The invention is generally related to data storage and more particularly, to acquiring, analyzing, and measuring a customer's interaction with a seller.
Various conventional data storage systems attempt to track and monitor a customer's interactions with a website in order to ascertain buying behavior of the customer. However, these conventional data storage systems typically fail to acquire sufficient data at a proper level of granularity to understand and analyze such customer interactions.
What are needed are improved systems and methods for storing and retrieving data, especially in an online, real-time data storage system. What are further needed are such systems that are designed to organize, analyze and present such data in a manner that permits influence of such customer behavior.
Various implementations of the invention for displaying customer behavior measurements to a user are described. In some implementation of the invention, customer behavior measurements are displayed by: categorizing each of a plurality of customers into one of a plurality of lifecycle stages based on one or more interactions of each of the plurality of customers with a seller, wherein each of the plurality of lifecycle stages corresponds to a different stage of relationship between customers and the seller, wherein each interaction is represented by a data record in a data storage; displaying a first value associated with each of the plurality of lifecycle stages, wherein the first value comprises a number of the plurality of customers categorized in its associated lifecycle stage or a percentage that the number of the plurality of customers categorized in its associated lifecycle stage represents across all lifecycle stages; categorizing each of the corresponding customers into one of a plurality of buying cycle stages based a type of interaction with the seller for each of the corresponding customers, wherein each of the plurality of buying cycle stages corresponds to a different stage of buying behavior for the customers; displaying a second value associated with each of the plurality of buying cycle stages, wherein the second value comprises a number of the corresponding customers categorized in its associated buying cycle stage or a percentage that the number of the plurality of customers categorized in its associated buying cycle stage represents across all buying cycle stages; for each of the plurality of lifecycle stages or for each of the plurality of buying cycles stages, categorizing each of the corresponding customers into one of a plurality of dimension groups based on a type of a dimension characterizing the interaction with the seller for each of the corresponding customers; and displaying a third value associated with each of the plurality of dimension groups, wherein the third value comprises a number of the corresponding customers categorized in its associated dimension group or a percentage that the number corresponding customers categorized in its associated dimension group represents across all dimension groups. In some implementations of the invention, the customers in a given lifecycle category, a given buying cycle category, a given dimension group, or combinations thereof, may be provided targeted advertising. These and other implementations of the invention, and their respective features, are described in further detail below.
Various implementations of the invention may utilize and operate in connection with a data storage system provided by Zaius, Inc., of Leesburg, Va. and as described in: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/562,610, filed on Dec. 5, 2014 and entitled “System and Method for Storing and Retrieving Data in Different Data Spaces;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/562,611, filed on Dec. 5, 2014 and entitled “System and Method for Creating Storage Containers in a Data Storage System;” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/562,612, filed on Dec. 5, 2014 and entitled “System and Method for Load Balancing in a Data Storage System.” Each of the foregoing applications is incorporated herein by reference.
According to various implementations of the invention, processor 120 may be any general purpose hardware computing processor configured via various executable programming instructions stored internally to or externally from processor 120 in a computer readable medium, where when such programming instructions are executed by the computing processor, they cause the computing processor to perform various functions as would be appreciated. When configured with such programming instructions, the general purpose hardware computing processor becomes a particular processor that performs functions attributed to processor 120 as described herein. According to various implementations of the invention, processor 120 may be a single hardware computing processor or a plurality of hardware computing processors. According to various implementations of the invention, processor 120 may be a dedicated hardware computing processor configured to perform various functions of processor 120 as described herein or a plurality of hardware computing processors distributed throughout data storage system 100, each configured to perform one or more of the functions of processor 100 as described herein.
According to various implementations of the invention, data storage system 100 may be used in an environment 200 as illustrated in
According to various implementations of the invention, various pieces of information (e.g., data) regarding each interaction 230 between customer 210 and seller 220 may be gathered, generated, or otherwise acquired. Such information may include, but is not limited to, information describing customer 210, seller 220, point of presence 240, etc., and interaction 230, itself, including, but not limited to, date, time, products or services viewed/selected/purchased, origin, etc. As would be appreciated, any information that can be gleaned regarding customer 210, seller 220, point of presence 240 and interaction 230 may be stored as data records in a data store.
According to various implementations of the invention, customers 210 may be organized into categories (i.e., categorized) based on an entirety of their respective interactions 230 with seller 220. Such categories are referred to herein as “lifecycle stages” and describe a nature of a relationship between each of customers 210 and seller 220. According to various implementations of the invention, customers 210 may be organized into different lifecycle stages based on a number of products or services purchased during their respective entirety of interactions 230 with seller 220. Such lifecycle stages may include: a “no purchaser” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 but have not ever purchased a product or service from seller 220; a “single purchaser” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have exactly one purchase transaction (a purchase transaction may include multiple products or services purchased during such transaction) with seller 220; a “repeat purchaser” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have exactly two purchase transactions with seller 220; and a “loyal purchaser” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have three or more purchase transactions with seller 220. Fewer, more or other lifecycle stages and/or other definitions of such lifecycle stages may be used as would be appreciated.
According to various implementations of the invention, customers 210 may be organized into different lifecycle stages based on revenue generated from their respective entirety of interactions 230 with seller 220. Such lifecycle stages may include: a “$0 revenue” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 but have not purchased any products or services from seller 220; a “$0-$50” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have purchased $0-$50 worth of products or services from seller 220; a “$50-$200” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have purchased $50-$200 worth of products or services from seller 220; and a “$200+” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have purchased $200 or more worth of products or services from seller 220. More generally, such lifecycle stages may include: a “$0 revenue” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 but have not purchased any products or services from seller 220; a “$0-$X1” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have purchased $0-$X1 worth of products or services from seller 220; a “$X1-$X2” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have purchased $X1-$X2 worth of products or services from seller 220; and a “$X2+” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and have purchased $X2 or more worth of products or services from seller 220 (where X2>X1>0. Fewer, more or other revenue-based lifecycle stages and/or other definitions of such revenue-based lifecycle stages may be used as would be appreciated.
According to various implementations of the invention, customers 210 may be organized into lifecycle stages based on level or frequency/period of engagement with seller 220. Such lifecycle stages may include: an “customer engages quarterly” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 within a quarterly period; an “customer engages monthly” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 within a monthly period; an “customer engages weekly” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 within a weekly period; and an “customer engages daily” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 within a daily period. More generally, such lifecycle stages may include: an “customer engages within a first period” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 within the first period; an “customer engages within a second period” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 within the second period; etc. (where the first period is greater than the second period, etc.). Fewer, more or other engagement-based lifecycle stages and/or other definitions of such engagement-based lifecycle stages may be used as would be appreciated.
According to various implementations of the invention, customers 210 may be organized into lifecycle stages based on a purchase frequency from seller 220. Such lifecycle stages may include: a “purchases annually” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and purchased products or services within an annual period; a “purchases quarterly” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and purchased products or services within a quarterly period; a “purchases monthly” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and purchased products or services within a monthly period; a “purchases weekly” lifecycle stage which includes customers 210 that have interacted with seller 220 and purchased products or services within a weekly period. Fewer, more or other engagement-based lifecycle stages and/or definitions of such purchase-based lifecycle stages may be used as would be appreciated.
According to various implementations of the invention, customers 210 may be organized (or further organized) into categories based on a nature of their interactions 230 with seller 220, referred to herein as “buying cycle stages.” These buying cycle stages may include: an “at risk” buying cycle stage which includes customers 210 that have not interacted with seller 220 across any channel for more than 30 days; a “recent buyer” buying cycle stage which includes customers 210 that purchased a product or service within 30 days but have not since interacted with seller 220; an “awareness” buying cycle stage which includes customers 210 that interacted with seller 220 within 30 days; an “interest” buying cycle stage which includes customers 210 that have shown a basic level of interest in a product or service by, for example, interacting with such product or service by viewing a product page, etc.; a “considering” buying cycle stage which includes customers 210 that have shown a further interest in a product or service by, for example, interacting with such product or service by viewing a same product page twice, etc.; and an “intent” buying cycle stage which includes customers 210 that have shown real purchase intent by, for example, placing a product or service in a shopping cart, etc. Fewer, more or other buying cycle stages and/or definitions or periods of such buying cycle stages may be used as would be appreciated.
In some implementations of the invention, customers 210 categorized into each lifecycle stage may be further categorized into one of the buying cycle stages. In some implementations of the invention, customers 210 categorized into each buying cycle stage may be further categorized into one of the lifecycle stages. In some implementations of the invention, the plurality of lifecycle stages are mutually exclusive from one another; that is a given customer does not simultaneously exist in two different lifecycle stages with a given seller. In some implementations of the invention, the plurality of buying cycle stages are mutually exclusive from one another; that is, a given customer does not simultaneously exist in two different buying cycle stages with a given seller.
According to various implementations of the invention, each of the lifecycle stages and/or buying cycle stages may be further categorized into various dimensions based on the various information gathered, generated, and/or acquired regarding interaction 230. Such dimensions may include, but are not limited to: an average order value (“AOV”) dimension; a cost per click ad type dimension; a region (e.g., state, etc.) dimension; a country dimension; a postal code dimension; a mobile device dimension; a page duration dimension; a session duration dimension; an operating system dimension; a browser dimension; a page title dimension; an advertising referral source dimension; a keyword search term referral dimension; an original advertising source of a customer session dimension; an advertising source related to specific customer session dimension; a language dimension; a days since last visit dimension; a landing page dimension; an advertising campaign dimension; a device type dimension; an on-site or in-app search term dimension; a product ID dimension; a product brand dimension; an hour dimension; a day dimension; a week dimension; a hour of day dimension; a day of week dimension; a quantity of products purchased dimension; a navigation used dimension; a product name dimension; an order timestamp dimension; an order ID dimension; an order number dimension; an order discount dimension; an order coupon code dimension; a purchase count dimension; a customer browsed dimension; a customer viewed dimension; a customer added to cart dimension; a customer removed from cart dimension; a customer purchased dimension; a root category dimension; a product detail view dimension; and/or other dimension related to customer 210, to their interaction(s) 230 with seller 220, to seller 220, and/or products or services offered by seller 220.
According to various implementations of the invention, a value of a given dimension in a corresponding lifecycle stage and/or buying cycle stage is calculated based on the value of that dimension within that given stage. For example, if a customer 210 has a mobile device interaction 230 with seller 220 as a “no purchaser” and then subsequently has a desktop interaction 230 with seller 220 in its current stage as a “single purchaser,” then only the desktop interaction 230 is counted in the current stage. Further, any purchase dimensions (i.e., dimensions describing or relating to a product or service purchased) are calculated based on the particular purchase that moved customer 210 into its current stage. Still further, showing a “root category purchased” will present root categories of the products or services originally purchased by customer 210.
According to various implementations of the invention, lifecycle stages, buying cycle stages, and dimensions are individually configurable and individually selectable. Any such selections made may then be applied as filters to data records 110 in data storage system 100. In some implementations of the invention, identifying information (e.g., customer ID, phone number, email address, user name, customer loyalty program number, or other contact and/or identifying information, etc.) may be presented for each customer 210 that complies with such selections (referred to herein as a “filter segment”). In some implementations of the invention, the user may then select a given customer 210 in the filter segment to visualize data records 110 that justifies including the given customer 210 in the filter segment. In some implementations of the invention, the user may select a given filter segment in its entirety, and export it for use with a targeted marketing campaign. In some implementations of the invention, each of the customers 210 in the exported filter segment may be provided with target advertising. In some implementations, because the underlying data is collected and made available for analysis in real-time, the filter segment corresponds to an “up-to-the-minute” snapshot of customers 210 that match the various selected criteria.
According to various implementations of the invention, once customers 210 are categorized into either lifecycle stages and/or buying cycle stages, various metrics for each particular stage may be determined and presented to a user. Such metrics may include: a “number of customers” metric that measures a number of customers 210 in that particular stage; a “percentage of customers” metric that measures the number of customers 210 in that particular stage as a percentage of a total number of customers across all stages; a “total revenue” metric that measures a total amount of revenue of products or services purchased from seller 220 by customers 210 in that particular stage; a “percentage convert” metric that measures the total number of customers 210 in more valuable stages divided by the sum of the number of customers in the particular stage and the total number of customers 210 in the more valuable stages (e.g., for a single purchase cycle stage the percentage convert metric is determined by (number of customers 210 in the repeat purchaser lifecycle stage plus the number of customers 210 in the loyal lifecycle stage) divided by (number of customers 210 in the single purchaser lifecycle stage plus number of customers 210 in the repeat purchaser lifecycle stage plus the number of customers 210 in the loyal lifecycle stage)); a “days to covert” metric that measures a number of days a customer (or average number of days for a group of customers) was in a particular stage before advancing to a next more valuable stage; an “AOV” or “average order value” metric that measures a total value of all purchases of a product or service by customers 210 in that particular stage divided by the number of customers 210 in that particular stage. As would be appreciated, a user may configure which of the metrics to determine and/or display.
Similarly, according to various implementations of the invention, once customers 210 are categorized into either lifecycle stages and/or buying cycle stages, various metrics for each of one or more dimensions may be determined and presented to a user as will become apparent from the example below.
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In some implementations of the invention, various metrics regarding customer 210 may be provided in interface 300. As illustrated in
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For each of dimension groups 330, 340, 350, various graphic elements (as illustrated, a bar graph or histogram) may be used to depict values (e.g., numbers, percentages, etc.) as would be appreciated.
According to various implementations of the invention, the user may select numbers, percentages, or graphic elements in each lifecycle stage 310 or buying cycle stage 320 or dimensions 330, 340, 350 to display information regarding one or more customers 210. In some implementations, this information may include, but is not limited to, identifying information for such customers 210.
In some implementations of the invention, the user may export such identifying information as a contact list for a targeted advertising campaign. In some implementations of the invention, the user may use such identifying information to provide targeted advertising to such customers 210. In some implementations, the targeted advertising may include sending email marketing to such customers 210, pushing mobile notifications to such customers 210, providing in-app (e.g., social media, etc.) messages to such customers 210, delivering targeted web site messages to such customers 210, or other target advertising. For example, the user may cause an email or mobile message associated with the targeted advertising to be sent to one or each of the customers 210 in a given lifecycle and/or buying cycle stage or dimension as would be appreciated; in some implementations, such emails or messages may be tailored based on customers 210 stage(s) or dimension(s) as would be appreciated. As another example, different customers may be provided with different advertisements that get displayed on ad-network or social network based on customers 210 stage(s) or dimension(s). Other mechanisms and bases for targeted advertising may be used as would be appreciated.
In some implementations of the invention, the user may select an individual customer 210 to display any and all information regarding interactions 230 between customer 210 and seller 220. Such information may include, but is not limited to, dates, times, and durations of such interactions, lifecycle stage, buying cycle stage, date of purchases, date of first interaction, date of last interaction, product categories viewed, device types used, channels used, and/or any other dimension associated with customer 210 and its interactions 230 with seller 220.
In an operation 530, for each of the plurality of lifecycles stages 310, the customers 210 in that lifecycle stage 310 are further categorized into one of a plurality of buying cycle stages 320 based a type of interaction 230 by those customers 210 with seller 220. In an operation 540, a second value associated with each of the plurality of buying cycle stages 320 is displayed to the user, where the second value comprises a number of customers 210 categorized in that buying cycle stage 320 within the given lifecycle stage 320 or a percentage of the number of customers 210 in that buying cycle stage 320 in relation to a total number of customers 210 within the given lifecycle stage 310.
In an operation 550, for each of the plurality of lifecycle stages 310 (or in some implementations for each of the plurality of buying cycles stages 320), each of the customers in that given lifecycle stage are categorized into one of a plurality of dimension groups based on a type of a dimension characterizing interaction 230 of customer 210 with seller 220. In an operation 560, a third value associated with each of the plurality of dimension groups is displayed to the user, where the third value comprises a number of customers 210 in that dimension group or a percentage of the number of customers 210 in that dimension group in relation to a total number of the customers within all of the dimension groups.
In some implementations of the invention, in operation 570, a selection of one of the plurality of lifecycle stages, one of the plurality of buying cycle stages, and/or one of the plurality of dimension groups is received from the user. In some implementations of the invention, in an operation 580, one or more customers that correspond to the selected lifecycle stage, buying cycle stage, and/or dimension group are displayed or exported to the user. In some implementations of the invention, targeted advertising may be sent, or caused to be sent, to the displayed or exported customers.
While the invention has been described herein in terms of various implementations, it is not so limited and is limited only by the scope of the following claims, as would be apparent to one skilled in the art. These and other implementations of the invention will become apparent upon consideration of the disclosure provided above and the accompanying figures. In addition, various components and features described with respect to one implementation of the invention may be used in other implementations as would be understood.
This Application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/431,448, which was filed on Dec. 8, 2016, and entitled “System and Method for Measuring Customer Behavior.” The foregoing application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62431448 | Dec 2016 | US |