Hanover improves attribution, ROI

Multichannel merchant Hanover Direct Inc. has seen an increase in the return on its marketing investment through a better understanding of how all paid channels influence online sales.

Hanover used to assign credit for sales to the last link that a visitor to its various e-commerce Web sites clicked on before making a purchase. Hanover's multichannel brands include Domestications, The Company Store, Company Kids, Encore, Silhouettes, International Male, Undergear, and Scandia Down.

Since Hanover began using new attribution management reports from Coremetrics, however, the retailer has been able to see how its paid channels, such as paid keywords and comparison shopping engines, are influencing customers' buying decisions. This allows it to allocate its marketing spend for better ROI. Coremetrics marketing attribution reports can track clickthroughs other than the last one before the sale.

Coremetrics' analysis revealed that paid marketing is driving Hanover's first site visits and that following visits are converted from trademark campaigns, natural search or e-mail.

"The new logic provides keyword-level reporting on 33 percent more sales than I could account for using last-click attribution--that helps me to bid smarter at every step in the selling process and actively pursue those high-growth opportunities which had previously appeared too costly," said Matthew Hamilton Bailey, Internet marketing analyst at Hanover, in a statement.

Hanover, Weehawken, NJ, is also leveraging Coremetrics, San Mateo, CA, to help with catalog matchback. The matchback effort enables Hanover to distinguish online sales that are attributable to one of the company's catalogs. These reports identified significant levels of demand in other channels previously attributed solely to customers already receiving catalogs.