E-Commerce

Annmarie Skin Care’s challenge is common and is experienced by e-commerce shops across the spectrum: while relying on 3rd party applications provides quick access to the functionality necessary to run its shop, it creates scattered environments of data that make it difficult to gather meaningful insights.

Background

Annmarie Skin Care (ASC) operates an e-commerce store that sells high-quality Skincare, Hair Care, and Body Care products. Launched in 2009, ASC has built a large, loyal customer base. Annmarie Skincare’s products are sold as stand-alone items, in bundles, and on a subscription basis. As the company experienced accelerated growth in 2018, they reached out to Alphabyte to take on several data and analytics challenges they were experiencing.

Sales Channels

ASC generates sales through several channels.

  • ASC operates a Shopify Store. They chose Shopify because it provides all the pieces required to operate an e-commerce website: Web design, shopping cart, payment gateways and inventory are all available as part of a synced system
  • ASC also operates several custom-built WordPress Landing Pages. These landing pages are built to market specific product bundles, with a well-thought-out Sales Funnel
  • Carthook is leveraged to provide post purchase offers to the Shopify checkout with the intention of boosting AOV
  • Upscribe is leveraged to allow customers to include Upsells as part of the checkout process
  • Recharge is leveraged to sell and manage their subscription products

Marketing Channels

ASC leverages a comprehensive list of marketing partners to drive traffic to its Shop and Landing pages. They include the following:

  • Facebook
  • Google AdWords (Display & Search)
  • Bing
  • iDev and Pepperjam are leveraged to manage and pay their affiliates. ASC relies on a network of well-established affiliates to generate traffic to its shop
  • Klaviyo is leveraged to automate internal Email and SMS marketing

Challenge

ASC’s challenge is common and is experienced by e-commerce shops across the spectrum: while relying on 3rd party applications provides quick access to the functionality necessary to run its shop, it creates scattered environments of data that make it difficult to gather meaningful insights.

  • Order data is only available in Shopify’s out of the box analytics dashboard
  • Details about subscriptions, such as the subscription start date, renewal cycle and cancellation date are only available through an out of the box Recharge dashboard
  • Affiliate Campaign, Ad level, and commission data is only available through generic iDev & Pepperjam Dashboards
  • Spend on Marketing platforms like Facebook and Google is retrievable only through their respective platforms

Unanswered Questions

For ASC, this challenge results in an inability to answer some core questions about its business.

How effective are ASC’s Marketing and Affiliate Programs?

  • How many days of maturity are required for ASC to Breakeven?
  • What is the expected Lifetime ROAS on each dollar spent?
  • How do the answers to these questions vary by
    • Marketing Channel
    • Landing Page
    • Campaign, Ad Set and Ad

How effective is ASC’s Subscription program?

  • What is their subscription retention rate?
  • What is their subscription Lifetime Value?
  • How do the answers to these questions vary by:
    • Product
    • Renewal Cycle (30 Day, 60 Day, 90 Day)
    • Marketing Channel, Campaign and AD

Several other questions remained unanswered:

  • What is ASC’s expected Customer LTV?
  • To what extent do its various business units (3rd party Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Customer Service, and Email/SMS) drive Customer LTV?
  • How effective are its various Sales Funnels (Shop vs. Landing Pages)?

Solution

We worked with ASC to address its challenge and provided a sustainable solution. The implemented solution included the following features:

1) A Data Warehousing Solution that consolidated all its data sources into one environment. This included Shopify, Marketing Channels (Facebook, Google and Bing), Recharge, Klaviyo and Affiliate (iDev & Pepperjam) data

2) A Data Model creating the relationships between major data sources, and core calculations required to report on KPIs

3) A Power BI Reporting Enviornment providing one-click access to key reporting required to track performance and make key decisions

Below is a high-level diagram that illustrates the various levels of the solution:

A flow diagram that illustrates the data warehousing, processing, and reporting layers

E-Commerce Reporting Flow Diagram

A Bird’s Eye-View

Consolidating ASC’s data into a single environment, in addition to layering in a sophisticated Data Model, allowed us to generate several operational Dashboards to facilitate informed decision making. Below is a high-level view of ASC’s Media Buy, and Funnel Progression performance:

Note: Dashboards below do not reflect ASC’s company data, the data has been altered for demonstration purposes

 

A Success Story

The combination of creating a holistic Data Warehousing solution to store data from Annmarie Skincare’s various 3rd party applications, a Data Model that incorporates its business logic, and a comprehensive reporting layer has empowered ASC to make well informed, timely decisions. Annmarie Skincare now has the foundation to meet its data needs as it continues to grow its shop and product offerings.