visitor flow report, the difference being that transition analytics can be pulled up while within other reports. For example, if a user is in an e-commerce report, he or she can click the transition analytics icon next to the entries/items listed to see what the visitors were doing before and after that action. These results display like the visitor flow (Piwik, n.d.).  Here is a screen shot of the
transition analytics report.

There are some areas in which GA is a little stronger than Piwik (e.g. customer support). Piwik is an open-source project; it relies on software developers’ free contributions and donations from company sponsors or people. As such, Piwik does not have the resources to provide customer support on level of a multibillion dollar company like Google. It relies on the Piwik forum and community to help each other out. The forums and community are active, but sometimes responses are a little slow; there isn’t anyone users can call on the phone for immediate help (About Analytics, n.d.).

Looking at GA and Piwik side by side, the two are comparable both for basic web analytic tools and for high-power advanced and detailed tools (e.g., the e-commerce reports). It is tough to clearly state one is superior to the other. Both GA and Piwik are easy enough to for a small company and scalable and robust enough to handle enterprise and extremely high traffic websites. GA and Piwik both offer mobile apps so a user can get the information on the go. Piwik does offer some unique features: the customizable dashboards and widgets, the site search tool, and the transition analytics feature. However, for a marketer or CIO looking to get buy-in from management, GA probably makes more sense. GA has strong brand recognition and is more trusted and more established, so it is an easier sale to a skeptical management team.  GA also provides better customer support, which would garner more consideration from a user or company that isn’t savvy to web analytics.

Nevertheless, for a company that is concerned about privacy and keeping its own data, Piwik is the choice over GA. One of the main points of differentiation Piwik likes to highlight is the fact that a company keeps its own data and Piwik does not have access to it. A company’s data is not sold or used for other purpose like it can be when a company uses GA (Piwik, n.d.).

References

About Anaylytics. (n.d.). Piwik. Retrieved from: http://www.aboutanalytics.com/general-public-licence/piwik

Demers, T. (May 10, 2013). Web Analytics Software Comparison: Identifying The Right Web Analytics Tools For Your Business. Search Engine Land. Retrieved from: http://searchengineland.com/web-analytics-software-comparison-identifying-the-right-web-analytics-tools-for-your-business-149373

Opensource.com. (n.d.). What Is Open source. Retrieved from: http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source

Piwik. (n.d.). Piwik – User Guide. Retrieved from: http://piwik.org/docs

Qayyum, A. (Sep. 2013). Google analytics vs piwik: the ultimate comparison. Smashing Hub. Retrieved from: http://smashinghub.com/google-analytics-vs-piwik-the-ultimate-comparison.htm

Taylor, V. (Jan. 14, 2014). Take charge of your stats: Piwik Analytics vs. Google Analytics. Coach Notes Blog. Retrieved from http://www.localbusinesscoachonline.com/coachnotes/piwik-analytics