How Wayfair Uses Analytics

Wayfair.com is one of the nation’s leading e-commerce retailers, so to what does it owe its success? The company appears to collect fairly standard information in fairly standard ways, but the ways in which it utilizes that data – sharing it throughout the company, creating proprietary technology to analyze and act on it – seems to set it apart. 

Wayfair.com’s Success and Culture

Wayfair is currently #16 on the list of top 25 e-commerce retailers, with 100% of their sales coming through the Web. They rank similarly high when it comes to websites in general -- #147 site in U.S. and #3 in Home and Garden shopping category.

The company’s tagline is “a zillion things home,” and their internal tagline seems to be “a zillion data points,” if their careers/culture statement is any indication: “We look for individuals who are bright, collaborative, driven, and interested in analytic insights. We believe transparency is important and information empowers, so we give everyone access to company data and systems which improve the speed and accuracy of decision making." 

What Wayfair Collects

So what data does Wayfair.com collect? For as powerful as their site performance and business is, it seems as though the raw data collected is very similar to most other sites. According to the company’s privacy policy, they collect a mix of personal information that people choose to share (name, email and phone number), along with information that is automatically shared, such as browser information, IP address, device, visit duration, pages per visit, etc.

The company also mentions its use of cookies, both temporary and persistent, so that users can be recognized upon their return to the site. The site does reference its use of Google Analytics quite specifically, stating, “In particular, Wayfair may use Google Analytics to monitor activity on the Site and assist with advertising."

When it comes to advertising, Wayfair is up front about how to opt out of what they call their “interest-based ads” but also about the consequences of such an action: “Wayfair offers you choices about receiving interest-based ads from us. You can choose not to receive interest-based ads from Wayfair. You will still see ads but they will not be personalized." 

The only somewhat extraordinary data collection method I noticed was Wayfair’s use of “web beacons,” a term I was unfamiliar with but technology that seems designed to personalize the user experience. “Web beacons collect Online Information, such as the type of browser that you use and your IP address. Web beacons may be used alone or in conjunction with cookies; when web beacons are used with cookies, they may link Online Information to other Personal Information that you have provided to us." 

Further digging confirmed my idea of beacons as personalization tools. “While they may contain some of the text that you see on the screen at the time, they typically contain a number of instructions, or tags that then ask the website's server to send you further content (such as an image or a block of text that changes frequently)." While I was unfamiliar with them, they don’t seem that exceptional, either in their usage rate or their power. “Web beacons do not give any ‘extra’ information away. They are simply a convenient way of gathering the simplest of statistics and managing cookies."

What They Do With Data

If it’s not the raw data that sets Wayfair apart, what is it? Well, it’s what they do with that data, which is a little hard to diagnose since most of the tools the company uses for complex analysis are proprietary. What is clear is the value the company places on a consistent, relevant user experience from ad to purchase completion, online and off. 

Display Ads

Typically, display ads exist more to heighten awareness atthe top of the funnel rather than to drive purchases at the bottom of the funnel, but their power can be heightened in instances like retargeting or other relevant circumstances. Wayfair seems to be trying to improve the relevancy of this medium with its proprietary display ad platform called Magellan. According to the company, Magellan will “deliver highly relevant product recommendations across Wayfair.com and within advertisements, leveraging consumer data insights to enhance personalization."

Search

Because they’re being presented to customers actively searching for a product, search ads tend to be more effective, and again, Wayfair is using another proprietary platform to further amp up that efficacy. Created by the company’s engineering, data science and marketing teams, the search engine marketing platform known as Athena is designed to do a few things. “’With the development and deployment of Athena in the U.S., Wayfair has dramatically improved its ability to reach customers across a long tail of search terms, bring those customers to the products they are searching for, and, as a result, drive greater revenue and profitability,’” noted Ed Macri, Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Wayfair." 

Athena seems to be doing its job. According to SimilarWeb.com, Wayfair.com gets its highest percentage of traffic – almost half -- from search, and 2/3 of that is organic search. 

In addition to searches conducted on Google and other engines, Wayfair also focuses on its own site search capabilities, with personalization made possible by their persistent cookies. The site uses a “Top Picks for You” section based on prior searches. Site search should be a huge area of focus for all e-retailers considering that users using search typically convert at rate 5-6 times higher than those who don’t. 

Testing

Another important on-site methodology to use to optimize purchases and conversions is testing, which Wayfair makes extensive use of. Back in 2014, the company was using SiteSpect Inc. to test all changes made to the site, whether they be simple wording tweaks or larger design modifications. It was said that the site averaged 15 to 25 tests a month.

Offline Applications

What a lot of marketers and companies don’t do is use the rich data mined from online channels to inform their offline channels, but Wayfair has begun to take that all-important step. They’ve done it in the form of a print catalog the company says is driven by “quantitative and algorithm based insights." Such a move underlies the supreme importance not of media channel but of relevant content. As Chris Petersen, President of Integrated Marketing Solutions, points out, “The key is not ‘print’ or digital — the key is CURATED assortment."

SEO

As mentioned earlier, a bulk of Wayfair’s traffic comes from search, and while their Athena SEM platform is a key to that, so too is on-page optimization. A Google search for “online furniture” returns 277 million results, but Wayfair tops both the ad and organic results. According to SEO Site Tools, Wayfair.com has 15 million pages indexed by Google. Its homepage has a strong title – “Wayfair.com – Online Home Store for Furniture, Décor, Outdoors & More." Also, all department listings appear to be indexed as part of the homepage, which means if users search for something in any one of what appears to be at least 100 home décor categories, they’ll likely end up on Wayfair’s site. 

Looking specifically at one of these category pages, in this case “Storage Boxes, Bins, Baskets & Buckets,” you again see the use of a great meta description, this time, “Shop Wayfair for all the best Storage Boxes, Bins, Baskets & Buckets. Enjoy free shipping on most stuff, even big stuff.” The coding of the individual product names is a little tough for me to evaluate, but I can see that all the product image names include keywords in them (Fleischner, 2016).

Plus, it helps that the category page url is close to the root domain, with just /Decorative-Boxes-Bowls-and-Baskets-C1801912.html after it (Fleischner, 2016). The page’s title seems meant to not only satisfy search engine bots, but more importantly, compel users to click as it declares, “All Storage Boxes, Bins & Baskets you’ll love | Wayfair” (On-Page Optimization, n.d.). 

What Else Wayfair Could Be Doing

It’s tough to look at a successful site like Wayfair and think of ways to improve it. The company seems committed to collecting the right data at every touchpoint and then using that data primarily to improve the user’s experience, which in turn makes tactics like SEO and others that much more successful. Search, both through engines and on-site, seems to be a main focus, which is appropriate given its importance. As mentioned, searchers tend to convert at higher rates, so Wayfair should continue to monitor conversion rates for this referral channel to see if it’s working up to its potential. 

Internal site search is also invaluable. “Site search is arguably one of the most important reports for any ecommerce site. This single report gives insight into what your customers want, and what pages aren’t meeting their needs." But Wayfair’s use of such data in creating its print catalog indicates they already understand the value.  

For e-commerce, the exit pages report can also shed light on problem areas, especially if any of the purchasing funnel pages appear there. Kaushik urges e-retailers to calculate both their cart and checkout abandonment rates to head off any potential pitfalls, and Wayfair would be wise to follow such advice (2010). To go one step farther and diagnose any problems more precisely, Wayfair would be well-served to serve up quick exit surveys to visitors leaving from certain high-value pages (Kaushik, 2010). 

Sources

Fleischner, M.H. (2015). SEO made simple for 2016: Insider secrets for driving more traffic to your website (5^th ed.). North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. ISBN: 9781515344490.

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing. ISBN#9780470529393.

 

On-Page Optimization Tool. (n.d.). Internet Marketing Ninjas. Retrieved November 20, 2016 from http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/free-optimization/