The Problem: Injected Ads Undermine the Uncommon Goods eCommerce Journey
17.18% Hijacking Rate
Since its launch in 2000, Uncommon Goods has grown a well-earned reputation for its curated assortments handmade by independent artists and artisans. The marketing team constantly tests solutions to enhance the eCommerce shopping experience for their customers, and evaluate their impact on revenue and bottom-line KPIs.
When connecting with Namogoo at an industry event, Uncommon Goods’ Head of Marketing and Analytics Brian Hashemi was made aware of Customer Journey Hijacking, a widespread problem where unauthorized ads are injected into consumer visitor sessions. Traffic hijackers inject these product ads, pop-ups, and into browser extensions, apps, and many other free software programs downloaded by online consumers, generating ad revenue by luring eCommerce site visitors to other promotions at the retailer’s expense. Worse yet, these ad injections run entirely on the customer’s browser or device, allowing them to leak online revenue unbeknownst to the eCommerce business being targeted.
“We had no idea about these injected ads appearing to our customers, and crowdsourced a bit to see how many other companies knew about them. I was skeptical before we ran the test that this was even an issue.”
The Solution: Removing Unwanted Disruptions with Customer Hijacking Prevention
Uncommon Goods decided that running an A/B test on Namogoo’s Customer Hijacking Prevention solution was the best way to verify how many of their site visitors were seeing unwanted ads and how they were affecting their profitability. The test data revealed that 17.18% of visitors to uncommongoods.com were exposed to unsanctioned ad injections. The majority of these ads promoted competitor product offers.
“We put so much thought and effort to bring customers to our site, and cultivate an assortment of quality products made by handmade makers across the world. Seeing coupons from other retailers appearing to over 17% of our customers was galling, and was hurting our top KPIs.”
For Uncommon Goods, being able to verify all data on their hijacked visitor segment using their own Google Analytics platform was key to verifying the impact of Customer Journey Hijacking on their sales funnel — and of eliminating it.
Namogoo not only made it easy to A/B test the solution with a 50/50 split, they gave us access to the data that integrated with our Google Analytics. That made it easy for us to trust the data and results, which were super impactful.
The Business Impact: Uncommonly Good Conversion Rate Uplift
After removing the disruption of ad injections from their customer journey, Uncommon Goods has seen their overall conversion rate jump by 8.19%. Revenue Per Visitor is also up significantly, by 6.85%.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say Namogoo is probably one of the biggest wins we’ve seen in the last five years for our business. That big of a conversion rate increase is hugely impactful on our bottom line profitability and revenue.”
While the team at Uncommon Goods has been thrilled to see the way their KPIs have performed when eliminating Customer Journey Hijacking, they’ve also been happy to discover that hijacked visitors convert at a much higher rate than average. These visitors are generally more engaged online and more likely to download software pre-packaged with ad injections.
“The conversion rate for these customers was so much higher. These shoppers browse and purchase more frequently even before ad injections are blocked. After removing ads from their session, they converted at a double the rate of other visitors.”
ROI is paramount for Uncommon Goods when evaluating their eCommerce tools — Brian is happy to gain these returns with Namogoo’s SaaS-based solution with minimal resources needed on their side.
“One thing that stands out with Namogoo is it very much feels like ‘set and forget’. We don’t have to be constantly updating or checking on it. Namogoo updates us every quarter with detailed reports and the results have been awesome.”
Conclusion
Two years after partnering with Namogoo to ensure their customers receive their carefully crafted shopping experience free of disruption, Uncommon Goods is consistently seeing improved eCommerce results. Namogoo’s Customer Success team regularly helps them to dive deeper into their hijacked segment and find new ways to improve that much more.
“We’re constantly looking to find ways that we can delight our customers and give them the most direct path to what they’re looking for. It’s great to see a company who is constantly iterating on their service and their product testing, so that we feel that innovation on our end.”
