Dr. John F. Tanner Jr. at Baylor University has written an article about how online data misleads marketers if it's isolated from offline channel data. As an example he sites popular outdoor retailer Cabela’s, where shoppers may place an item in an online cart as many as three times on average before purchasing the item offline in a brick-and-mortar store.
Dr. Tanner says, “A marketer may observe those multiple cart abandonment episodes and conclude that the website isn’t working.” In that incorrect case, the data might be used in a way that actually reduces sales opportunities.
Acquire, Analyze, Apply, Assess To gain a properly integrated view, Cabela’s paired Teradata’s Integrated Web Intelligence (IWI) application with Webtrends' online data collection technology. The process included four steps — acquire, analyze, apply and assess. Those four steps resulted in Cabela’s successful creation of more than 30 customized catalog flyers, each made for customers in different regions and each made to highlight local interests and leverage specific store location needs. But that's only the beginning. As Dean Wynkoop, Sr. Manager of Data Management at Cabela's, says, "It's not a fixed process with a fixed start and end. It's a process of getting better at each step ..."- Read the entire article “Illuminating the Path to Purchase.”
- Find out more about Dr. Tanner and his research at Baylor University.