Uniblue's Online Sales Explode Using E-Commerce Best Practices
Uniblue has worked closely with Digital River, a global leader in e-commerce outsourcing,
almost since Uniblue’s inception, to grow its online store and boost its online sales with
the help of Digital River’s extensive services. The results have been impressive, and in
2006 alone, Uniblue’s online sales increased approximately 600 percent.
Summary
Uniblue is a provider of innovative
performance and utility software,
designed to deliver superior
performance, protection and secutity
to PC users in the home, small-office/
home-office (SoHo) and business
markets. It is a privately owned, limited
liability company.
Early on, the company realized the importance
of having an online sales presence
straight away. In January 2004, after
a great deal of research into suitable
e-commerce providers, Uniblue started
working with Digital River to implement
a comprehensive suite of services to
maximize its sales potential.
Today, Digital River is Uniblue’s e-commerce partner of choice. Digital River manages
Uniblue’s online store as well as provides the e-commerce and e-marketing tools
and infrastructure that are helping Uniblue fully realize its online sales potential.
Uniblue’s fast growth has been accelerated by the use of Digital River’s RegNow and
oneNetworkDirect™ software-dedicated
affiliate programs, as well as a full suite of e-marketing tools and services, including
Fireclick web analytics, A/B testing and site optimization.
Online sales explosion
Uniblue has seen total sales volumes triple since
mid-2005 as a result of strong Internet sales
increases – both for existing products and new
launches during 2006.
“With Digital River’s guidance, we learned what
A/B testing was and how to most effectively use
it to optimize our site, as well as implemented
marketing programs to build
both third-party relationships and
an indirect sales channel,” said
Johan Malmberg, vice president
of product planning and strategy
for Uniblue. “Using an A/B testing
template that Digital River
developed for us, we determined
the best site style and layout for converting shoppers
to buyers. Next, we leveraged
co-marketing opportunities and
intersite sales to drive e-mail
campaigns, newsletter promotions
and cross sales through Digital
River’s oneNetworkDirect and
began marketing via a rapidly expanding
network of affiliates. Due to these
co-marketing programs and the
site optimization project, our e-commerce business has reached a
new level. During the past six months, our online
sales grew 600 percent.”
“Uniblue has been hugely successful in quickly
growing its online sales, in part because of its
highly proactive approach to e-commerce,” said
Jim Wehmann, vice president of global strategic
marketing for Digital River. “The company
tirelessly develops sales channels and takes
affiliate marketing to the next level. We are very
proud to have been instrumental in Uniblue’s
fast and sustained growth.”
Affiliate marketing
Uniblue understood the concept and potential
benefits involved in affiliate marketing from
the very beginning. Uniblue was attracted to
Digital River’s RegNow affiliate program, and
later, its oneNetworkDirect affiliate program
– both of which exclusively sell software
– because of their relevant affiliate bases, their
simple user interfaces and effective tracking
capabilities. Uniblue realized that
affiliate marketing could be an
effective sales driver as well as
a sophisticated name generation
vehicle. This has greatly enhanced
its customer base. In fact, Uniblue
achieved an increase of more
than 1250 percent in the average
number of monthly orders it
received from 2004 to 2006.
Uniblue began by using the
RegNow program, Digital River’s
affiliate marketing program
that is particularly effective for
companies deploying affiliate
marketing programs for the first
time. Because the company had
such effective results, it started
talks with the e-commerce
provider about shifting over to
Digital River's oneNetworkDirect, a larger affiliate
program that hosts a bigger affiliate base and
offers a more sophisticated tracking tool called
trialTracker™ conversion monitoring technology.
The shift was transitional, taking place over
several months to avoid downtime, and Uniblue
is now fully operational in oneNetworkDirect.
A further key to Uniblue’s affiliate marketing
success is that it works hard to establish good
relationships with its affiliates and pays top-
performing affiliates a higher than average
commission rate, a sophisticated tactic in the
affiliate landscape. It also has become deeply
involved in the affiliate community.
“We like to work hand-in-hand with our
affiliates because to us, they are partners, not
simply money-makers,” said Gordon Penza,
online partner manager at Uniblue. “We firmly
believe that devoting a great effort to an
affiliate marketing program reaps even greater
rewards.”
These factors, together with regular A/B testing,
site optimization and customizing, have lead
to Uniblue generating 15 percent of its overall
revenue through its affiliate network – five to
ten percentage points higher than the average
merchant.
Tried and tested
Uniblue prides itself on its innovative approach
to all areas of its business strategy, and because
of this the company continually strives to test
new Digital River services that could prove
beneficial to providing customers with a better
service – and ultimately, favourably impacting
its bottom line. Uniblue itself carries out
rigorous daily testing and analysis to ensure
that it is maximizing sales and traffic on its site
– utilizing Digital River’s A/B testing and its
Fireclick web analytics service.
“As a company, our motto is to try everything
and I think we’ve lived by that rule with Digital
River,” said Penza. “We continue to try and use
every service that Digital River offers that is
relevant to a company of our size.”
Uniblue in the future
Uniblue is looking to continue its swift growth
and is planning to carry on with its ‘try all’
attitude towards Digital River’s services, including
using trialTracker, a non-cookie based
tracking method that captures conversions and
accurately ensures that affiliates are credited
their commissions. Now that the full transition
to oneNetworkDirect has occurred, Uniblue
also is looking forward to reaping further
success from one of the largest software specific
affiliate networks in the world.
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