Danke! Merci! Thank you! for 2019 ❤ – 2020 is about to get going and it’s shaping up to be a good one!

Whether you are a customer, partner or an E-commerce enthusiast, 2019 wouldn’t have been half as exciting without you.  So, before we get lost in the excitement of the new year, let’s have a quick look back and bask in the best bits of 2019.

GDPR Drama und the econda Privacy Protection Solution

Let’s get the big one over and done with. The GDPR along with the decision of the ECJ  in October 2019 plunged the E-commerce world and online marketing into the depths of doom and gloom. There you have it! It was high time to bring in some clarity and calm to the chaos.

So, our answer was to develop an amazing Consent Management Platform. Something every data protectionist could be proud of! Our solution meets each and every requirement of the DSGVO and of the cookie ruling. So you can get going in 2020 with complete peace of mind. Your data protection is in good hands,

New GUIs, Features and Plug-ins

Along with all the small improvements we made, our main focus for 2019 was to develop new GUIs for our products. Cross Sell glows in a luscious green. The ARP is finally independent with new features and stands proud in a deep red wine. A colour that resonates with my palatinate heart.

2019 in Numbers

In 2019 we rolled out a total of 8.2 billion recommendations, edited 50 billion tracking requests and gave 800 million newsletter recommendations. Our customers made close to 400 million Euros turnover. That’s the equivalent to 2600 Ferraris with standard kit or 25 million crates of beer. No one got a Ferrari, but we still celebrated the results with our customers!

Plug-in for the Shopware lover in You

Hüseyin our Plug-in Developer, who is already father to 2 wonderful children, released his very own online baby. The Shopware Plug-in got some new features. including product recommendations for your shopware shopping world. A shopware shop with econda recommendations? What better way to end 2019 with a bang?

Florian Ilgen, a dancing Data Scientist and a whole load of beer!

Events are very much part and parcel of an E-commerce year. As a rule, often with too much beer, but that’s beside the point!

In 2019 we launched After Work; a small networking event, which regularly attracts visitors from Karlsruhe and the surrounding area.  And we’re loving every minute.

In the middle of the year our yearly BBQ took place. This time we welcomed Florian Ilgen as our main speaker. The planning for this year’s BBQ is already well underway.

In the second half of the year we tried something completely new. We went to the Web Engineering Unconference in Mallorca. Between the Megapark and the beach, we enjoyed thrilling talks and workshops. On top of this, we of course did all the usual exhibitions as well. But that’s all part of the everyday business isn’t it?

econda expands and thrives

We are particularly excited about a whole load of new colleagues. Our ARP team welcomed Martin and Mehmet as assets to the team. Fans of our documentation can look forward to interesting, new contents by our new technical editor Elisa. And Christopher gave Sales and CR an injection of fresh blood. We are still on the lookout for real team players and E-commerce stars in 2020.

What’s in store for 2020‘s roadmap?

Well we can’t give away too much. It’s all top secret! But our Roadmap ensures that 2020 has a whole load of exciting content in the pipeline. 😉Look out for the following:

• econda Usability Offensive
• AI is finally available to use in Analytics
• econda integration made even easier thanks to new interfaces
• And a whole load more!

econda supports the nph Children‘s Aid in Latin America e.V. and the Child Protection Association Karlsruhe

And before we forget…..every year we try to give a little something back and support a good cause. This year we have donated to 2 local partners.  Firstly, the Child Protection Agency Karlsruhe, a charity we sponsor regularly. Secondly the nph Children’s Aid in Latin America and the project der Fairen Fünf. Clean drinking water for school children in Haiti.

All the best,

Your econda Team

What to expect?

1. Who is POCO?
2. What Problem does POCO have?
3. How do POCO and econda join forces to find a solution?
4. How does econda personalization get to the POCO-Shop?
5. The result – how much more turnover is really achieved?
6. What is planned for the future?

The econda ARP provides product recommendations in the POCO shop that are always relevant!

econda puts you in the spotlight. It doesn’t matter if you are a customer, partner or prospective customer. We are constantly asking ourselves, how we can make our econda solutions as simple and concise as possible for you. What always works? Correct, real life customer stories.

Real projects! Real Customers! Real projects!

We want to share some real econda success stories with you. POCO is one of these such stories. Here it is!

For a complete overview of the case it is, however, advisable to read the rest!

Who is POCO?

POCO is one of the largest German interior furnishing companies, with over 120 markets in Germany, more than 8,000 employees and a turnover volume of 1,6 billion Euros a year in 2017. We have been working together closely with POCO for more than 5 years now and have enjoyed an intimate and succesful cooperation with our econda analytics solution. On this basis we have developed a phenomenal relationship built on trust.

What solution is POCO looking for?

Personalized products on every device! 

At POCO the online marketing and e-commerce team is especially ambitious and constantly on the lookout for optimization possibilities for their online shop. POCO had already identified the topic of personalization as a key issue for the future. With product ranges being larger and more extensive than ever before, the ability to guide customers quickly and easily to their relevant products is essential. True to the motto“you never get a second chance to make a first impression”, visitors need to be picked up while they are viewing a page and directed as quickly as possible to the products they are looking for or need.

A multitude of devices , as well as the need for a customized sales pitch, are among the challenges involved in running a modern online shop. Customers surf on their mobiles, come across the POCO Shop, then decide they would prefer to make the final purchase on their laptop or tablet at home. Threre is so much lost potential here ,if these customers aren’t properly looked after, treated individually and if cross channel customer profiles are not amalgated.

Personalization and individual product recommendations through all points of contact along the customer journey, as well as the respectful and responsible interaction with customer data are all part of the challenges that modern E-commerce faces. POCO does not have to face these challenges alone. Econda is 100% behind them as their partner.

POCO homepage personalized with econda ARP

The idea:

Through it’s own observations and market research, it became clear something needed to be done. The following idea began to grow on POCO: When you show people exactly what they want to see the very moment they are surfing, then their readiness to buy increases demonstratively. Saitisfied customers enjoy shopping with you and are guaranteed to return. Customer loyality, conversions and turnover constantly grow and evolve. The best and by far the most important thing, is that you actually create real added value for your customers.

The implementation:

Personalization options from econda in shopping cart area.

How does POCO actually put this idea into practice? POCO needs to show people exactly what they want to see, the minute they are looking for it. Knowledge about all customers and their needs, must be completely accessible at all times. Personalization needs to be in play at all times for the customer.

This is where econda comes into play. At econda our products econda cross sell and our customer data platform, the econda ARP, take on these functions. Econda’s personalization options are well known to POCO through regular communciation and consultation with our econda team. Using these solutions was a logical next step.

How is econda personalization implemented in the POCO-Shop?

To this end we have so-called widgets. In other words ”displays/windows” built in to various pages of the POCO shop.

Personalization of the POCO-Shop on the Smartphone.

Products displayed, that POCO recommends to each customer. Together with POCO we developed specific rules for these widgets, so that customers are shown content that is as personalized as possible. The econda solutions automatically take on the triggering of these widgets with individual content. They adhere to the pre-defined rules when doing this. It doesn’t just sound high tech, there really is a whole load of highly skilled technology involved. Philipp is happy to explain more about this in his presentations. You can see a few of these in our video portal. It’s definitely worth a look.

What do the results look like? Satisfied customers – we are happy!

POCO and econda are more than happy with the results achieved so far. When customers come into contact with the recommendation widgets in the POCO shop, it has a direct effect on the company’s success. Why? The shopping cart value rises on average by a whole 30%

The bounce quota on the homepage plummeted by a whole 60% after the implementation of a recommendation widget. With our recommendations POCO manages to increase its sales. In short: When POCO-customers are faced with recommendations from econda, conversion rates increase. POCO generates more turnover and makes it’s customers happier.

This performance is monitored and optimized during regular meetings with Jörg, in our customer services department. This gets the most out of the performance and ensures a healthy dialogue between us and our customer POCO.

What does the future hold?

POCO and econda have a long way still to go together. We have already defined our next goals. Both sides are working hard together to achieve and implement these goals. We are planning to increase conversions through even more optimization innitiatives. For this the preconfigured rules are further refined and the general placing of the recommendations is reworked. The econda personalization options should be extended to the email marketing. There are further plans for the personalization of the display marketing with the customer data platform econda ARP.

An exciting future lies ahead and we still have loads of exciting projects planned.

The econda crew wants to thank the whole team at POCO for a cooperation that is both rewarding and great fun. We are excited about the future together and look forward to making the customer journey for POCO customers even more worthwhile.

With econda on it’s team, POCO is ready for the future!

Are you fired up by the topic of personalization and want econda to personalize your shop? Do you need more informationon our products and want to chat to the guys behind the econda solution?Then give us a call or write us a mail. Click here for Analytics, Cross Sell and ARP. 

We look forward to meeting you!

Your econda team

Road to Success – How babymarkt.de has improved it’s mail marketing and keeps storage costs to a minimum with econda.

How econda helps babymarkt.de be a roaring success in E-commerce

econda analytics plays an essential role in the high quality, targeted email marketing at babymarkt.de Alongside the analytics options, econda analytics provides babymarkt.de with fully developed software solutions with extensive data, allowing forecasting tools to work safely and precisely. This has countless benefits for babymarkt.de. A forecasting tool ensures the warehouse is never empty, predicts sales trends, reduces costs and increases turnover.

Up to now we had been using various web analytics tools but econda simply offers the best combination of flexibility within the analyses for web analytics professionals in the company and intuitive user friendly tools.

Real projects! Real Customers! Measurable Successes!

We want to share some real econda success stories with you. Babymarkt.de is one of these such stories. Here it is.

For those of you who are too busy to read, we have put together a summary of the most important facts here. For a complete overview of the case it is however advisable to read the rest!

Who is babymarkt.de?

The babymarkt.de is the biggest online shop for baby and children’s products in Europe. Alongside Germany the company enjoys a market presence in 13 European countries, as well as in China. With over 450 employees the company has enjoyed rapid growth, on average by 30% a year.

What connects us?

We have nurtured a target-driven partnership for over 10 years now, during which we have cooperatively and effectively supported babymarkt.de within web analytics. Challenges within web analytics are the order of the day. The product range alone of over 100,000 articles covering every aspect of baby and toddler needs, makes working together with babymarkt.de especially exciting for econda. Bearing the size of the company in mind, our technical and software solution is an absolute necesssity. And this is, of course, right up our street!

What solution is babymarkt.de looking for?

There are two pressing challenges for babymarkt.de.

1. The email-marketing requires an up-to-date database, to guarantee an improved sales pitch
2. Babymarkt.de uses an internal business intelligence solution to calculate sales forecasts, essential for repeat orders. These sales forecasts are sluggish and prone to errors, largely due to substandard data bases. The forecasting tool reacts too slowly to rising demand. This runs the risk of repeat orders not being processed quickly enough.

“In contrast with the other alternatives that are free of charge, econda provides competent support that we can rely on, even when analyses are out of the ordinary. With regards to GDPR and data protection econda is simply in an entirely different league. “ babymarkt.de

The Solutions

First solution: All distribution and behavior based KPI’s are grouped in one tool. This facilitates any optimizations and reduces workload.

Second solution: Sales forecasts are improved, as data measurement is optimized. Babymarkt.de has noted, that customer interest increases in intervals, before an actual sale is processed. This is particularly the case for seasonal products, such as sun protection for buggies and winter foot-muffs, but can also be relevant for other articles at babymarkt.de

Babymarkt.de obviously wants a rock-solid solution to both problems. This is where econda comes into play.

The solution – how can the requirements be sensibly implemented?

The econda analytics solution is ideal for the requirements Babymarkt.de has.

Solution 1 – grouping of the KPI’s in one tool to acheive optimal email marketing:  Babymarkt.de changed to Inxmail as its mailing provider, as it was the simplest way to improve the database and in turn facilitate target driven customer sales pitches. Econda and Inxmail work closely side by side and together harmonize the perfect solution. This facilitates specifically targeted campaigns alongside central data management within the econda solution.

Solution 2 – optimization of data measurement: Newly defined metrics, measured by econda, provide the basis for the calculation of the forecasting tool. These include visits to the product page, entries via product portals. Products are flagged up for new orders based on the increase in visits. This prevents the products running out in the warehouse.

Equally this works the other way around. In the event of decreasing user interest , unnecessary repeat orders can be avoided and so the warehouse is not unnecessarily full. How does that work? We pass on the data we measured to the business intelligence tool at babymarkt.de. This then calculates a precise forecasting tool, also using artifical intelligence. Pretty cool, don’t you think?

The Result

Econda data helps reduce storage costs. So the shelves on the shopfloor will never be empty and the customers will never be disappointed.

Interlinking the email and webanalytics tool drastically simplifies the creation of reports for babymarkt.de. What’s more, econda allows in depth analyses, improves segmentation and the automation of email campaigns.  Econda data has a positive effect on opening rates and click rates, resulting in increased order rates.

What does the future hold?

Together we are looking for more data points, to expand the forecasting tool with internal banners and newsletter advertising spaces.

In the mailing area, an even more granular campaign management is just around the corner. This will reach babymarkt through the evaluation of behavorial data.  These results are used for optimization.

Global data, cross-border traffic, big data applications, smart homes and the internet of things are merely a few examples of the developments in the past few years that have pushed previous data protection regulations to their limits. This is one of the reasons the law has established the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will serve as the Europe-wide standard legislation for data protection from 25.05.2018. Alongside this, a new ePrivacy regulation will be reinforced, for the protection of personal data in the electronic communications sector, especially in the internet.

Data protection has always been pivotal part of econda’s products. We are and always have been pioneers in data protection – be it in the implementation of recommendations from the Düsseldorf working group or in the first Germany-wide certification “TÜV – Certified Data Protection“ of a web analytics solution.

To do this justice, we have introduced the econda Privacy Protection.

Which areas are affected by the GDPR and the ePrivacy regulations? What penalties do you face if you fail to observe these regulations?

Every company has countless systems which contain the records of the personal data of customers, suppliers and business partners. From classic systems such as ERP, CRM, support, call centers and customer service, to more complex systems in marketing with big data analyses, business intelligence, analytics, recommendation/personalization and the employment of agencies.

It is up to you and your company to fulfill the requirements of the GDPR, of the new Federal Data Protection Act, of the future ePrivacy regulations as well as all other specific statutory requirements. The specific requirements for each person concerned are highly complex. For example:

These requirements have to be logged centrally and verifiably implemented. You need to request a lot of upstream systems for information as well as pass requirements to subsystems, particularly ERP, CRM, mailing providers etc.

Particularly if you are in breach of agreements or individual rights, you risk being prosecuted according to art 83 para 5 of the GDPR. This penalty can be up to 20 million Euros or 4% of the complete worldwide projected yearly turnover of the previous tax year, whichever is higher.

How does econda rise to the challenge of fulfilling the constant changes and updates in the GDPR and the ePrivacy areas?

econda Privacy Protection helps you fulfill all these requirements and tasks in the following ways:

You and your company must act now! 25.05.2018 is D-day! The clock is ticking. What to do?

Get in touch with us – we will be happy to help you, quickly and efficiently. This means that:

Time is running out; 25.05.2018 is just around the corner.

Shall we get going? Get in touch on +49 721 663035-399, by mail at interesse@econda.de or directly here:

You have without a doubt all the information about your customers in your CRM. Because the customers expect you to have their customer history to hand, when you advise them. Apart from any direct dialogue with your customers, your CRM data are probably left touched. We will show you how you can best use this data for personalization.

Important information upfront: So that all your customers are comfortable with the personalization, we take care both of the legal and ethical side of this kind of solution. Personalization has countless advantages for you and your customers. Personalization is available to everyone interested – those who are not interested in personalization (for whatever reason) are offered security and protection for their privacy.

Profile information in econda Audience Relationship Platform

In connection with our DMP (Data Management Platform), the econda Audience Relationship Platform (ARP for short), we bring your CRM data to a whole new level. Lines between online and offline are blurred and we don’t just stop at one device with econda ARP.

You whole visitor and click behavior of your web and APP data is made available as a profile, cross device, in econda ARP even at the point of booking. If you also have a shop and use our recommendation solution econda Cross Sell, all of your visitors product interactions are automatically transferred into your profile. So you start off with a significant data base.

In ARP your individual customers/visitors/e-mail recipients, who have agreed to Opt-in, are bundled together in user-based profiles and then the following information is assigned to the individual profiles cross device:

You can utilise this knowlege in your marketing automation for targeted pitches to your customers.

Enrich your online profile with your CRM data

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of profile information automatically available to you. With the Audience Relationship Platform you can form your own personal view of your customers, by importing your own information from your CRM, data warehouse, BI system or campaign management, as so-called profile properties.

Basically, in terms of what best represents your application, anything is possible in your profile. You should however only save information that is relevant and in the interests of your business. Here are a few examples:

Use CRM data in your online channels

You simply create your own profile properties through the econda personalization interface, export customer data from your CRM and import it into econda ARP. This can be easily done, for example through CSV data directly within the UI or automatically through webservice API or through JavaScript.

Now all your data is available to your online channels. You can use your individual data that reflects the complete online and offline customer journey for real time personalization.

React to every click in real time

When you use econda ARP together with our recommendation solution Cross Sell we throw in a whole load of other stuff:

If you, for example take out of the CRM that the customer likes heels, we can start off by showing the best sellers from the category heels on the website. As soon as she begins to browse in your shop, you get instant information added to her profile in real time, e.g. information on her favorite colors, style or preferred materials. With every product she views, we can build up a better picture of exactly which heels she likes and so offer her suitable models as recommendations.

What else you can achieve using econda ARP:

So you can see, that the sky’s the limit with what you can do.

By all means get in touch, so that we can develop a suitable personalization strategy for you as a user. We will be only too pleased to show you just what you can achieve, with the econda Audience Relationship Platform.

Temperatures continue to fall in Germany, but online trade remains in the dizzy heights of the pre-Christmas madness. For many retailers it is the most profitable time of the year. People are frantically searching for gifts, trawling the internet and spending, spending, spending. Many retailers are slashing prices by offering discount codes. But it isn’t only the shops that are enticing the customers in but also voucher code sites. When this becomes a problem, here is how to react, in a nutshell.

It is no secret that a considerable percentage of website traffic is generated through affiliate partners, who are involved in the generation of turnover through commission. In most cases the commission is realized through a so-called cookie switch, which can be implemented with a tag management system, such as econda Tag Manager.

Lets us imagine the following scene: a visitor is searching for suitable Christmas presents in a search engine. He looks at various offers, until he comes across a retargeting-advert in your online shop. It goes without saying that he finds everything he wants in your range and puts Christmas presents for the whole family in the basket. Just before he checks out he discovers the field where he can input a discount code. Using search engines such as Google he easily finds a wealth of websites, that allegedly offer discount codes. He visits one of the sites and is sent back to your online shop more or less straight away. Without a gift voucher. The customer nevertheless makes the purchase, after all he wants his presents under the tree in time for Christmas Eve.

In the background the voucher site is now down as the last contact point in the customer journey and will in turn receive the full commission from the sale due to the commonly known “last cookie wins” principle. In fact your website visitor had already decided to make his purchase much earlier and merely tried to reduce the amount he had to pay by using a discount code: the lead quite possibly came to your website through a completely different marketing channel, a different marketing campaign or another marketing partner.

A solution for this problem is the so-called basket freeze. This “freezes” the information at the start of the ordering process as the last touch point of the customer journey.

If an attempt is made to set a new contact point (e.g. a cookie) during the ordering process, this will be ignored when calculating commission. When the order is then complete the actual partner who initiated the order, is rewarded. In our example this would be the retargeting partner.

From a technical point of view, this is merely a small adjustment, easily implemented e.g. with the econda Tag Manager. As an online shop manager you will however be quick to notice the effects: less unjustified commission to gift voucher sites and more transparency on the true marketing channels that really contributed to sales.

How can you establish, if you are affected by the phenomenon we have described? Modern web analytics tools, such as econda Analytics, offer extensive possibilities for evaluation. You can find numerous possibilities about the origins of the incoming traffic from the customer journey.

May I wish you a very Merry Christmas with a great turnover. I would be very interested to hear how you deal with the topics affiliate marketing and gift voucher sites: Have you already implemented a basket freeze? What has your experience been?

It’s the run up to Christmas: The streets are packed with people buying presents for thier loved ones. It’s not just the shops in town who are rubbing their hands together as their profits soar, many presents these days are simply ordered online.

Customers visit your online shop through various channels. Many of these are paid a commision: Be it Newsletters, Adwords or affiliate partners. The commission is often based on the success of the visit, i.e the contact gets a share of the conversion.

If the customer had several contacts to different partners along his
customer journey then it gets complicated: Who gets the commision from the order? The easiest solution: All partners are paid the full commission. This payment of so-called multiple commission can easily lead to high overheads. And it is at this point that a Tag Management System comes into play, such as for example the econda Tag Manager.

A Tag Management System enables you to display a so-called cookie switch (also known as a tracking switch), which lets you specify which performance marketing provider receives the commision on a conversion. You can, of course, share out the payment. The choice is yours.

For this there are different types of commision schemes. Here are three possible options.

Using available cookies on the order confirmation page through a Tag Management System allows you to add and change individual tracking pixels on an interface. It also creates transparency between channels by automatically allocating conversions and makes campaign results easy to evaluate.
May I wish you every success with your Christmas trade and I’d be delighted to see you here again. In my next blog (published on 14.12.2017) you will learn how a cookie switch wtihin a Tag Manager can prevent the misuse of gift vouchers with a so-called Basket Freeze. Find out what benefits this can have for your online shop.

Friday 3pm. The telephone in the IT department rings: “Hi, this is Katja from marketing, Could someone please install the new remarketing pixel in the shop for the Halloween campaign? You are the only ones with access to it. I’ve just sent out the info by mail. It’s really urgent, seeing as we want to launch it on Monday“.

This woman isn’t going to make any friends: Tight deadlines, no quality control and all that on a Friday afternoon…

Surely there must be another way? Well of course there is! Please put your hands together for “pixel management” with a Tag Manager. So what is tag management?

In online marketing third party code (mostly small java script or HTML-snippets) is normally used in order to access additional functions such as web analytics or conversion tracking.

A tag manager combats this wilderness of single code snippets by replacing it with a single “so-called” container. Within these containers individual tags e.g. for web analytics, retargeting or A/B tests can be triggered according to different rules. These can be triggered because of data collected on visitors, information on the website or simply because of business rules.

You no longer need to access the programming of the website in order to amend or add tags as this is done through a user interface similar to a content management system (CMS). This allows you to access the system without an in-depth knowledge of programming. Many tag management systems have several templates for frequently used tags at their disposal, such as large retargeting or affiliate networks. So far, so good: But why do you need it?

You should have a tag manager if

In a nutshell: If you want to react quickly, dynamically and also safely within Online Marketing, then you should consider a tag manager, such as econda’s Tag Manager as an excellent alternative to the Google Tag Manager.

To take the example of the Halloween campaign:

Same Friday, 3pm: Katja integrates the new pixel in the tag manager herself using copy and paste and tests the function directly in the test system. Happy with the result, she activates the new pixel in all the online shops ready for the start of the campaign on Monday.

Find out how and why a tag manager is suitable for use as a cookie switch in the second part of our series on tag management. Until then: Happy Halloween and have fun with pixel management.