Essential Analytics to Prepare for a Successful Holiday Season

We hosted our November Diamond Metrics Deep Dive webinar this morning. If you caught it live, we hope you took away some helpful insights on the analytics you need to prep for the holidays! (Not to freak you out, but there are just 8 days until Black Friday and 40 days left until Christmas). If you couldn't tune in, or you want to check it out again, you can watch the recording here. If you didn't sign up, you can still view the recording - just register here first. And since we know you're busy (it is the holiday season, after all), here are our top takeaways on the analytics you need to prep for the holiday season:

1) Utilize customer segments

The holidays are a great time to utilize customer segments (available prebuilt and custom in Glew) to identify groups with different purchase behavior and market to them differently. Head to Customers > Segments in Glew to see or create yours. A few examples that are especially useful this time of year:

• Repeat purchasers who also buy during the holidays: Treat them like VIPs with a special incentive that encourages them to continue shopping with you
• Gifters who buy from you only during the holidays: Think about how you communicate to them - they're likely buying for someone else, so play up the gifting angle.
• Last-minute buyers who purchase a few weeks before the holidays: They leave their holiday shopping to the last minute, so incentivize them with free rush shipping.

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Customer segments in Glew

2) Know your hot and cold products

Go back a year (or more) to see your hot and cold products during the holidays. You might have assumptions about what sells best during the holiday season, but back up your theories with data. Then, use this information to inform what products you promote to each of the holiday-specific customer segments you pull. You can find this in Products > Segments. For example, if you're a specialty food retailer and your hot chocolate sales spike during the holidays, promote those products in your gift guides. On the flip side, if you're a clothing retailer and certain items or product categories go cold over the holidays (maybe warm-weather apparel or bathing suits), don't spend your limited time or energy on them. [caption id="attachment_30513" align="alignnone" width="1237"]

Product segments in Glew

3) Track your coupon performance

Coupons are huge for the holidays and can be the difference-maker when it comes to someone choosing to shop with you or a competitor. When consumers are spending upwards of $1,000+ on average during the holidays, savings can go a long way. Use metrics like attachment rate (a Diamond Metric in Glew) to see what percentage of your orders have a coupon or discount attached. Don't forget to look at your attachment rate now, so you can know what your baseline is and whether or not you have any room for improvement over the holidays. Look at individual coupon performance, including average order value, discount value, revenue and more, to see which coupons are driving value for you and which ones aren't. You can find this information in Glew in Orders > Discounts. [caption id="attachment_30514" align="alignnone" width="1190"]

Coupon performance in Glew

4) Allocate your ad spend wisely

If you're like most people, you have a set marketing budget you're willing to spend, and you want to make sure you're getting the most value out of your advertising dollars over the holiday season. Use Glew's advertising channel reporting to look back at your performance for last holiday season. If there are certain days of the week - or even times of day - when your ads are most effective, allocate most of your ad spend during those times. The holiday season only lasts so long, so you want to make sure your marketing efforts are working their hardest for you. Find this in Glew at Performance > Advertising. [caption id="attachment_30515" align="alignnone" width="1194"]

Advertising channel performance in Glew
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Thanks for joining for our November Diamond Metrics webinar, and stay tuned for our next webinar in December!

More holiday reporting

The real fun begins when the holidays are over: analyzing your performance to see what worked, what didn’t and how you can use that information to strategize going forward. Want more holiday analytics tips? Don't miss our guide to Black Friday and Cyber Monday reporting, with insights on important metrics like conversion rate, product analytics, coupon analytics and more: