Cudo and Spreets launch a framework for a Group Buying Code of Conduct!

Posted on by Billy Tucker

Today, Cudo announced the launch of a draft Code of Conduct for for the Group Buying industry and a framework to complete the code in partnership with Spreets and a number of industry bodies, including ADMA, AIMIA, Telsyte and others.

This is no PR stunt, this is an important step that was born out of necessity. The growth of the Group Buying industry in Australia has lead to more than twenty companies starting daily deals websites; this growth brings real risk to merchants, to consumers and to the category as a whole. Once agreed though, the Code will bring a set of principles that will go a long way to protecting Merchants and consumers from that risk.

Cudo and Spreets as industry leaders at least recognise the importance of putting merchants and members first, ensuring the group buying experience continues to be strategically sound for merchants, and enjoyable and worthwhile for members. As the category grows, our introduction of this voluntary Code of conduct provides a framework from which to implement some of the fundamentals of good group buying and promote best practice.

We have invited our Group Buying competitors to get involved in the development of the code and sign up to the finished document, I sincerely hope they do – many existing Group Buying businesses will have to mend their ways if they are to sign up of course, let’s hope they do that too!

The draft Code of Conduct is as follows:

Our commitment to members is to:
1. Always offer you great deals – genuine discounts on quality products and services from first class merchants
2. Never engage in misleading advertising, such as advertising specific discounts or products that don’t actually exist (known as ‘Bait and Switch’)
3. Make our deal descriptions and terms & conditions clear using plain English so you know what to expect in return for your voucher. Where exclusions exist, they will be equally clear using plain English and will never be intentionally misleading
4. Make our website terms and conditions clear and in plain English so you know what to expect from your experience with our sites
5. Respect your privacy at all times and abide by the Privacy Policy you agreed to when you joined the site
6. Respect your email account at all times, taking measures to protect it from hacking or other fraudulent use
7. Work with our merchants to make sure you can easily redeem your voucher and that you are treated as good as or even better than a typical full paying customer
8. Provide responsive and helpful customer support and service – seeking to fully understand and resolve your issues
9. If you’re not fully satisfied with your experience, we’ll seek to understand why, address the issues and, if your issue cannot be resolved, provide you with a full refund or credit
10. Do what we say we’re going to do, every time

Our commitment to merchants is to:
1. Work with you and your team to make your group buying promotion as successful as possible
• Help you package and price the right deal for your business
• Help you prepare for the increase in customers
• Help you manage the increase in demand including capping your offer as necessary
• Help you maximise your up-sell opportunity to enhance the experience of new customers at your business
• Help you get customers coming back
2. Provide you with clear payment terms
3. Provide fast, effective, personal customer service through a dedicated account management model
4. Do what we say we’re going to do, every time

Why I don’t worry about Hitwise

Posted on by Billy Tucker

As the CEO of a Group Buying business in the nascent and burgeoning category it was critical that I had a very clear view of marketing effectiveness, with Audience Engagement being the key indicator. There were a number of sources available to the team that purported to provide reliable Audience measurement and insights however I only depended on two to provide an accurate view, Omniture and Nielsen.

Alternative sources included Hitwise, Google Analytics and Alexa – Google Analytics is cheap/free but pretty unreliable and Alexa provides a Relative view only. Hitwise is the worst of the bunch though given their data collection methodology means it doesn’t represent the broader online population and worse still, it doesn’t necessarily reflect human activity!

Here are the two main issues with Hitwise data:

1. Hitwise does not measure individuals – it measures traffic.

This effectively means you could hit your website with bot traffic to boost your numbers and it would show as traffic in Hitwise. Nielsen Australia removed 50% of GroupOn Australia’s traffic in March because that traffic consisted largely of unsolicited clicks, meaning popups that appear as you close scurrilous ads (Congratulations, you have won $1,000,000!!!!!) – those clicks are still counted in Hitwise.

2. Hitwise doesn’t include key ISPs

Hitwise harvest data from partnering ISP’s, however Australia’s two largest ISP’s BigPond and Optus don’t participate. This is major a concern as a large proportion of internet users (about 58%) are not reflected in their data. This is a particular problem for a business like Cudo given its mainstream audience, and mainstream Australia do not typically use fringe ISPs.

Nielsen was recently selected as the official measurement partner of the Australian IAB, in their press release they said:

With the endorsement of Nielsen Online Ratings, IAB Australia is identifying people-based metrics, as opposed to browser-based, as the best and preferred online audience measurement system for the Australian online advertising industry.

This is the nub of the problem. TechCrunch called it out almost two years ago.

At Cudo we didn’t care about browsers for obvious reasons, we cared about people, they still do, like the 1,000,000 plus Australians who go to cudo.com.au each and every month, I couldn’t give a monkeys how many Bots swing by!

Personalisation–based on 57 signals

Posted on by Billy Tucker

I changed the name of my blog having been struck by the notion that there are 57 signals to indicate a Consumers preferences, and that each of those signals or cues can be read at the point they reach your site.

This is a powerful notion and should underpin much of what we do at Cudo, given the goal of any Consumer is to find the shortest possible route to their desired outcome; from browsing offers, purchasing, making a recommendation, checking their account status, Social Sharing or even unsubscribing.

Identifying the individual cues is not hard, the smarts are in connecting multiple cues to the customers intention and adjusting the experience accordingly.

This is a subtle change in how we think about personalisation, which has hinged on Consumers being signed-in until now, that will result in a significant improvement in the experience for everyone who touches the site.

Better get moving.