Using Profiles in Web Site Management

  • Article

Using Commerce Server Business Desk, you can:

  • Determine what information to collect about users visiting your site.
  • Analyze profile information.
  • Create target expressions to match content to users.
  • Create advertising, discount, and direct mail campaigns to target specific user groups.
  • Deliver personalized direct mail messages to users.

For example, assume you have a site that sells sporting goods. The following workflow provides an example of how you can use profiles to analyze user activity and target content to users. For detailed instructions for this workflow, see "Business Desk Business-to-Consumer Tutorial" in Commerce Server 2002 Help.

  1. Your system administrator creates profile definitions for registered users and anonymous users who visit your sporting goods Web site.
  2. After your site has been running for a period of time, you analyze profile data to determine who is visiting your site and what they are buying:
    • You run the New Registered Users report and the Registered User Properties to analyze the profile properties of the users who visit your site.
    • You run the Product Sales report to review product sales volume and revenue by date. This report shows the total quantity and revenue, sorted by product category.
    • You run the Customer Sales report to see customer details, total sales, and total orders.
  3. Use the results of your analysis to create a campaign to target content to users:
    • You export the Customer Sales report to the the List Manager module in Commerce Server Business Desk, and use the profile information to target customers and to create a campaign that offers a discount to specific users.
  4. After the discount has been in production for a period of time, analyze the results of the campaign:
    • Run the Campaign Item Summary report to review the click-through percent.
    • Run the Ad Reach and Frequency by Date report to review the behavior of users in relation to campaign items on your site. This report shows the activity of users per day for each campaign item.
  5. If your users did not increase their purchases of discounted items, run the Customer Sales report again, and export the report to the List Manager module. Create a direct mail campaign to deliver personalized direct mail based on the user profiles.

For information about creating expressions and targeting content to users, see Targeting and Personalization Concepts.

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