Finding a Lifeline

How SEO and Analytics Help Build eCommerce

By Michael Dickenson

A year into the pandemic, it’s clear that consumers have adopted a “new normal” for shopping — and it’s digital. According to new research by PSFK, shopper loyalty has changed. Nearly 40 percent of consumers purchased from new brands and retailers online in 2020 and two-thirds intend to remain loyal. Just 23 percent of consumers intend to shift spending back to in-store from retail after the pandemic.

In this disrupted environment where consumer loyalty is up for grabs, business intelligence and data-driven decision-making are key to success. These are musts to capitalize on opportunities in eCommerce, which is projected to grow by nearly 20 percent in 2021, according to eMarketer.

Amid this growth, new performance analytics platforms are needed to drive more profitable eCommerce with better insight into e-analytics and product attributes. Business intelligence solutions for consumer packaged goods (CPG) and retail companies should be zeroing in on, and drilling down into, more detail from the way that consumers interact with your websites and online marketing programs.

Maximize the following:
• Share of Page – Is your eCommerce SEO working across all search terms, on all sites?
• Pricing – Price analysis including item-by-item comparisons, alerts when action needed
• Trends – detect new trending items
• Competitors – Capture all product attributes including brand, manufacturer, form, packaging, flavours, scents, nutrition facts, drug facts, etc. We use these attributes to identify competitor items and so should you.
• Availability – delivery times, charges and item availability both 1P and 3P fulfilment.

With so many businesses looking to build eCommerce analytics expertise as shopping trends shift, Ironbridge has been working to rollout new systems which address these key factors.

In our ‘new normal’, the most successful online brands and retailers will be those that gain greater visibility into how product attributes, pricing and promotions perform — or don’t. Find what gives you the insights necessary to execute informed shifts in strategy.

Built especially for CPG and eCommerce, our new system, called Line Item, enables a deep dive into e-analytics to help eCommerce marketing professionals, data scientists and brand managers understand more about share of sales, pricing strategy, product trends, competition, and supply chain attributes.

The idea is to help marketers optimize their eCommerce SEO strategy across all keywords on retailer websites and online marketplaces. They can find out how their brands or items are ranking, if their promotion strategy is working, and if long-tail keywords are worth promoting. The analytics platform analyzes page share, rank by item, brand, form, in fact by any attribute.

Marketers also want to accomplish a deep dive into each product to capture all attributes to reveal what drives value. These include brand, manufacturer, form, packaging, flavours, scents, nutrition facts, and drug facts. Product attribute insights can help eCommerce marketing professionals detect competitor activity, including the launch of new items.

Because we track hundreds of items in each product category, the performance analytics platform can help keep tabs on new products, brands and competitors. The goal is to reveal items that are newly trending, enabling a robust view of the competitive landscape.

Another vital process is for eCommerce marketers need to more fully understand and optimize their pricing. Marketers should compare unit pricing item-by-item across competitors and web sites daily as well as over a specified period for analysis. We can send pricing alerts, including MAP violations that enable adjustments or other actions.

Ironbridge Software has deep roots in the CPG industry. I founded the company to provide a complete service for the CPG industry through database expertise, analytical expertise, and software capabilities. Over the last 30 years, Ironbridge has built its business on the needs of CPG and eCommerce clients, including some of the biggest Fortune 500 CPG brands in the industry.

Today we’re seeing an unprecedented period in which an accelerated shift has forever altered digital buying trends. Our clients are leaning into eCommerce, and they need the key data that I have described above. We hope that our approach to providing solutions will lead the industry to more accurate and responsive demands upon their providers.

Michael Dickenson is CEO and Founder of Ironbridge Software Inc.