Urban Outfitters Wants to Know You

Urban Outfitters (URBN), now with over 400 physical stores, has grown tremendously over the past few years both online and off. The fashion retailer continues to offer online only products, and recently added a fulfillment center to improve the direct-to-consumer experience for west coasters who account for 15% of all online demand (Team, 2012). A popular purchase item as of late has been holiday themed sweaters, which can be purchased online “in a variety of prices starting from a compelling $24 for Vintage Ugly Vest to designer-made $110 (Team, 2012).” The company has always offered a variety when it comes to price and product.

URBN’s holiday catalog stirred some controversy this year, thanks to items like the “$18 “Let’s f------ reminisce” book, a $16 “It was all f------ awesome” photo album and a profane candle that would make your grandmother blush ("‘Edgy’ Urban Outfitters’,” 2012).”

 John Tantillo, marketing expert and host of WVOX’s “Brandtalk” radio show said, “Remember, when you talk about your brand, it’s all about your customers. Not the parents of your customers ("‘Edgy’ Urban Outfitters’, 2012).”

The fashion retailer appears to be yearning for conversation too, with a strong presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. URBN is also very engaged in tracking consumer behaviors as evidenced by the amount of tracking codes found on their website. A recent report written by Joshua Bixby, president of Strangeloop, ranked Urban Outfitters in fourth place among the top 200 retail sites for most third-party scripts with 21 on-page scripts (Bixby, 2011).

According to URBN’s own website employment page, they are in the market for an “expert user of advanced web analytics packages such as Coremetrics, Omniture Site Catalyst, Google Analytics, Discover on Premise, WebTrends and Hitwise (Urban Outfitters, 2012). One would have to assume that these are at least some of the tools that URBN is using right now. In the interest of exploring URBN’s web analytics obsession, I have scoured the web to discover how the company is (or should be) using each of the aforementioned products.

The Big Three: Coremetrics, Adobe/Omniture, Google Analytics

These analytics products are similar in many ways, yet they each offer something different for the user. All three of the web analytics tools offer an interface with traffic information, report generating tools, campaign tracking, and admin controls (Kravitz, 2012). The level of customization, ease of use and versatility of each of the functions, however, varies in each case.

Google Analytics and Coremetrics are perhaps easier to use than Omniture, which often requires very high-level functions. One distinct benefit that Omniture offers is that it allows for complex user management control (Kravitz, 2012). All of the products offer real-time data, an essential tool in e-commerce. One of the many benefits of real time results is that marketers can more effectively monitor and respond to promotional offers and events. 

While all three are robust web analytics software, Omniture, Inc. (owned by Adobe) does a great job of explaining the potential of its product:

“Omniture's conversion solutions allow online marketers to test key content; target specific audience segments with relevant messages; combine attitudinal data with analytics to better understand behavior; and leverage merchandising and promotional strategies to sell more products and services (“More Leading Retailers Using Omniture,” 2012).”

Specifically, URBN has been noted for its success in the use of Omniture SiteSearch™, a tool that “controls and optimizes product and content search results to guide visitors to the most relevant information (“More Leading Retailers Using Omniture,” 2012).”

URBN’s employment page mentions a product called “Discover on Premise.” This product, now called “Insight for Retail,” is an Omniture/Adobe tool that specifically works with real time data to “allow marketers to immediately infer meaning so they can make quick business decisions that improve overall business performance (Adobe Insight).”  

Webtrends

Webtrends’ focus is on reaching the consumer with targeted “relevant” communications in “mobile, social 

and web” environments. The software and supporting staff claim to help subscribers “deliver the right message, to the right people, at the right time.” Webtrends aims to increase your ROI by allowing your company to better identify audience segments and provide them with "relevant" messages through email campaigns, Facebook and site interaction. The software also helps identify areas of improvement needed 

(WebTrendsInc., 2012).

Aurelia Noel, E-Commerce Director, Urban Outfitters, complemented Webtrends on its usefulness and level of customer support. “It took us a long time to find an MVT provider who not only had the right technology, but also the right mindset and customer support,” Noel said. “With Webtrends Optimize, we now have a reliable technology and a long-term partner who understands our brand and our e-commerce challenges (“Major European brands turn to Webtrends,” 2012).”

Hitwise

Hitwise is a service offered by Experian Marketing Services that helps businesses understand consumer behavior. Hitwise identifies the “best customers and prospects,” learns their favorite places online and finds out “what motivates them to buy.” Hitwise also claims to have “daily insights from the world’s largest sample of online consumer behavior (“About Experian Marketing,” 2012).” 

If this claim is true, URBN would definitely benefit from the unique insight offered by Hitwise, as well as a combined effort from WebTrends for targeted email, social and mobile communications efforts.

What are they doing with all of these tools?

In regard to Webtrends and Hitwise, URBN has shown interest in connecting with consumers, and these tools appear to help the company provide meaningful communications. They also must have a wonderful creative team, because some of the ideas for marketing and design are very admirable.

Mya Gupta, marketing coordinator, talks about the success of a 2009 email campaign called Ratings & Reviews where her team decided to feature customers as Top Reviewers:

“After the campaign launch, we initially saw a 139% increase in reviews per day (86-203 reviews per day). To this day, we still have not seen the amount of daily reviews drop below 130 reviews per day. In reference to photos uploaded, we saw an increase of 239% in photos submitted per week (18-61 photos) since the email delivered. The amount of photos submitted within a week has not dropped below 35, which is double the amount we were used to seeing before the email (Brunner, 2009).”

Halie Mummert, managing editor at Monetate, describes Urban Outfitters as a company that “integrates the brand story into each visitor’s interaction with the website—by letting consumers define the brand for themselves through their activity on the site.” Mummert credits “dynamic merchandising, targeting and testing capabilities supported by robust analytics and reporting” for the company’s success (Mummert, 2011).

The use of Coremetrics, Omniture and Google Analytics may be too involved, but Urban Outfitters is one of the largest online clothing retailers in the world. Realizing that each product offers unique capabilities for analysts, perhaps it is justified. My suggestion for URBN is to try to scale this down some. Eliminating Coremetrics from the equation should help simplify the overall efforts. Focusing on Google Analytics and Adobe/Omniture could possibly make the efforts in these very diverse and complex environments even more effective. Regardless, Urban Outfitters is doing most things right. Last year, the company reported “a 34% increase in year-over-year sales” for online and catalog, so my number one advice is to keep up the good work.

  

References

(2009, September 22). "More Leading Retailers Using Omniture Conversion Solutions to Boost Sales and
       Ecommerce Performance." Adobe. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from
       http://www.omniture.com/press/780

(2012). "About Experian Marketing Services." Experian Marketing Services. Retrieved on December 10,
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(2012, December 10). "‘Edgy’ Urban Outfitters’ holiday mailing drops barrage of F-bombs."
       FoxNews.com. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from
       http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/10/urban-outfitters-profanity-laced-catalog-attempt-at-being-
       cool-experts-say/

(2012). "Adobe Insight." Adobe. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from
       http://www.adobe.com/products/insight.html

Bixby, J. (2011, October 13). "How vulnerable is your site to third-party failure?" Retrieved on December
       10, 2012 from http://www.webperformancetoday.com/tag/omniture/

Brunner, H. (2009, June 16). "Urban Outfitters features Top Reviewers in email campaign." Bazaarvoice.
       Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from http://www.bazaarvoice.com/blog/2009/06/16/urban-
       outfitters-features-top-reviewers-in-email-campaign/

Kravitz, A. (2012, August 12). "Coremetrics vs. Omniture vs. Google Analytics." Retrieved on December
       10, 2012 from http://www.akravitz.com/coremetrics-vs-omniture-vs-google-analytics/

Mummert, H. (2011, November 18). “How Urban Outfitters Pursues Aggressive Growth in a Tough
       Economy.” Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from http://monetate.com/2011/11/how-urban-
       outfitters-pursues-aggressive-growth-in-tough-economy/#axzz2EhLp6kTI

Team, T. (2012, December 6). “Urban Outfitters Rings in Holiday Web Sales with Festive Offerings,
       Edgy Catalogs.” Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from
       http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/06/urban-outfitters-rings-in-holiday-web-
       sales-with-festive-offerings-edgy-catalogs/

Unknown. (2012, March 28). “Major European brands turn to Webtrends to Optimize online
       performance.” Press Room. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from
       http://webtrends.com/2012/03/major-european-brands-turn-to-webtrends-to-optimize-online-
       performance/

Urban Outfitters. (2012). "Web Analyst for Urban Outfitters Europe." Retrieved on December 10, 2012
       from http://www.urbanoutfitters.co.uk/head-office-positions/web-analyst-for-urban-outfitters-
       europe/page/ecomm_web_analyst_uo/

WebTrendsInc. (2012). "Webtrends. Real-Time Relevance. Remarkable ROI." [VIDEO]. Retrieved on
       December 10, 2012 from https://www.youtube.com/user/webtrendsinc